[Jacques E. Bouchard]

I have to dub dialogue on a short film because the original field recording
contains too much trafic noise (we had no control over it). Problem is, I
don't know how to make a voice recorded in a home studio sound like it was
recorded outdoors. I played with high- and low-pass filters and with an
equalizer, but I'm going blindly about it and none of the results are
satisfying.

Can anyone offer advice? I'm using Adobe Audition.

Thanks in advance.


jaybee

[Richard Crowley]

"Jacques E. Bouchard" wrote ...
I have to dub dialogue on a short film because the original field recording
contains too much trafic noise (we had no control over it). Problem is, I
don't know how to make a voice recorded in a home studio sound like it was
recorded outdoors. I played with high- and low-pass filters and with an
equalizer, but I'm going blindly about it and none of the results are
satisfying.

Can anyone offer advice? I'm using Adobe Audition.

Are you starting with the dialog already recorded?
You may be fighting an uphill battle if the recording conditions
were not appropriate (dead room, same microphone, same
mic and actor positions, etc.)

It doesn't seem like "filtering" is what is important here. The first-
order factor would be mixing back some "room tone" from the
original location to cover the differences.

[Arny Krueger]

"Jacques E. Bouchard" wrote in
message
2.12

I have to dub dialogue on a short film because the
original field recording contains too much trafic noise
(we had no control over it). Problem is, I don't know how
to make a voice recorded in a home studio sound like it
was recorded outdoors.

It would appear that you have plenty of recordings of background noise from
outdoors. ;-)

Record the voices close-miced, same mic, in a very dead room.

Add in outdoor noise as required to obtain the desired ambience.

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in
:

Are you starting with the dialog already recorded?
You may be fighting an uphill battle if the recording conditions
were not appropriate (dead room, same microphone, same
mic and actor positions, etc.)

It doesn't seem like "filtering" is what is important here. The first-
order factor would be mixing back some "room tone" from the
original location to cover the differences.

We'll be dubbing this week, and I'm either going to find a dead room or a
very quiet outdoor location. The latter would allow me to reproduce the
acoustics, but there may be uncontrollable factors (I tried one location
and could not identify an annoying rumble until I spotted a highway about
a mile away).

I did some tests using SoundForge's Acoustic Mirror, but I wasn't
impressed. I also heard some good things about Adobe Audition's
convolution reverb, and there seems to be a lot of user-created imprints
available on the web.

I'm looking for something at least close to which I can add room tone (as
Arny said, we have plenty of that). I'm also adding back in some car
sounds that sound more natural than the real thing - funny how that
works, uh? I'm having a hard time explaining to my partner that sometimes
art needs to me more real than life itself. ;-)


jaybee

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote in
:

I don't know, but I can't resist putting in my two cents:

1. The recording room has to be absolutely dead. Small, booth-like,
would also help.

2. Roll off the highs at 200 Hz.

My guess. Oddly, I can remember at least one major movie where they
did not succeed in this. They dubbed a "voice with room tone" into
outdoor scenes.

Thanks Bob. My Google searches turned up a lot more information once I
included "ADR". I read about the importance of the room acoustics and
choice of microphone, as well as placement.

Rolling off the highs came close, but the voice seems to come from a cheap
AM radio. I know I'm missing something here.


jaybee

[Don Pearce]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
"Richard Crowley" wrote in
:

Are you starting with the dialog already recorded?
You may be fighting an uphill battle if the recording conditions
were not appropriate (dead room, same microphone, same
mic and actor positions, etc.)

It doesn't seem like "filtering" is what is important here. The first-
order factor would be mixing back some "room tone" from the
original location to cover the differences.

We'll be dubbing this week, and I'm either going to find a dead room or a
very quiet outdoor location. The latter would allow me to reproduce the
acoustics, but there may be uncontrollable factors (I tried one location
and could not identify an annoying rumble until I spotted a highway about
a mile away).

I did some tests using SoundForge's Acoustic Mirror, but I wasn't
impressed. I also heard some good things about Adobe Audition's
convolution reverb, and there seems to be a lot of user-created imprints
available on the web.

I'm looking for something at least close to which I can add room tone (as
Arny said, we have plenty of that). I'm also adding back in some car
sounds that sound more natural than the real thing - funny how that
works, uh? I'm having a hard time explaining to my partner that sometimes
art needs to me more real than life itself. ;-)


jaybee

If you can get hold of a copy of Voxengo's Pristine Space, you will have
a lot more impulses available to you because it is quite happy to use
..wav files rather than the proprietary ones of Audition.

With a pocket recorder and a toy cap pistol you can collect your own
while you travel (not in carry-on baggage, of course).

d

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

Don Pearce wrote in
news
If you can get hold of a copy of Voxengo's Pristine Space, you will
have a lot more impulses available to you because it is quite happy to
use .wav files rather than the proprietary ones of Audition.

With a pocket recorder and a toy cap pistol you can collect your own
while you travel (not in carry-on baggage, of course).

Thanks for the tip. This is all very new to me, I'm learning at an
incredible pace. I know enough of everything about video production to be a
Jack Of All Trades and normally I'd leave this to a pro (like I did for the
score), but our deadline is this Friday. Fortunately it's only a 5-minute
short.


jaybee

[Scott Dorsey]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
I have to dub dialogue on a short film because the original field recording
contains too much trafic noise (we had no control over it). Problem is, I
don't know how to make a voice recorded in a home studio sound like it was
recorded outdoors. I played with high- and low-pass filters and with an
equalizer, but I'm going blindly about it and none of the results are
satisfying.

You don't. You can't remove room effects, you can only add them. Your
recording has a lot of small short-time reverberation, that makes it sound
boxy. A recording outside won't have that.

Can anyone offer advice? I'm using Adobe Audition.

Take a portable rig out into the backyard and loop the dialogue there.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

"Soundhaspriority" wrote in
:

Jacques, my reply had an oxymoron. I meant to say, roll off the lows
at 200 Hz. The logic is, with no room boundaries, there's no bass
reinforcement.

I figured that's what you meant. 200 MHz is about the cutoff where I
thought it sounded closest, but it still bugged me. I'm going to do more
tests with the microphone farther away from the actor and deadening the
room even more.


jaybee

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

(Scott Dorsey) wrote in
:

Take a portable rig out into the backyard and loop the dialogue there.

That was my original intention - in fact that's what I was hoping to
achieve when I recorded sound with video. But nature doesn't cooperate:
birds, barking dogs, far-away traffic, airplanes, etc. all create unwanted
noise.

My only options are recording in the Mohave desert (unlikely) or a
controlled studio environment, which requires shaping the acoustics.



jaybee

[Scott Dorsey]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
(Scott Dorsey) wrote in
:

Take a portable rig out into the backyard and loop the dialogue there.

That was my original intention - in fact that's what I was hoping to
achieve when I recorded sound with video. But nature doesn't cooperate:
birds, barking dogs, far-away traffic, airplanes, etc. all create unwanted
noise.

Why is unwanted? The image is clearly of someone outside. So ambient
outdoor noise, as long as it's at a reasonably low level, adds a sense of
realism.

My only options are recording in the Mohave desert (unlikely) or a
controlled studio environment, which requires shaping the acoustics.

You're going to need a room that is very dead, then. This is expensive
but exists. Skywalker Sound has a nice one. For the most part, it's cheap
and easy to make a place very dead at high frequencies, but it gets
exponentially more difficult and expensive the lower you need to go.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Why is unwanted? The image is clearly of someone outside. So ambient
outdoor noise, as long as it's at a reasonably low level, adds a sense of
realism.

Well, you probably don't want the sound of jet planes or even
automobiles if it's a Wild West scene, or you don't want crickets in the
winter.


--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

Mike Rivers wrote in
:

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Why is unwanted? The image is clearly of someone outside. So
ambient outdoor noise, as long as it's at a reasonably low level,
adds a sense of realism.

Well, you probably don't want the sound of jet planes or even
automobiles if it's a Wild West scene, or you don't want crickets in
the winter.

Not only that: the mic used to record the actors won't pick up traffic
noise accurately, so instead of hearing passing cars you hear passing
noise. And since they're on the same track as the dialogue, you have no
control over the volume or whether it covers up an actor's line.

It's a bit like having to rely on natural daylight for shooting: you
can't control clouds, and you can't control the setting sun.


jaybee

[Mike Rivers]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:

It's a bit like having to rely on natural daylight for shooting: you
can't control clouds, and you can't control the setting sun.

But a good photographer will wait for the right conditions, or figure
out how to use existing conditions creatively. Film sound people,
however, don't usually have the luxury of the time to wait or the
flexibility to be creative with the script. Best to record in a quiet
room and then mix in "outdoor ambience" in post-production.

--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[[email protected]]

On Oct 21, 12:30*am, "Jacques E. Bouchard"
wrote:
I have to dub dialogue on a short film because the original field recording
contains too much trafic noise (we had no control over it). Problem is, I
don't know how to make a voice recorded in a home studio sound like it was
recorded outdoors. I played with high- and low-pass filters and with an
equalizer, but I'm going blindly about it and none of the results are
satisfying.

Can anyone offer advice? I'm using Adobe Audition.

Thanks in advance.

jaybee

One possibility, I don't know how practical:

Record your new dialogue in a dead room. Then, run a speaker and a mic
(if possible, same mic as used on outdoor recordings) OUTSIDE and mic
the playback of the new dialog. That should give it an outdoor sound.
Then, add some ambience noise (birds, wind, traffic) and have it
overlap the edit points.

[Scott Dorsey]

wrote:
One possibility, I don't know how practical:

Record your new dialogue in a dead room. Then, run a speaker and a mic
(if possible, same mic as used on outdoor recordings) OUTSIDE and mic
the playback of the new dialog. That should give it an outdoor sound.
Then, add some ambience noise (birds, wind, traffic) and have it
overlap the edit points.

The problem is that the outdoor sound is pretty much deadness. If you
can record the dialogue in a dead room, and add a little outdoor ambient
noise, it will sound outdoors. The problem is.... really dead rooms are
hard to find.

When I need to test something in a dead space, I'll usually take it outside.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Don Pearce]

Scott Dorsey wrote:
wrote:
One possibility, I don't know how practical:

Record your new dialogue in a dead room. Then, run a speaker and a mic
(if possible, same mic as used on outdoor recordings) OUTSIDE and mic
the playback of the new dialog. That should give it an outdoor sound.
Then, add some ambience noise (birds, wind, traffic) and have it
overlap the edit points.

The problem is that the outdoor sound is pretty much deadness. If you
can record the dialogue in a dead room, and add a little outdoor ambient
noise, it will sound outdoors. The problem is.... really dead rooms are
hard to find.

When I need to test something in a dead space, I'll usually take it outside.
--scott

Outdoor is never completely dead. You need one fairly strong return at
about 10mSec to simulate the reflection off the ground and then you have it.

d

[Richard Kuschel]

On Oct 21, 9:30 am, "Jacques E. Bouchard"
wrote:
"Soundhaspriority" wrote om:

Jacques, my reply had an oxymoron. I meant to say, roll off the lows
at 200 Hz. The logic is, with no room boundaries, there's no bass
reinforcement.

I figured that's what you meant. 200 MHz is about the cutoff where I
thought it sounded closest, but it still bugged me. I'm going to do more
tests with the microphone farther away from the actor and deadening the
room even more.

jaybee

200MHz? Wow, you really have great ears! G

[Richard Crowley]

"Don Pearce" wrote ...
If you can get hold of a copy of Voxengo's Pristine Space, you will have a
lot more impulses available to you because it is quite happy to use .wav
files rather than the proprietary ones of Audition.

I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.

With a pocket recorder and a toy cap pistol you can collect your own while
you travel (not in carry-on baggage, of course).

The impulse-response (if any) of an outdoor location would seem to be
a second-order effect at best compared to microphone selection, mic
placement, and "room tone".

[Don Pearce]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Don Pearce" wrote ...
If you can get hold of a copy of Voxengo's Pristine Space, you will have a
lot more impulses available to you because it is quite happy to use .wav
files rather than the proprietary ones of Audition.

I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.


You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

With a pocket recorder and a toy cap pistol you can collect your own while
you travel (not in carry-on baggage, of course).

The impulse-response (if any) of an outdoor location would seem to be
a second-order effect at best compared to microphone selection, mic
placement, and "room tone".




If you like the acoustics of a particular location, why not capture it -
whatever it may be? There is always a chance you can use it later.
Provided you record your music dead enough, of course.

d

[Richard Crowley]

"Don Pearce" wrote ...
You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

Perhaps you were thinking of Audacity.

If you like the acoustics of a particular location, why not capture it -
whatever it may be? There is always a chance you can use it later.
Provided you record your music dead enough, of course.

True. But we seem to be talking about outdoors where there will be
little "acoustics" to deal with. Recording "dead enough" and adding
back realistic background SFX should be sufficient for the OP's
presenting symptoms.

[Don Pearce]

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Don Pearce" wrote ...
You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

Perhaps you were thinking of Audacity.

If you like the acoustics of a particular location, why not capture it -
whatever it may be? There is always a chance you can use it later.
Provided you record your music dead enough, of course.

True. But we seem to be talking about outdoors where there will be
little "acoustics" to deal with. Recording "dead enough" and adding
back realistic background SFX should be sufficient for the OP's
presenting symptoms.



Obviously for an outdoor acoustic you need dead air - I was
extrapolating and talking generally.

d

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

Richard Kuschel wrote in
:

On Oct 21, 9:30 am, "Jacques E. Bouchard"
wrote:
"Soundhaspriority" wrote
om:

Jacques, my reply had an oxymoron. I meant to say, roll off the
lows at 200 Hz. The logic is, with no room boundaries, there's no
bass reinforcement.

I figured that's what you meant. 200 MHz is about the cutoff where I
thought it sounded closest, but it still bugged me. I'm going to do
more tests with the microphone farther away from the actor and
deadening the room even more.

jaybee

200MHz? Wow, you really have great ears! G

WHAT? SPEAK UP!


jaybee

[Jacques E. Bouchard]

Don Pearce wrote in
et:

Richard Crowley wrote:

I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.

You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.


jaybee

[Romeo Rondeau[_4_]]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
Don Pearce wrote in
et:

Richard Crowley wrote:
I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.
You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.


jaybee

It does?

[Richard Crowley]

"Jacques E. Bouchard" wrote ...
Don Pearce wrote:
Richard Crowley wrote:
I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.

You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.

But surely it is capable of reading and writing WAV regardless
of what it (or any other application) does internally.

[Chris Hornbeck]

On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 05:25:16 +0300, "Richard Crowley"
wrote:

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.

But surely it is capable of reading and writing WAV regardless
of what it (or any other application) does internally.

And .wav files are not only as common as dirt, but are also
"primitive" in the sense that they're a header and a datastream.
Any program made since Jesus was a Corporal pretty much needs to be
able to read a .wav


WRT outdoor acoustics: "If you have to ask, you can't afford it",
as the old saying about Rolls Royce's went. Truly quiet, dead,
acoustics, like so many things (peace, enlightenment, a really
authentic Philly Cheese Steak in the flyover states) comes only
with a terrible price.

One way of talking about the issue is to say that no acoustic
can be mapped into another. Only an artificially "blank" acoustic
can be even artificially mapped into a recognizably "real" acoustic.


Now, everybody, just change your "pronoun"ciation of "acoustic" to the
Flanders and Swann version, and I'll be forgiven my pontificating.
Yowza!


Much thanks, as always,
Chris Hornbeck

[Don Pearce]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
Don Pearce wrote in
et:

Richard Crowley wrote:
I've been using Audition before it was named "Audition" and I've
never encountered "proprietary files" Audition (and Cool Edit
before it) handle dozens of different file formats for both input
and for output. WAV is most certainly one of them.
You are right - just looked and it does indeed use wav files. Can't
imagine what I was thinking of. I must have misremembered something.

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.


jaybee

Thank you - that was it.

d

[Mike Rivers]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:

SoundForge uses proprietary *.imp files.

Generally when a DAW program uses "proprietary" files, they're not for
audio, but rather for project management and organization (where
punch-ins and edits go) or they're what draw the waveform graphics.
Audacity is a sort of exception - while it saves audio as AIFF files,
they're very short, just a few seconds each, and there are a whole bunch
of them in even a three minute song. There's also a file that ties them
all together. If you want a WAV file of the full song/project, you need
to export it, which uses the "info" file to glue together all of the
little AIFF files and put the proper headers in place.



--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Keith W. Blackwell]

Jacques E. Bouchard wrote:
We'll be dubbing this week, and I'm either going to find a dead room or a
very quiet outdoor location. The latter would allow me to reproduce the
acoustics, but there may be uncontrollable factors (I tried one location
and could not identify an annoying rumble until I spotted a highway about
a mile away).

I think you said you were using Adobe Audition. Pardon me
if I misread that.

I'm very familiar with Cool Edit Pro, so Audition should be
similar. If you can get a fairly dead room, you may still have
some boom to eliminate; if nothing else is available, try a
walk-in closet with lots and lots of clothes, then cover the
remaining surfaces with blankets. Ok, I'm letting my low-
budget focus show here.

In post, I've had limited success with using the Dynamics
effect to expand downward the lower-level content. You can
limit the frequency range to, say, 20 -- 200 Hz. Use a curve
that is linear diagonal except for a spike where you are
considering putting your drop -- this will accentuate the
particular sounds that will be affected, allowing you to
narrow in on an effective position (though it is difficult
to adjust, since a spike will take a few points in the curve).
Select a short but representative section of your track to
preview the effect on as you adjust the parameters.

You want to find the low-frequency reverb at the end of
uttered syllables. Ideally, the effect will not have any
work to do during continuous utterences.

You'll also need to adjust the attack
and release times in the detector and actuator so that it
works fast enough to catch the trail-off but resumes slowly
enough to have a natural sounding recovery. Once you've
isolated the right level to place this adjustment, set that
point to drop fairly steeply (downward expansion) and to
approach the bottom left according to whatever curve you
favor.

It's totally different from any other dynamics processor
interface out there, but it is mathematically reasonable
and if you take the time to understand it -- it can be a
very useful tool. Unfortunately, this can only remove the
LF reverb between and after syllables, but you'll still
hear some crossing over when there is no gap. So it's not
perfect, but it can help eliminate some of the more
noticeable "boom" from your room sound.

There are other tricks to try with it. You can also try
reversing the wav and applying it in reverse -- with
slower attack/release times, this will allow you to keep
LF content only in the middle of the syllables where they
are loudest. You can also introduce compression above
that point to simply reduce the dynamic range of the LF
content from there up.

You're just *so* much better off using a dead room to
start with. If your talent can keep a steady distance
and avoid popping, then you can use proximity effect of
a directional mic to allow you drastically EQ the lows
back down just to get it to sound normal again, which in
turn helps you get a better direct-to-reflected ratio in
the lower frequencies. And of course it takes a lot of
roll-off.


But you probably already know all that. I mainly just wanted
to mention the band-limited downward expansion thing and
another thing...

Another CEP weirdity that you might still have in Audition
is that to use Convolution you have to first have a separate
wave file containing the impulse response you want to convolve with.
I would assume you would want to use this to introduce some
simulated ambience to match the supposed setting, while still
recording everything in your "dead room".

Keep it to a reasonable length, like less than half a second.
You "copy" the wave, then go back to editing the one you want
to convolve with it. There, you bring up the Convolution
window, clear it all out, and you can "paste" your wave into
it. CEP did store these convolution impulses in its own
proprietary format so that it could keep track of scaling and
so on (you get to "Save" your impulse). Note that if you
want true stereo, you will need a stereo impulse for the left
position and another stereo impulse for the right position. Clone
your original track into two, one to have the original Left
in both channels, the other to have the original Right in both
channels. Apply corresponding impulses to each, then remix
the two back together. Pain the the butt, but it works.
In other words, you have to have 4 channels to convolve 2
into 2 properly. But you probably don't care about true stereo.
Audition may make that easier. I dunno. Once you've got the
hang of it, it is quite easy to record your own impulses by
popping a balloon, using a cap gun, a spark plug rig, or
whatever.


--
Keith W. Blackwell
(I do not speak for my employer or anyone else)