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Free reverb resources - where to find impulse responses | Blog: free loops, sounds and music making tutorials | Propellerhead

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Here's a small guide on how to find free impulse responses to use with RV7000 MkII

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Impulse responses are detailed sonic snapshots of resonant spaces. They can be used with a convolution reverb to make any recorded sound seem to exist within the captured space. This is a library of impulse responses of unique spaces that I have captured using a new technology I am developing called EchoThief.

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Dealing with ADR comes with its own set of challenges (sync, inflection, delivery), let alone the task of making the ADR sit back in the picture and sound like it was originally recorded on set in real world acoustic environments.

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Mixing and matching ADR with location audio can be very challenging, but these audio editing tips will help you get much better results every time.
Top image: man in ADR booth via Shutterstock
Nobody enjoys having to record ADR. It's a fairly grueling process that usually occurs at the tail end of a production when you just want to wrap things up and get your project out the door. What's even more frustrating than having to record it in the first place though, is attempting to match the sound quality with your source/location audio.

Capturing location audio via Antuan Mejias

Imagine a scenario where you're editing a project that was shot entirely on a busy city street. Most of the location audio sounds solid, but there are a few takes that just aren't working. Maybe the noise from the street bled through too much on a critical line or there was a technical issue with the mic, ultimately leaving you with the reality that you need to record ADR for a portion of the scene.

Once you go back into the studio with your talent and rerecord their dialogue to match with picture, the work has really only begun. It goes without saying that clean, studio recorded audio tracks are going to sound very different from on location recordings, so ultimately you'll need to take some measures to get the audio to match up.

In a best case scenario, you'll send your edited timeline to a dedicated ProTools artist who will help finesse the audio until it's perfect. But in some instances, you may very well be left with the task of tweaking the audio yourself, and if that's the case you should always adhere to these audio editing tips:

Remember Why You Recorded Room Tone

Recording room tone via Christopher Morris

Assuming you've done your job properly on set, you should have room tone recorded for each location you shot at. Room tone of course, is simply a track recording of ambience in your location which can be used during the audio editing process.

One of the most critical steps in matching ADR with location audio involves the addition of room tone, which can be an art unto itself. Always ensure that you are not only adding in room tone, but mixing it down so the levels are equal to the ambient levels on the rest of your dialogue tracks. Also be sure to add crossfades carefully at the top and tail of your clips to ease in and out of the room tone clips.

Just with this single step alone, your audio track will start to feel far smoother, as there will no longer be an absence of natural background noise when playing through the ADR segments. Here's a quick video from Vimeo Film School that covers the basics of room tone:

Know How to EQ

ADR Recording and EQ via ECG Productions

Much like how cameras all have their own distinct looks to them, microphones all have their own characteristics and sounds. It's highly unlikely that the mic that's being used to record your ADR is a perfect match for the mic that you were using on set, so you will notice some differences in audio quality right off the bat.

For instance, you may find that your location audio has more high end (treble), while your ADR recording is more bass heavy. This can easily be adjusted and compensated for with a little bit of EQ work, which can go a very long way in helping the different recordings to blend together.

Start by getting your basic levels where they need to be so that all of your tracks match at least from a gain standpoint. Then adjust your highs, mids, and lows on both the source audio and the ADR recordings to try to find a good happy middle ground. Once you've found the right balance, the majority of the heavy lifting is done. If you'd like a deeper look at EQ basics, check out the post Basic Guide to Understanding EQ over at B&H. It isn't a software-specific approach to EQ, rather it's a general look at the science behind the process.

Reverb Matters

Sound Engineer at work via Shutterstock

One of the other critical elements to take into account when dealing with ADR material is the lack of reverb. Assuming you've recorded in a professional soundproofed studio, your source ADR tracks will have little to no reverb at all. In contrast, depending on where you shot your original footage - it is very likely to have at least some degree of reverb.

Imagine you shot a scene in a cathedral with a huge amount of reverb in it, and then attempted to place in some ADR tracks to replace a few lines. Obviously, the sound quality would be extremely different even if room tone had been added and a proper EQ was completed. Ultimately the difference would probably be a direct result of reverb (or lack thereof).

Always be sure to not only apply reverb in your editing system, but also take the time to fine tune it so that it matches with your location audio as closely as possible. Reverb can literally come in all shapes and sizes, so you need to ensure you are taking enough time to not only select the right effect, but also fine-tune the settings if you want to get the most realistic and flawless results.

Got any audio editing tips for the community? Share them in the comments below!

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Audio Editing Tip: Matching ADR and Location Audio in Post

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Top image: man in ADR booth via Shutterstock Nobody enjoys having to record ADR. It's a fairly grueling process that usually occurs at the tail end of a production when you just want to wrap things up and get your project out the door.

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Audio Post Production Mixing in Pro Tools

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Audio Post Production Mixing in Pro Tools

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Join the web's most supportive community of creators and get high-quality tools for hosting, sharing, and streaming videos in gorgeous HD with no ads.

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Royalty Free Sound Effects Download, huge archive, Download Free Mp3, Wav sounds

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EQ Tips & Tricks: How to Tackle Several Audio Issues in Your Film

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EQ Tips & Tricks: How to Tackle Several Audio Issues in Your Film

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The art of manipulating sound is an occult practice, mysterious and daunting to outsiders, though in reality, like almost everything, a little education goes a long way and the information is out there if you look for it; since many filmmakers, though, are taught from the beginning (at least I was), to shoot MOS and concentrate solely on the visual, with sound a distant second, it can be a blind spot in their skill set, but a vital skill. And with the concomitant proliferation of audio technology (specifically DAWs, or Digital Audio Workstations), there's no excuse for an indie filmmaker not to educate themselves in the art of noise. Click through for five tips on EQing sound, for filmmakers!

Okay, so, you have your location sound. You got your room tone. All of your levels are good, nothing is peaking or clipping (sounding terrible) and you are working on your edit on your NLE of choice. For many filmmakers, sound is something to be turned over to, and handled by a professional, and this is definitely the best bet if you can afford it, but if you can't (and even if you can), it still pays to know a little about how to manipulate the soundtrack of your film, because as an indie filmmaker you should be a jack of all trades, and sound is a big trade in the picture show business.

One of the most important steps you can take is, while shooting, to be sure that you capture quality sound. To paraphrase the always edifying Vashi Nedomansky, in his excellent post on the subject, "garbage in, garbage out," i.e., what you get on location is what you have to work with in post, therefore, there is only so much "fixing it in the edit" that you can actually get away with. And, as he so wisely puts it:

Great visuals with crappy sound screams -- "I am an amateur!" Conversely, lots of blurry, handheld, whip-panned footage with pristine dialog and a full soundscape can be completely acceptable. It will be perceived as the Director's "artistic choice" even though shots are out of focus and flaying around. The audio is the glue that holds it together and sells it as a professional production. Embrace the Audio.

Okay, so, roughly, there are a narrow band of frequencies audible to the human ear. These run from very low "rumble" sounds at about 31hz, all the way to 16khz, or the sound of, as the graphic below puts it, "air." (The chart comes via Warbeats, which is a site primarily for electronic music production, but an excellent general resource.) They primarily concentrate on FL, or as it is more commonly known, Fruity Loops, as their DAW of choice, but the rules are the same from program to program, since Vashi, and we, are only going to be concentrating on a few small hacks you can apply to your audio. These hacks involve the parametric EQ and the 30 band equalizer, which are two basic features found on every NLE and Digital Audio Workstation ( n.b., the number of bands on your equalizer may vary.) And now, without further ado, a few of Vashi's tips on EQing:

Cut the Top and Bottom

At the bottom end, roll off frequencies below 100hz to remove rumbles, wind, and other low end noises that can muddy up your dialogue. You can do this using a "high pass" filter, like so (yours may look different, this is from FL Studio 11, but the end result is the same). At the other end, apply the same technique to get rid of sizzles, squeaks and high-pitched noise. ( below, a "high pass filter")

Saving Dull and Distant Dialog

Says Vashi:

Often the mic will be too far from an actor and you will hear boomy, reverie dialog -- First apply a Parametric EQ at 300Hz with -4db and a Q=2. This can remove some of the "room boominess". The second Parametric EQ at 4kHz with +6db and a Q=.25 will brighten up the dialog. Even a slight improvement will make the entire mix sound better. Also -- I like to EQ dialog while the music, background sound and room tone is playing. If you solo the dialog and EQ in a vacuum -- you won't hear how it's interacting with the environment and the mix.

Sound Tricks

When all else fails, there's always a few a general rules and hacks that will usually help to produce acceptable quality audio. According to Vashi, a few of his favorite are:

Add Male Power = Parametric EQ at 160Hz with +2db and Q=1

Nasally Dialog = EQ reduction between 2kHZ to 4kHz by several db

Add Female Thickness= EQ boost at 150hz by several db

Add Vocal Presence = EQ boost at 5kHz by several db

Female Sibilance Reduction = EQ reduction at 6kHz to 8kHz (find it)

Male Sibilance Reduction= EQ reduction at 4kHz to 6kHz (find it)

General Dialog Boost = EQ boost at 2.5kHz by 3db

If all of this sounds completely ridiculous and abstruse to you right now, it's kind of supposed to. It would be weird if it was totally intuitive to you. (But awesome. Good for you!) That said, this is all fairly straightforward stuff, and I taught myself rudimentary audio engineering (mostly via YouTube tutorials and sites like Warbeats) in a few months.

Finally, here are a few more golden rules from Warbeats:

Links:

[Lead image via Wikimedia courtesy Andyzweb]

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EQ Tips & Tricks: How to Tackle Several Audio Issues in Your Film

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The art of manipulating sound is an occult practice, mysterious and daunting to outsiders, though in reality, like almost everything, a little education goes a long way and the information is out there if you look for it; since many filmmakers, though, are taught from the beginning (at least I was), to shoot MOS and concentrate solely on the visual, with sound a distant second, it can be a blind spot in their skill set, but a vital skill.

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5 Basic Audio-Mixing Techniques for Editing Video

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5 Basic Audio-Mixing Techniques for Editing Video

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For a video producer, so much time and attention can be paid to the camera, lighting, subject, and background - the mise-en-scène, if you will. Audio can often be an afterthought, but bad audio has the ability to sink your project like a lead balloon. The most commonly bungled discipline for film students and novice filmmakers alike is audio recording and mixing, and it's an aspect that tends to be more objective than the visuals. If the audio is bad, everyone knows it.

Related Post How to Record Great Audio for Video

So, for any production involving multiple microphones and subjects, it's best to have an audio recordist and mixer on set. And once you've captured your audio, it's important to process it correctly in post-production. Below are some basic techniques for mixing audio for your video project. For my own projects, I usually use only one or two mics, creating four to six layers of audio which are split into dual mono. These techniques constitute the bare minimum that you should be doing with your own audio in post-production. I'm using Premiere Pro CC in the examples, but these techniques can be applied in all the commonly used video-editing programs.

Adjusting Gain

Once you've imported your audio clips into your project, take a look at where they're peaking. Nothing should pass or even approach zero; going above zero will result in distorted audio. All sound levels should stay in a range of about -24 to -6. Often, dialogue sits between -18 and -9. First listen to your A-roll audio - your interviews and on-camera dialogue,with the footage that drives your narrative - and start by adjusting the gain. This can be done in either your project panel or directly in your timeline. I prefer to do it in my timeline, adjusting just the pieces of the dialogue I know that I want in my cut. Once these A-roll tracks are set, adjust all the other audio track levels to match them. Both gain and volume refer to the loudness of the audio; however, gain is the input level of the clips, and volume is the output. But remember, increasing the gain will also increase the noise.

Keyframing Levels

Once your primary audio is adjusted using gain, you'll want to move on to your secondary audio, which is often your music. Again, preview your track and adjust the gain accordingly. Insert your music into your timeline and listen, then work with the levels by inserting keyframes. You can figure out the levels by adjusting the clip keyframes, or adjust keyframes on the entire track - whichever makes the most sense for your clip lengths. (I tend to avoid track keyframes and just work within the audio clips.)

Ambience/Room Tone

When filming, you'll often pick up some room tone or background noise in addition to your A-roll audio. Maybe the air-conditioner or refrigerator kicked on and off during your interviews and there's inconsistency in the ambient sound. Hopefully you've recorded some room tone on location that you can use to lay under your audio to keep the sound consistent. You can then copy and paste "band-aids" of room tone in places where it should exist and doesn't. You probably only need to do this if you don't have a music bed underneath the dialogue that would dampen or entirely cover the room tone.

You'll sometimes need to go through the process of de-noising, as well, which will remove ambient buzz or hum recorded during production, or noise introduced when increasing gain in post. Apply the "de-noiser" audio effect to your clips and adjust the reduction slider as necessary. If you slide too far, you can distort the tone of voice, so be sure to find that middle ground in which the background noise is removed but the original sound of the speaking voice is preserved.

Crossfades

Pretty much every audio clip in your timeline should have a crossfade on either end. These crossfades are usually only a few frames and cover subtle pops that occur when audio clips cut in or out; sometimes they just ease the transition from one clip to another when "franken-biting" multiple sound soundbites together. Longer crossfades are more common in music tracks, especially when turning corners within the piece or at the beginning or end of a piece.

Panning

Finally, pan your mono audio channels. I prefer to track my audio as dual mono and individually pan the tracks as the action in the video dictates. This gives me creative freedom in customizing the sound of my video. As action moves from one direction to another, I can track it sonically by panning the audio track in that same direction. This process can have significant psychological effects on an audience. Try it yourself - play a clip with action moving across the frame and listen to it with balanced audio channels, then again with audio panning in the direction of the movement on screen. It feels much more natural and your eyes will tend to move not only in the direction of the action, but also in the direction of the audio pan.
Do you have any go-to audio-mixing techniques for video of your own? Share them in the comments below!

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5 Basic Audio-Mixing Techniques for Editing Video

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For a video producer, so much time and attention can be paid to the camera, lighting, subject, and background - the mise-en-scène, if you will. Audio can often be an afterthought, but bad audio has the ability to sink your project like a lead balloon.