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Is anyone looking for someone to edit their sound for cheap

I'm looking to edit sound for people, for cheap or possibly free. I don't have a massive amount of experience, but I am looking for projects to work on to get more experience. Also any advice on good ways to find jobs in sound are welcome.
 
I think it would help a lot to show your studio as this is the biggest red tape to editing my own sound. It needs to be edited in a theatrical environment before being played for an audience in a theatre.
 
I think it would help a lot to show your studio as this is the biggest red tape to editing my own sound. It needs to be edited in a theatrical environment before being played for an audience in a theatre.

Technically this is not exactly correct. There are thousands of features mixed every year in smaller rooms.... much less editing. Major motion pictures use plenty of sound editing suites that are in tiny spaces or even editing just on headphones. It's definitely possible to mix for theatrical releases in smaller rooms.... you just have to understand sound (specifically monitoring calibrations) at an expert level. The biggest difference between a video person "editing their own sound" and an audio person isn't the room.
 
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Give me the greatest camera in the world... and your pictures will be average at best.
Put a video editor in a Dolby certified room..... and your audio will sound average at best.

Jokes aside... a great room does help, if you know what your doing. A great room won't matter if you don't understand fixed-monitor gain, RMS vs. Peak metering, threshold to ratio settings, or any of the other thousands of things audio people use to "edit sound"
 
I live with my parents so I just have a normal room. And I'm working on getting better gear, but I don't make much money ( I work retail ). I am willing to edit stuff for next to nothing. I'm trying to get better so I can make a living editing sound.
 
I don't have a lot under my belt. That is why I'm willing to do some editing for free. So I can make a reel. What gear would you recommend for editing?

I'm no sound guy but our resident experts are alcove audio and audiopostpro.

this newer guy soundslikejoe (or something close to that) seems to know what he is talking about as well.

I've had to do all the sound of my own projects so I have some experience but I definitely wouldn't market myself as a sound guy. There is a lot I don't understand.. I've been told the best (sometimes I've been told the ONLY) way to become a professional at sound editing is through understudy with an experienced professional.

As far as gear you need a room that is treated for sound, the right speakers, and various professional audio softwares.
 
Technically this is not exactly correct. There are thousands of features mixed every year in smaller rooms.... much less editing. Major motion pictures use plenty of sound editing suites that are in tiny spaces or even editing just on headphones. It's definitely possible to mix for theatrical releases in smaller rooms.... you just have to understand sound (specifically monitoring calibrations) at an expert level. The biggest difference between a video person "editing their own sound" and an audio person isn't the room.

This is great news, it sounds attainable for me!

What major motion pictures have been edited just using headphones?
I have a sony mdr-7506 for production sound, what sort of headphones would you recommend for editing/mixing?
 
As far as gear you need a room that is treated for sound, the right speakers, and various professional audio softwares.

Exactly right.

I understand that you have to start "small," but your listening environment - your room and your speakers - needs to allow your work to "translate" to other formats. This means at least a pro forma attempt at treating your room and some passable speakers.

I don't have a lot under my belt. That is why I'm willing to do some editing for free. So I can make a reel. What gear would you recommend for editing?

Pro Tools is the obvious answer if you want to make this your profession. There's "lite" versions to six figure configurations.

What are you going to do about video monitoring?

A few details about what you have available, your experience, budget, etc. would help.
 
Exactly right.

I understand that you have to start "small," but your listening environment - your room and your speakers - needs to allow your work to "translate" to other formats. This means at least a pro forma attempt at treating your room and some passable speakers.



Pro Tools is the obvious answer if you want to make this your profession. There's "lite" versions to six figure configurations.

What are you going to do about video monitoring?

A few details about what you have available, your experience, budget, etc. would help.


I have a pretty normal computer with a 9800 gt video card, a soundblaster x-fi usb audio thing, a 23" monitor, and I could use my brothers ATH M50x headset. I've only edited audio for a few shorts my brother has made. I get paid like $8.30 at a retail store so my budget is pretty low.
 
It's definitely possible to mix for theatrical releases in smaller rooms.... you just have to understand sound (specifically monitoring calibrations) at an expert level.

Mmmm. There's no absolute definitive answer to this but as a generalisation I would say that this statement is incorrect. It's only partly about monitor calibration. There's a big difference between sitting a few feet away from near-field monitors and sitting 30ft (or more) away from far-field monitors (theatrical speaker arrays). Additionally, even in a small cinema, you'll notice an array of "diffuser" speakers all around the walls of the cinema, anything from 15 or so up to as many as 60 (or even more occasionally). Even with a correct monitor calibration (level AND EQ), it's physically impossible to emulate all these system differences in a small room, at best we would just be making educated guesses, at worst ....!

There are relatively few features mixed in small rooms as far as I'm aware and those which are, would be exclusively no budget features. Low (and higher) budget features are pretty exclusively mixed on full sized commercial dub stages. Micro and some nano budget features are commonly pre-mixed in a medium sized room and final mixed on a full dub stage or at least checked on a full dub stage.

A great room won't matter if you don't understand fixed-monitor gain, RMS vs. Peak metering, threshold to ratio settings, or any of the other thousands of things audio people use to "edit sound"

To be honest, this is not correct. For sound editing; metering, threshold to ratio settings, etc, are largely irrelevant, these things are the purview of the Re-recording Mixer rather than a Sound Editor. This is why, as you correctly stated, even major motion pictures use numerous small sound editing suites.

I fully agree with your statement regarding the quality of the personnel and it not just being about the quality of the gear but we have to be careful about analogies between sound and picture. A great DP can get surprisingly good results with a seemingly cheap or even inappropriate camera, the same is not as true with sound or at least, sound mixing (re-recording).

What major motion pictures have been edited just using headphones?

None, it's not possible. Bare in mind that the minimum audio format for commercial theatrical features is 5.1, which can't be accurately monitored on headphones. Having said this, there are certain aspects of sound editorial which can be carried out on headphones, dialogue editing for example (because it's mono), although few dialogue editors I know would choose to edit solely with headphones.

I've been told the best (sometimes I've been told the ONLY) way to become a professional at sound editing is through understudy with an experienced professional.

Yes, this would be my advice to the OP. A good starting point is as Alcove suggested, familiarity with ProTools but if he wants to progress much beyond no budget projects destined for Youtube, then much better (more expensive) equipment than he has and the experience/knowledge to use it is going to be essential and interning at a commercial facility would almost certainly be the most practical way of accessing these things.

G
 
Yes, this would be my advice to the OP. A good starting point is as Alcove suggested, familiarity with ProTools but if he wants to progress much beyond no budget projects destined for Youtube, then much better (more expensive) equipment than he has and the experience/knowledge to use it is going to be essential and interning at a commercial facility would almost certainly be the most practical way of accessing these things.

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Unfortunately I'm not really that close to any decent studio that I'm aware of. So how do I deal with that.
 
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Unfortunately I'm not really that close to any decent studio that I'm aware of. So how do I deal with that.

While there may not be any major theatrical audio post facilities near you, there are likely to be some smaller TV audio post studios, which could be a good starting place to learn some of the technical basics. If there really isn't anything near you and relocating is out of the question, then I'm not sure what the solution is, or even if there is one.

G
 
It's always better to say there is "a range" of options. To say everything should be mixed in a theater sized dub stage... suggestion, not requirement. Are all AAA features mixed on large dub stages? Of course! Should most medium budget indies (millions of dollars) be mixed on dub stages? Yes. Are all small and medium features mixed, or even QCd, in larger rooms? No. Suprisingly... these mixes can still translate well in theaters... if the pilot knows how to fly. There are a wide variety of room sizes that are used for Dubbing (different process than sound editing), and there are MANY rooms that book dubbing sessions every day that aren't theater size.

Even Dolby certification doesn't require something that's 30ft long. A dub room can be Dolby certified with as little as 150 square feet (45 meters sq). That's a 10x15 room! Not very big. If you want to get super nerdy about acoustics... square feet doesn't even matter as much as cubic feet (volume) of the space.

Plus... there are dozens of other things that make a room "certified" by Dolby, but even then... a good sound person can mix in places that aren't certified. So long as the acoustics are good, the monitors are accurate, and the pilot is experienced... it's going to turn out better than a "video guy" mucking around with his Adobe software.
 
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This is great news, it sounds attainable for me!

What major motion pictures have been edited just using headphones?
I have a sony mdr-7506 for production sound, what sort of headphones would you recommend for editing/mixing?

You may have misunderstood me... Editing is different than mixing. Headphones are used, but not "exclusively" for anything. So you're not going to find any major motion pictures that have been edited with just headphones. Any decent professional headphones are suitable for editing certain elements. Obviously, you can't edit 5.1 sound effects stems on headphones. No headphones are suitable for mixing feature films.
 
That's a 10x15 room! Not very big.

Absolute minimum Dolby requirements are a mix position 5m (16'4") from the speakers, pretty tough to achieve that in 10x15 room! As the mix position must also be 2/3 to the back of the room, the room needs to be at least 22ft long. Although I personally have never seen Dolby grant feature mixing accreditation for a room anywhere near that small.

There are a wide variety of room sizes that are used for Dubbing (different process than sound editing), and there are MANY rooms that book dubbing sessions every day that aren't theater size.

Absolutely, but then of course the vast majority of commercial Dubbing/Re-Recording is for TV rather than theatrical features and in most cases a 20ft-30ft long room is perfectly adequate for TV Dubbing.

So long as the acoustics are good, the monitors are accurate, and the pilot is experienced... it's going to turn out better than a "video guy" mucking around with his Adobe software.

Of course, almost anything is going to sound better than a video guy mucking around with an NLE. :) As I said though, it's impossible to get accurate monitoring in a small room with near-field monitors because cinemas are large rooms with far-field monitors and surround and sub arrays. It's possible that a particular mix may translate from a small room to a cinema but if does, it's almost as much luck as judgement, even with a good pilot. In fact, a good pilot would insist on at least a QC run for this very reason, as should a competent producer. I'm sure some nano budget filmmakers break this rule/guideline and I'm sure some even get away with it on occasion!

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While there may not be any major theatrical audio post facilities near you, there are likely to be some smaller TV audio post studios, which could be a good starting place to learn some of the technical basics. If there really isn't anything near you and relocating is out of the question, then I'm not sure what the solution is, or even if there is one.

G

I don't think there are any. There are a few news stations, but none of them are hiring, or looking for interns as far as I can tell. I don't even make 10k a year so I can't really afford to relocate or even live on my own. I don't know what else I can do
 
Forget the debate going on here, that's a major digression from the OP's post.

Would I like free/inexpensive audio help from someone who is up-and-coming and passionate about their work?

Uhhhhhh, YES!
 
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