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Adding Sound and Music to your production

Fraught

Fraught

So what do you use to add music, dialogue, sound effects, foley, etc to your film?

Do you use the built in audio tracks from within your editing package, or do you use an alternative piece of software like Adobe Audition for example?

The reason i ask is that my current editing package doesn't have enough tracks for laying down sound, so i'm on the look for an alternative package that allows me to create my sound experience, whilst allowing me to view/sync it with the film.

Any thoughts?
 
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Lots of options, the two I have experience with are Sonar on the PC side and Pro Tools on the Mac side. You export the project out from the NLE as an OMF file, bring it in to Sonar or Pro Tools, do all your audio editing there, then bounce that down to one track, export it out as an uncompressed audio file that you then drop back in the time line for the final render. If my not mistaken, if nothing had been bounced during the whole process (which things of course were from time to time), my last movie would have had in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 audio tracks.
 
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Thanks for that. I've seen that Sonar Essentials costs about $90 (£70), which is pretty good for this sort of thing.
I've just checked out Reaper online. It only costs $60 (about £45) which is great on the cost front. Anyone had any experience with this package?
 
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I've been a long-time Sonar user, but have been debating a switch (mostly due to insane changes in the MIDI editing UI, so probably not anything you'd have to worry about, and the patches have been slowly correcting the problems, so I might just have to tough it out), so I've played with Reaper a bit. I have some friends that swear by it. It didn't work for my very specific purposes (wouldn't play nice with a couple plugins that I need and again, MIDI editing not good for my particular workflow), but using it as a basic multi-track audio editor, it should do the job for you.

Actually, better than Sonar essentials, which is 32-bit. Reaper is 64. There's a lot to be said for the full version of Sonar, but it's really geared towards music creation. If you're looking for a workflow similar to Gonzo's, Reaper will probably work pretty well for you. There is a free trial so you can test it out yourself, and see if it works for you specifically!
 
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Most DAWs will do a passable job, even Audacity. BTW, Reaper has a definite music orientation.

What you need to keep in mind is that it's not all about cost, it's about the capabilities of the software. And even more important are the listening environment and experience.

Good speakers in a treated, sonically isolated room gives you a much more accurate representation of your sound, and you will hear subtleties (and many extraneous noises) that you otherwise would not hear.

Only experience - and a lot of educating yourself - will yield a solid final mix. You have a whole new "language" and a bunch of new tools to learn.


BTW, I'm a Pro Tools user, and do audio post for a living.
 
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The more options available for post, the better.

There is also Sound Forge by Sony, there are programs that loop music, but that will never sound score your action scenes right, and just getting an audio postproduction house to do your audio. However, that can be pricey. With Vegas, it's good to layer sound effects and adjust their time duration to match what is on your screen. That is the best way to create original sound effects. When I go to my friends studio for VOs, I always ask for an audio CD where I can import the VO recordings with the extract audio from CD function.

Music, I look for a film composer for an original sound score. I have a couple of guys taking a shot at an original song about my current production in post and the characters as an end credit song. I had this done once before and it worked out fine. If I don't like the song, I know a pretty well-known composer I'll ask if he's interested in giving it a shot.

While in the rough cut stage, it is better to use royalty free music until all the scenes are locked down. The speed adjustments I just made to the chain fight scene, for example, would throw out a sound score. It did throw out the royalty free music. I manually adjusted it knowing the music is only there temporarily.
 
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Cheers Everyone.

I already have a composer for the score and he is doing an amazing job! :)

And sadly Alcove Audio, cost is one of my primary considerations... if i can't afford it, why look at it!? LOL...

I think i'm going to give Reaper a go. It's at a price i can afford, and seems to get some decent reviews. It looks like it does what i want it to do... so hell... let's give it a go. :)
 
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I agree with the statement above regarding having as many options as possible.

My last short, I used a combination of the audio available in Premier, along with Cakewalk, Corel Pro, and Audacity. I also worked from three different computers in two different rooms, using a flash drive to transport audio files. Each piece of software and equipment worked best for its little niche in the film. A lot of that had to do with the fact that each of my computers were wimps, though...

I think, like many things dealing with audio and video, no single program will have everything you need.
 
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Fraught said:
And sadly Alcove Audio, cost is one of my primary considerations... if i can't afford it, why look at it!?
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Because you should know what capabilities are needed in your software. As I mentioned, even Audacity - which is free - can do the job. But when budget is an issue you will need to make compromises, but you should know which compromises to make and which compromises to avoid.
 
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My audio production set up includes; Sound Booth, Audition, Cubase and Reason.

Sound booth and Audition are fairly similar, but I like having both on hand because there are a couple of things Audition can do that Sound Booth can't, plus I prefer arranging my score in Audition with the video loaded as reference. Tend to use sound booth when extracting audio directly from Premiere for cleaning up

I use Reason and Cubase to make my own music or manipulate samples. If you're interested in generating your own sounds, Reason could be a good place to start before experimenting with things like Cubase, Logic etc and the thousands of VSTs and plug ins available. Reason is really user friendly and you'll soon progress from being a novice to creating interesting sounds in no time
 
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Alcove Audio said:
Because you should know what capabilities are needed in your software. As I mentioned, even Audacity - which is free - can do the job. But when budget is an issue you will need to make compromises, but you should know which compromises to make and which compromises to avoid.
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Absolutely true. :)

I have Audacity, but how would you go about using this? What i want to do is see my footage whilst i place sound effects, music, etc in the right place. Can you do that in Audacity? Or is there a workaround?

I've downloaded the trial version of Reaper in the meantime, and that looks like it does all that i want... i think it's just a case of getting to know it better.
 
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Pro-Tools is the industry standard for post audio work for films. As was mentioned, transferring files into PT via an OMF and then creating a mix in PT has become the standard for post audio work.

If you're looking for an ultra cheap DIY method, Ableton live offers a 30 free trial - http://www.ableton.com/download-suite-trial
Not sure what the limitations of the trial version are. No importing or exporting OMFs in Live but you can load in QTs and sync audio so that might be a viable option for you.

Alcove Audio is right that there's a lot more to a great soundtrack besides the right software. A good facility helps but most importantly, like anything else, it takes A LOT of practice.
 
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danielscanlon said:
I use Adobe Premiere where it gives lots of additional tracks for various input. And most of my soundtrack music I get from two sources:
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Adobe Premiere is fine for video editing but it is certainly not a serious tool for audio editing. As mentioned, Pro Tools is one option for serious audio work. There are many others: Samplitude, Nuendo, Cubase and if you are on a Mac Logic Pro is excellent.
 
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My kit at home is a Pro Tools HD system.

Most dubbing stages use Pro Tools exclusively.

Nuendo is starting to catch on, as well as Adobe Audition,

but I think it's safe to say Pro Tools will be the film industry's standard for many years to come.

(I hope this doesn't set off a chain of events due to a jinx - I better go knock on some wood)
 
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Any DAW will do an okay job.

Logic Pro has certain specific toolsets for video work. Pro Tools is, has, and will be the industry standard.
I use PT - keep in mind that when it comes to audio post there is a whole lot more to it than just what we immediately see - there's entire atmospheres that you need to rebuild. FX can be 10-20 layers each or more, plus you have the 20-40 layers of atmosphere, foley, dialogue etc.
I remember parts of Inception had upwards of 1900 tracks all going at once... The Muppets (IIRC) had ~250-300 just for the dialogue and soundtrack...
 
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ROC said:
@Jax where did you hear that Inception had 1,900?
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My question as well. My understanding is that most of the big mixing stages run, at most, 1,280 tracks. A full blown HD system is 256 tracks, and five synced HD systems is about the limit - one for dialog, one for Foley, two for sound FX, and one for the score and source music. There is the future possibility of 768 tracks per full blown HDX systems (recently released), but it will be quite a while before most will upgrade - they'll wait until the bugs are worked out.
 
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HoganSound said:
If you're looking for an ultra cheap DIY method, Ableton live offers a 30 free trial - http://www.ableton.com/download-suite-trial
Not sure what the limitations of the trial version are. No importing or exporting OMFs in Live but you can load in QTs and sync audio so that might be a viable option for you.
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Last time I checked, the limitations of the Live trial are such to make it useless. I think "no saving sessions" possibly combined with a time lockout. Anyway, most DAWs also offer a free trial, and Live would probably be the last one I would recommend for this sort of thing.

Which isn't to say it doesn't have its uses. Great for DJ-type performance (it's designed for it), and live theatre-type stuff (the ability to create looping scenes, with live triggers on top of that, mixing in new scenes, etc).

Oh, and free-trial caveat: Cubase requires you to have their security dongle, which sells for $30. Not an issue if you buy the full version (you'll need one), but just to TRY the software? Seems silly to me.
 
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