sound editing help needed

neat film.. Very pretty settings, some great shots, attractive actors. color I think would have been better than B&W, but thats your artistic choice..

I think the crackling is because your overloading the digital signal. Remix everything DOWN and it might go away.. Even if the volume comes out so low that you have to crank up the volume knob on your speakers. This will let you know if thats the issue.

Another thing to check is your audio export settings. You might be choking off the audio at a lower bitrate\resolution, but since your mixing at a HIGHER bit rate\resolution you don't hear the crackle when you are mixing.. anytime you "clip" or overdrive digital signals you get this sorta crackle.

Of course you'll want to CORRECT the problem so you can bring the volume back up to more useful levels..

Frequently it is the LOW END in synth\music tracks, which you cant even HEAR without really great speakers, that causes this problem. Try using a HIGHPASS filter (or roll off everything under 40HZ with the EQ) on the music tracks.

Let me know how it goes.

Wheat hit the nail on the head - pushing the digital audio too hard, low end, conversion problems.

Your first issue (besides a substandard listening environment and consumer speakers) may be the volume levels of the individual audio channels.

First, listen to material other than your project on your audio system, preferably a film with similar characteristics (they both are in the forest and both use synth music); play it as loud as you can (up to 89db) so that it still sounds pleasing without distorting the speakers. This is your mix level. DO NOT CHANGE THIS LEVEL UNTIL YOUR MIX IS COMPLETE.

When you mix you should build around the dialog. If you make the dialog loud, everything else will have to be louder. Start with the dialog peaking at around -18db on the digital meter. As you bring the other audio elements into the soundscape and if the dialog starts getting buried don't make the dialog louder, make the other elements softer.

You also have to be aware of the input and output levels on the audio channel and sub-mix channel plug-ins (such as EQs and limiters) as they can distort, so unless you have the plug-in "open" you won't see it.

The different elements should occupy different sonic spaces. Dialog tends to be centered in the 2kHz to 4kHz area of the frequency spectrum. These freqs can be reduced if the dialog sounds "honky" or increased if it needs some additional intelligability. Again, get the dialog sounding sweet and build around it.

You can use EQ to "carve holes" in the ambient noise; reduce the EQ frequencies occupied by the dialog, you will actually be able to increase the ambient sound volume level a bit without interfering with the dialog.

You can do the same with the music - you can use EQ to "carve holes" in the music to give the dialog more space.

Audio signal (dynamic) compression can be used to increase the "apparent" loudness of audio elements. Just a little compression can get the dialog to pop out of the mix a bit more (too much and you'll increase the noise in the dialog track).

Try to give music and ambiences a wide stereo spread to allow the center to be occupied with dialog and Foley. (Speaking of Foley, you need some footsteps.)

Most mixes tend to be "muddy" meaning that they have too much low end and lower mids. I tend to do a fairly sharp roll-off (18db/octave) with a High Pass EQ starting at about 60Hz.

To sum up briefly, a large part of mixing is SUBTRACTIVE. Begin by taking things away rather than adding; start with a "wall of sound" and pare it away to the essentials, not by eliminating the elements but by reducing their presence.

When outputting the mix you may want to "dither down" the audio. (I don't know if dither is available in programs other than PT, but it makes a difference.) You also want to check your output settings to see if the audio is being converted properly.

There are a thousand more little details that go into a mix - even a simple mix - that are just too complicated to go into here. Last night I put in hour 90 mixing my current feature project and I'm doing a test DVD tonight so I can check the mix on other systems.

thanks for your time and advice. i dont really know anything about sound editing (obviously) but i'll try to follow your tips, cheers.

Can't be of any help on the sound but it looks like there is some great advice up there

I did watch the short though and I wanted to say I liked it a lot. Although I agree with wheat, I would have done this one in color, it would be more magical, IMO.

The editing could be tightened up, but you're obviously practicing and I think you're on your way

thanks dreadylocks, i might do a colour version if i ever get it finished. youre the only 2 who have said it would be better in colour though.

so after some faffing around i noticed the balance on the music was more to the left for some reason, i widened the stereo spread on the music and done a short test and it seemed to fix the crackling sound, will write the whole thing now and see how it turns out.

didnt work, still crackling

heres the short test i did with the stereo spread but when i wrote the whole thing it still crackled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="1280" height="745"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lmOBQzJb3C4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lmOBQzJb3C4&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="1280" height="745"></embed></object>

You can save your self some time in testing and just render the AUDIO.

Maybe your doing something on the export thats giving you grief. Can you post some screen shots of your settings.. ?

Have you tried exporting to different formats?

OK, on rereading, are you saying that BEFORE the ambiance track was added you did NOT have the crackle? If so, its very likely the ambience track is doing some subsonic stuff (not uncommon) and overloading your signal without seeming very loud. Try a render without that track..

For ambiance and Foley sounds check out http://www.freesound.org/

yes its free and its a HUGE library..

thanks for your time wheat, i wrote the audio as a file on its own and no crackling so i put it on the video and did a short clip and it was ok. so i'll try the whole thing now.

i dunno where the export settings are, thats how bad i am.


ok that worked! thank you so very much for helping out, i'll upload it 2mro. its very far from perfect but i did my best for now,

Woho! CONGRATS..

so what did you do to fix it? (post your fix so the next person with the same issue can google and find your solution)

ok so its not great, i'll try to up the music and lower the ambience and adjust the dialogue a little bit. the music was louder when i watched through my telly but seems to be too low on youtube?

all i did was copy and paste the audio on its own so it was all in its proper place and write the audio file on its own, and then put the written audio file back on to the audio track and write the file with the video. i'm sure someone with sound editing skills could do it a better way but it worked at least.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="1280" height="745"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5GkE6U7CVdo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5GkE6U7CVdo&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="1280" height="745"></embed></object>

sorry for bumping again. here is my final effort , i just cant do any better with my current knowledge.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="1280" height="745"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dXS5gpTJhAM&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dXS5gpTJhAM&hl=en_GB&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="1280" height="745"></embed></object>

The crackles are all gone! Great job..

I think this last render you ended up rendering both your MIXED DOWN audio AND the individual audio tracks.. it gives the dialog a sort of phasing sound.. and makes the levels strange.. but all in all, its better than the crackles..

The overall volume is way down, almost 75%.

Wheat - the "phasiness" of the sound is exactly as you described. The two tracks - the original and the mix - are playing together but are milliseconds off. That accounts for the phase problem, and possibly the volume problem as well, as there might be partial phase cancellation occurring as well.

so the reason the crackles are gone is the lowered overall volume (no more digital clipping) but likely the underlying cause is still there. I suspect that its in that ambiance track that has some subsonic things going on..