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Split audio tracks go hot when added together?
Hi. As a disclaimer, I’m a video editor, so forgive my ignorance regarding audio sweetening.
We just finished a :60 commercial for a client, who requested split audio tracks on the D-Beta Master for ease in future revisions.
Our audio sweetener put stereo effects on the SFX and VO, and with D-Beta being 4 channel, I decided to go with Stereo VO on Ch 1&2, and Music+SFX on 3&4.
Our audio sweetener limited the Full Mix and all split tracks to -10db. The problem is, when I layer the splits on top of each other in Final Cut Pro, the audio levels are peaking well over -10db, and are bouncing around -6db. When each split is played discreetly, it is properly limited. We tried dropping all the splits by -3db, and
they were closer to legal -10db when played together, but the audio clearly sounded lower than the Full Mix.If, for example, I did an edit between the splits and the full mix (keeping the splits at full volume), you could not HEAR a discernible difference between their levels;, however, at the edit to the splits my audio meter bounced way above -10db. The sweetener mentioned something about the dynamic range being higher, because the splits were adding to each other.
My audio sweetener didn’t know how to solve the problem. How do I achieve keeping my splits sounding identical to the Full Mix without having them adding to each other, going over the broadcast legal -10db?
I am using Final Cut Pro 6.0.6. My audio sweetener is using Pro Tools. He is freelance and is longer around to help me. Sorry, but since audio is not my field of expertise, I cannot offer any more information.
Thanks in advance.
-Aj
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2 Replies
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[Aj Koch] “How do I achieve keeping my splits sounding identical to the Full Mix without having them adding to each other, going over the broadcast legal -10db?”
Here’s where it went wrong:
[Aj Koch] “Our audio sweetener limited the Full Mix and all split tracks to -10db.”
You can’t separately limit the split passes and have them subsequently have any relation to the mix anymore. The mixer should not have limited the split passes. Theoretically, like you tried, the split passes added together at unity levels should equal the mix. When they are limited separately, the balance changes and when added together, it won’t sound right and will sum too hot.
What should normally happen is the split passes should be layed down at mix level – not limited again. If the mix has a bus limiter on it, then that bus limiter setting will have to be applied once the split passes are summed together to get the mix exact.
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Awesome. Thank you so much!
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