Audio Editing Help

[Aira Vehaskari]

I’m stumped too. I’ve checked that it’s a volume envelope – when I raise and lower the line it even says at what dB the volume is. The strange thing is that I got it to work fine on my other tracks. The line is a different colour on this track, it’s a darker blue, does that indicate anything about it?

[Aira Vehaskari]

aha – I realized that my automation settings had automation off. I set it back to the default “automation write” setting (though I don’t know exactly what that means), and the volume control works now.

I thought I had to have the automation off if I wanted to make manual adjustments, but this is clearly not the case.

I’ll just go re-read the manual a bit now, shall I? 🙂

But I do have another un-related question about audio levels. I’m producing short docs for national digital broadcast tv, and I’m adjusting the “speak” and b-roll volumes by ear. Is there a standard or useful guideline for what dB they should be set at? And is there anyway to minimize background buzz? I have an interview where either there was an air conditioner in the background or the radio mic was picking up some whine.

again, thanks for this very useful forum! Perhaps someday I could actually contribute something useful to it.

cheers,
aira

[John Rofrano]

> Is there a standard or useful guideline for what dB they should be set at?

[Note: tongue planted firmly in cheek] I’ve never done any work for broadcast but as a consumer of broadcast TV and having been thrown out of my chair with my ears bleeding from the volume when a commercial comes on I’d say there is no standard. As far as I can tell it’s a free-for-all and broadcasters should be embarrassed and TV manufacturers should be required to add an audio limiter to all TV’s so that the volume never exceeds what I set it to. 😉

I’ll leave the real answer for someone who knows.

> And is there anyway to minimize background buzz?

There are several noise reduction plug-ins that will handle broadband noise. BIAS Sound Soap 2 is inexpensive and gets the job done. Sony Noise Reduction is also good but getting a little long in the tooth. The best one I’ve found is iZotope RX. This is a tool that I believe every videographer should have in their bag. Quite simply, it can perform miracles. It can fix problems that just a year ago we would have told you were impossible to fix. On of the tools in the RX suite is DeNoiser which is the one you want. If you can’t afford iZotope RX, go with BIAS Sound Soap.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com