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Audio Levels for a clip show
I put together a monthly program with various “News” stories in the timeline. Often times these stories are shot in different locations with different gear so audio is always all over the place. When I’m editing each of these pieces together nat sounds and narration are married together but usually 1 story will be louder than the other and I’m riding audio levels throughout the whole show just to get it to work. Any ideas as to how I can make the whole program work with an audio level that doesn’t have to be adjusted? I keep all of the audio levels hitting at the same spot on the audio meter but they still sound quite a bit different. Thanks in advance!
Eric -
1 Reply
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Levels and apparent loudness do not correspond. A program that has had good dynamics processing can sound as loud as unprocessed with peak levels up to 10 db higher. Cheap microphones or recording in a bad acoustic can diminish perceived loudness as well.
Sound post, like grading, is part metering and mostly trusting eyes and ears with decent monitoring equipment. There isn’t an auto fix it plugin or box that works for audio any better than auto balance works for proper grading.
If you want a better way to meter perceived loudness than a meter than shows “phons” will give a better indicator. Some people will recommend a VU weighted meter which in my opinion is not much better than a digital peak meter if you don’t know what it actually displays (analog tape saturation in the case of VU).
You really need to be using a better audio system which lets you add dynamics processing (compression and peak limiting) to a bus or overall mix. Sound Track Pro is better than FCP in this regard.
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