Remove short silence gaps

[Don Smith]

Got it figured out.

[Darren Edwards]

A ‘producing for TV’ tip:

The majority of folks still have standard TVs housing
standard (aka, poor quality) speakers, which don’t like
spikey audio above a certain level. When mastering your
audio for television output try to keep it under -1.5dB.

An easy way of doing this is to highlight your entire
final mix, select Effects/Amplitude/Hard Limiting (aka
a noise gate) and program:

Limit Max Amplitude: -1.5dB
Boost Output: 0dB
[The rest of your options are not too important.]

Just for the record: the general standard for audio destined
for the film screen output is -6dB, although digital HD screens
will change all of this eventually.

—

Edited a wedding video (using Audition) for a BBC friend once.
Most boring two days of my life.

Cheers,
Darren.

x-gf.com

[Don Smith]

Thanks Darren. That was helpful. Hey, my weddings aren’t boring! Well, some of them are.

[Willie Toth]

Actually the -6db standard has been out the window for some time in the music industry … CD’s are normalized to -.01 in most cases … I hardlimit to -1db for my TV show and it seems to work out very well … You can also highligh just the peak, do a minus amplification and then you can hardlimit … When hard limiting with a 0db gain you don’t take full advantage of what hard limiting can do, (limiting the peaks and amplifying the stuff burried in the muck amd mire) … I once shot a wedding for a relative and it took me a year just to be able to sit down and do the editing … I swore I would never do another one and last week I actually volunteered myself to edit footage from a friends wedding … I commend anyone who can shoot and edit weddings on a regular basis ………. WILLIE

[Emmett Andrews]

A hard limiter and a noise gate are not the same thing…Not even close. And most major TV and film projects will not use any type of limiting at all. My instructions have always been very clear…No limiting and very little compression. With film, the level is essentially set close to an overall RMS level, which is in no way related to -6dB. Closer to -25 RMS is much more what you would expect to see. Everything about the film will follow that average level, including previews and trailers. It is different for every film.

[Darren Edwards]

The -6dB/-1.5dB standards are pre-digital ones, of course, but it’s
still useful advice, I think, for people upgrading their audio suites
to something more pro like Audition. It’s also useful for people who are
being encouraged to get into audio production because they want to pod-
and vodcast. There’s some truly great pod/vodcasts out there absolutely
shattered by the rubbish audio. Lest we forget that, for all the
progressive leaps and bounds in audio production we’re afforded by
HD broadcasting and state-of-art hardware, there’s an equal shift
in low-def towards new media which is broadcast via mobile phones
and PSPs, whose tiny, tinny speakers require even more modest mixing.

I’m not going to quibble about the differences of a noise gate and an
audio limiter, because by definition a noise gate is an audio limiter.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Emmett Andrews]

No it certainly is not. It’s not even close to the same thing, and you should not be despensing advice about things that you obviously do not understand.

A noise gate (or downward expander) removes noise below a defined threshold (NOISE GATE, get it?). It is a form of noise reduction, and does not affect the peak amplitude in the least. Gating, which has a hard ration, is generally used for getting a crack out of a snare, while expansion is commonly used to reduce background noise in more gentle recordings, such as vocals or acoustic guitar. Many voice processors (including my Focusrite Voicemaster Pro) have a downward expander. And again I say, IT DOES NOT EFFECT PEAK:RMS RATIO!

A limiter, on the other hand, is simply a compressor with an infinate:1 ratio, so that no sound exceeds the defined threshold. It reduces the peak/RMS ratio, which increases percieved volume, but reduces dynamic impact.

Expansion and gating are basically the same function, but compression and limiting are completely different from expansion and gating. They do all fall under the category of “Dynamics processing”, and work with similar algorithms, but they are not the same thing at all.

I suggest you do some research before you begin leading people in the wrong direction. There’s no sense in starting someone on the wrong foot.

Emmett

[Darren Edwards]

Well, you’re right and you’re wrong, because there’s guitar
pedals and certain plugins out there which combine both peak
limiting and gating control. Audition does not compress the
audio when ‘limiting’ is applied. And don’t ‘GET IT?’ me,
either.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Emmett Andrews]

No, I’m right. Period. I don’t care what some cheap guitar pedal does. I’m sure it is either a full dynamics pedal, or it is simply so cheap that the circuits can’t handle the extended dynamic range, so it is limited to control the S/N ratio. Look at ANY professional dynamics processor that includes an expander/gate or any standalone expander/gate. Talk to any professional. The answer will be the same. And yes, Audition does apply compression when limiting is applied. It has to. All limiters have to. I already told you that a limiter is simply a compressor with an infinate:1 ratio…The Audition hard-limiter adds a lookahead feature, like you would find on most broadcast audio processors. But it is still nothing more than a compressor with an infinate:1 ratio, though pretty much any compressor will be limiting after about 50:1. And a gate is simply an expander with an infinate:1 ratio. Apparently, you still do not “get it” and so you’re taking an amateur approach to speaking with a professional. Get your facts straight…Do some research and then come back and despense advice. It seems to me that you should be the one asking, since you clearly have very limited understanding.

[Darren Edwards]

I’ve produced, mastered and mixed 1000s of tracks with Audition.
I have 16 years experience as a professional musician/producer,
and when I finished my Media Technology BSc(Hons) degree last
year, I graduated with a first. My dissertation (which also
received a first) was on compression techniques and frequency
anomalies in electronic voice phenomenon experimentations.

I also now how to conduct myself in an Internet forum, even
my conversing with patronising, anonymous know-it-alls such
as yourself, although I take your point that to apply specific
details (i.e. noise gate) in a general ‘aka’ way is disingenuous,
but hardly a hanging offence for you to bang on and on about
ad nausuem.

D.

myspace.com/xgfmedia