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Voice Overs
Hi,
I have an intersting little job coming up and, as a new guy, wanted to ask some advice of the more seasoned. I’m working with some people who have a lot of voice overs to lay down on lots of shows. They’re dubbing the shows off digibeta into FCP6 and then recording the VO onto track 3 with the voice over tool. Once it’s recored and the silent bits are cut out. Is there any way to automatically fade the original track own 15db over 10 frames or so when the VO in track 3 starts, and then up again when it stops? There’s going to be tons of work like this, so any advice on speeding up or automating the process would be much appreciated, otherwise theres going to be lots of keyframing and dragging.
Many thanks
Steve.
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3 Replies
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[stevelee] “Is there any way to automatically fade the original track own 15db over 10 frames or so when the VO in track 3 starts, and then up again when it stops?”
Steve,
First, we’d have to have more info in order to give you good advice. Are the M&E tracks (music and effects tracks) off the tape premixed or just cut in at nominal levels?
What you’re essentially suggesting that you’d like an automated method to ride the M&E (music and effects) tracks when there is no narration. a) That’s not going to sound very good, and b) there’s no automated way to do it any way.
More than likely, especially if the M&E tracks are in fact premixed, all you’ll really need to do is just pull the M&E tracks down slightly on global basis so nothing overides the naration track. If that’s not good enough you can just ride the M&E tracks in realtime using the mixer.
David
“No job is worth doing more than once…”
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
what you’re looking to do is something called “ducking” … and No, this is not something that is a feature of FCP. You’ll need to ride these levels manually.
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What you’re looking to do is a compressor “side chain” which is a good idea – in the analog audio world it can be very effective AND save you a boatload of work. Sadly, I’m not sure if you can pull this off in FCP. Look into it in Soundtrack mebbe?
From the Wiki:
Side-chaining:
Side-chaining uses the dynamic level of another input to control the compression level of the signal. This is used by disc jockeys to lower the music volume automatically when speaking, for example (known as ducking). A frequency-specific compressor (often used for de-essing) may be constructed by feeding a high-pass filtered copy of the original signal into the side-chain input of the compressor so that volume reduction on the original signal only takes place when a specific frequency is present in large amounts (such as sibilant sounds that tend to overdrive preemphasized media such as phonograph records and FM radio). Another use of the side-chain in music production serves to maintain a loud bass track, while still keeping the bass out of the way of the drum when the drum hits.
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