[Jeff Friah]

Wow! I’m so glad I ran across this board today! Read and commented on three threads so far. All great information!

Yes…the crickets ARE getting louder (but I’ll deal with them with my Izotope Rx and a nice steep Q around 5.2k).

Bailouts for hardworking audio pro’s would be kindly accepted, yes. Haha.

I second (and third and fourth…) Rodney’s valuable(!) comment:
“One piece of advice, if you advertise your work at a lower rate, it’s much harder to bring it up later. However, you have to eat and keep a roof over your head, so you do what you have to do. But lowering your rates can hurt other sound mixers in your area in the long run – my fear is that it becomes a downward spiral of continually offering the lower price to get the work.”

My studio manager has run into that very problem a couple times. Once you drop rates, clients expect to pay that again in the future. It is a tough game, bidding and quoting, and doing. And, yes, rate drops affect everyone because then EVERYONE has to try to play in the same ballpark if they wanna play ball. (at least operators/facilities of a certain size/workload)

We have a fair number of things coming in for ‘sweetening’ of FCP and Avid edits, and they can be a chore and at some point, the audio (audio-only) pro’s have to just shrug their shoulders at the amount of audio inside some edits these days. SOME are bypassing audio post entirely based on budgets, and it is all done within the video edit system.

Not slagging it; just pointing out facts. I have to brush up on my FCP chops!!! Might be ‘job security’ soon!

😉

“Sounds good!….I think?”

[Jeff Friah]

“Hear Hear” Mike!!!

I was actually on set once as a guest and was watching a scene with a similar-and very fixable-noise source that was actually mentioned by an actor. And I actually heard “the sound guys will fix that…don’t worry.” I wish I’d had the boom in my hands for that quote to play back during the mix.

Recent favourite: a scene shooting exterior on gravel/small rocks, a typical ‘walk n talk’. The shot was all from the waist up. Was a carpet or anything put down? Nope. What did I hear in the final mix? “Can you turn down the foley feet?” Nope. There were none.

I digress—- YES—Izotope Rx and CEDAR are your friends!!! And if you can FIND friends who have them in their arsenal, pull favours. I believe Izotope Rx has a demo as well?

But yes, the danger–of course–is fixing it with tools (“lessening it” with tools—sorry!!!) and then people think you can do it again, easily. Not if you’ve called in favours.

Good luck!

“Sounds good!….I think?”

[Jeff Friah]

Hi, guys. Just dropped in on some searching because I had my own personal audio hell on a MOW project I just wrapped up that I must admit, had some pretty ‘out there’ ADR.

We (audio pro’s) all wish there was a quick click-n-go plugin/fix for problems and you already know: it ain’t gonna happen that easily / you gotta use your ears and the tools at your disposal.

That said…and budgets being what they are…and clients and deadlines saying “we gotta have this done NOW!”, we fly by the seat of our pants.

Yes, without hearing the stuff, I’d personally have to also say if you’re trying to match ADR to location sound, the rule I live (and die) by is “try to make the ADR sound ‘like production sound'” in the most general sense and not in any way a slight at location mixers. It is simply reality of audio physics: outdoor (or indoor/ on-set) environment vs. studio recording with good quality mics in a quiet/dead area. Making indoor ADR close-miked sound like a lav or a wide-boom in an outdoor scene is always one of my favourite challenges.

Usually I say “I have to go warm up my tea” and then am never seen again.

Joking aside: yeah, you wanna try to make the ‘good’ quality ADR recording (not always the case…I’ve done enough features and TV where the ADR quality is wayyyyy noisier and mic’d from who-knows-where) sound like a muffled lav. I’d start by using rolloffs on both hi and lo and, barring any noise floor/background noise, I’d use a frequency analyzer/EQ that shows you a display.

That’s a good starting ground. Then, people always talk about notching certain frequencies. I find I often have to ADD ‘crappy’ frequencies to the ADR to get it to approximate location sound.

Personally, for me, harmonics of 200-250Hz are general notes to look for and deal with. And sometimes I add or subtract the ‘brittle’ sound up in the 2.3kHz-3.6kHz range. Often I take out/shelf some 5-6kHz and pretty much ALWAYS have a set EQ at my favourite “15771Hz” (16k) which I use to deal with the infamous “TV squeal” from those still using tube TVs and monitors in their ADR sessions (or…even on location sound from nearby monitors or a TV on in the scene).

I’m still one of the lucky ones after 13 years of doing this that I still have 16k in my range, hahaha.

And, yes, ambiences and fill are your friends. So is creative use of reflections and reverbs. Keeping in mind sending TO a reverb is not always the best, when your aux input has 100% wet and you’re simply sending to it. I’ve often hard-processed sound files with a mixed reverb on it so it ‘sounds like it was recorded in a similar room/locatoin’.

As well—trade secret but: try (if you have the tools) pitch-shifting a bit either way. Often can help match or ‘improve’ a performance a bit. Because one BIG part of ADR is the performance and delivery. Trust me…I did it every day for 3 years with many actors per day. Good thing I have my Psychology degree!!!

Good luck, and any questions, drop me a line. I’d help you tweak if I could, but sounds like (always…) timelines are tight

-Jeff

“Sounds good!….I think?”