[Peter Groom]

Just to add 1 last thing.

I appreciate that your primary skillset is away from audio. This is the case for MOST video professionals. However Id encourage you grasp the learning curve that this project represents with its audio. Good audio is rarely noticed by the lay viewer, but bad audio wrecks the entire production.
Television is an “Audio-visual” medium. Thats 50% of the phrase is audio and the importance, and impact it can have on the end product should ever be underestimated!
Arn yourself with the skills to ensure
1) When you make the recordings you make good recordings, with well chosen and placed mics and enough coverage to capture everything required in the mix.
2) Then the post production end of things will be so much less painful and audio will become less of a pain that always feels like a struggle.

I dont mean it to sound like a lecture.
Cheers
Peter

Dubbing mixer

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Id say get your fingers on the faders and ride the levels before compression. push the quieter up and drag the louder down until the dynamic range of the piece is creatively dynamic rather than just too quiet or too loud. Then apply a small amount of compression (no more than 6 db on a ratio of 3:1 and apply a little make up gain to put things back where they were peak wise.

80% of audio post of “recorded dialogue” is correction of what should have been recorded better!

NB Youre about to discover why sound engineers use mixing consoles and not on screen faders and keyframes for mixing.

Peter

dubbingmixer

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Hi
Just to add. i should have put this on the priginal post.
Clearly as theres a use for dipped stems, just like theyre a problem in other cases, theres often the need to produce a whole raft of what are called “deliverables”

All M&E
5. 1 stems dipped
5.1 stems un dipped
Stereo dipped
Stereo un dipped

Clearly with so many requirements, on a system like Pro tools, its worth investing the time setting up a VERY complex routing and monitoring matrix to do ALL the deliverables in 1 pass. Not a problem when its 30 seconds, but a 90 min film is a different matter.

Peter

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Hi
This is for an M&E submission. Dipped stems or mixes are where the music or effects would “dip” under say the Voice over. If they specify undipped, then this means that if the put a different length foreign language on it for example, the underlaying m&E mix wont dip where the old vo used to be, but not with the new one.

Just mix it without the vo and leave the relative values between effects and music the same but dont mix them under the vo

Peter

Dubbing mixer

Peter

[Peter Groom]

HI
You need to look at https://www.virtualkaty.com
Thats what it does and very well too.

Peter

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Hi Sam
Any of those surface controllers work with avid Xpress that you know about?
Peter

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Like everyone says.
If you make a cup of tea and put sugar in it, you cant later remove the sugar – only make a fresh cup.
What you CAN do is add “other stuff” music fx etc etc to lessen the nakedness of the poorer sound, but it will stay poor, just accompanied by other audio.

Corry

Peter

Peter

[Peter Groom]

How many channels are you wanting for the money?
Peter

Dubbing mixer

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Hi Ty
How it came about

Yes Virtual Katy was named after a real girl called Katy, who worked on the Lord of the rings films with the softwares designer. Her job was to re conform the on going audio tracklay to the amended picture cuts. Im told there were hundreds of revisions each with many many offsets and this became a massive and troublesome task. So after the film, they went of and designed the software.

What it does.

VK takes a timeline in an audio workstation (Pro Tools in my case) but its also designed to work on a number of platforms.
When the pictures are re cut (either by 1 offset or by thousands of offsets) the editor generates 2 EDL’s (Edit decision Lists). List 1 is of the timeline before the changes (when it married up to the audio timeline ) and EDL 2 is after the changes. VK then imports the 2 edls, and analyses (really fast) what has gone on, and applies these changes to the Pro tools timeline, faster than you can see.

Its really just number crunching the offsets. A few cuts – its probably best just slicing the timeline up yourself with the edl from the editor, but 100 , or 1000, or more. Thats when it saves your bacon.

Is it reliable

It hasnt failed me yet!

Is it costly
Yes quite (I cant remember but i think I paid about £1000. In the context of lost studio hours and a commercial facility its quickly paid for its self.

What next
Well after it chop livered up the timeline to re sync with the new picture cuts, you have to go through the cut points and smooth etc, sort out music transitions etc ane remix the joints, but it does save a LOT of time.

Have a look at the website. https://www.virtualkaty.com. It has videos etc etc, and you can take part in a live webinar to ask your own questions with John Mckay (the designer)

Cheers

Peter

Dubbing mixer

Peter

[Peter Groom]

Correct – def option 1
And for the times when th epictures do change significantly AFTER audio export and lock, theres always virtal katy.
Peter

Peter