[Ty Ford]

Hello CJ and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Try thinking about it this way. You don’t own the music. It belongs to someone else.

There’s something special about that song. It’s a popular piece of music. I can name that tune in two seconds. Millions of people know that sound. You are using it because it has specific value. If they want to get you, anyone can file a law suit.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Welcome to the Cow Audio Forum MIn,

Rodney and Brain have given some excellent advice.

Controlling high volume sound as early as possible in your chain is a good idea. If your mic has a 10 dB pad use it. If it doesn’t, then you trim at the mixer or at the camera. At some point, however, a microphone’s capsule may be overloaded. If it is, no amount of downstream adjustment will work.

Some modular mics offer the ability to change capsules. Of these, a few have attenuation modules that can be placed inbetween the capsule and the body. This keeps the output of the capsule from distorting the rest of the mic’s electronics. But, again, if the capsule is distorting, there’s isn’t much you can do.

Some builtin mic pads are put inbetween the capsule and the impedance converter. Others are put after the converter. If you have a mic with a pad that comes after the converter and the capsule is overdriving the converter, you can’t escape distortion.

Low frequency roll off, sometimes call high pass, vary on different mics. Again, some high end modular systems offer a pad between the capsule and the impedance converter. This keeps the impedance converter and other downstream parts from having to deal with LF junk.

I always try to err on the side of caution and not take too much off, leaving some of the work for the folks in post. As mentioned, once you’ve scraped it off, there’s no putting it back.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

what’s more important is whether your sound guy can provide that.

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

[Ryan Krickow] “1. The correct audio file(s) for picture editing would be a mono mix track.

>>Yes, if he does a mono mix track

What I’m not quite sure of is if there would be an advantage to having 2 mono mix tracks vs. 1 mono mix track? It seems like 1 mono mix track is all you would need for picture editing but I could be wrong.

>>As I mentioned before. With two tracks of mono, some folks like to run one track a few dB lower than the other in case of unexpected outbursts. the main track might clip, built the lower one (hopefully) won’t. Don’t know if the mixer used will allow that.

2. The correct audio files for post sound would be isolated “iso” tracks or production split tracks.
If you want to have each mic on a separate track, yes. I think “Split Tracks” usually refers to the sending of different audio to each of two tracks. Whereas “Splits” frequently refers to dialog, music or effects tracks. Dialog splits, Music splits, and EFX splits. The word “stems” is also used the same way.

Thus I would request a mono mix track(s?) and iso tracks.
>>For what?

If audio gets recorded on the camera then all need is the iso tracks.
>>Yes, but having a single mono mix on a camera track would be prudent.

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

[Ryan Krickow] “We’re shooting dual system sound (with a production sound mixer and a boom operator) so we won’t have the audio going to the camera. The main thing I’m trying to figure out in terms of tracks/channels & mono/stereo is the correct terminology to use when asking for the mixed audio (for picture editing) and separate audio files for each channel/mic (for post sound). Based on what has been said I believe that I would ask for a mixed mono track and split tracks. Is that correct? Thanks, Ryan”

Ryan,

Dual system still usually runs audio to the camera for safety and possible sync up later. That’s why it’s called DUAL. This is new information you didn’t mention before. How many tracks does the recprder have?

You can have mixed mono (one or two tracks) or mixed stereo in two tracks. Unless you have enough tracks, you can’t have both mixed and iso. If you only have two tracks, you can mix mono to one and have one iso track for one source ONLY.

I advise you to stand aside and let the location audio folks talk to the post folks rather than trying to interpret something you are unfamiliar with. Listen to what they say. Ask questions. Learn.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

>>[Ryan Krickow] “So, if I wanted to get a mixed mono track (audio file) for picture editing would that come in 2 tracks (left and right speakers) and what terminology would I use to ask for it?

Ryan, if you were feeding one camera with two audio tracks, you would ask the audio person for a mono mix to both tracks.

>>Then, would I also ask for split tracks (instead of iso’s) if I wanted to get 1 separate file per channel/mic for post sound? Would these audio files also be 2 tracks (left and right speakers)?

Ryan, if you only have two mics you can split track them one to each channel/track. Most of the time that’s what’s done whether you have boom and lav on one person or two lavs each on a different person, or a boom on one person and a lav on another person.

If you have three or more mics and only two channels of audio on the camera and you want maximum flexibility in post, then you have to decide what’s most important and put that mic on its own channel/track. This gets very tricky if you are a one person audio department. You can’t really swing a boom ride its level and ride two other lav levels at the same time. Well you CAN, but eventually, you’ll screw up, especially if the speaking is extemporaneous.

If you can’t go back and redo because of a bad sound move, or if someone inadvertently speaks before you expect them to and you don’t have their pot up, then you get what you get.

Paying attention to riding gain on three or more mics has required pretty much all of my attention, leaving me without the ability to swing a boom.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Adam and welcome to the Cow Audio Forum.

Last time I checked (and it’s been a while), DTS used less data compression. So better sound but bigger files. Dolby can be encoded on film edge. Theaters need CD players synced to the film to playback DTS.

My home entertainment system has a decoder for Dolby Digital. I don’t know if it has a DTS decoder. It may, but I think there are more Dolby Digital project in the market than DTS. Some features come out with BOTH.

I don’t know what the licensing costs differences are.

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

You nailed it JC, but I have minor additions.

“As for channels and tracks, on most gear and in most software a “track” is an audio stream which can have one or more channels. Channels are independant components of the track, usually allocated to speakers. So a stereo track will contain two channels, a 5.1 track will contain 6 channels, etc… Hence, one mono track can not contain two channels, left and right. That would necessarily be a stereo track. Most production sound I’ve worked with comes on two channels, but they are not left and right. They’re usually Lav and Boom, the separate mics. Some production sound also comes in with a stereo mix on two channels, but we rarely use that in post. That would be your “production sound mix”, but your audio post guy will need “production split tracks” to work. Don’t take this differentiation of tracks and channels for granted, though. In many instances, the terms are used as if they meant the same thing.”

A channel is usually something on a piece of audio hardware, a console, for example. It’s not uncommon to refer to the left and right channels or left and right tracks of a video camera.

An audio track down here usually refers to one channel or track of audio. A track was historically a track on a tape recorder, but now is a track on a piece of software running on a computer.

There’s also the possibility of a dual mono mix where all mics go to both channels. This is sometimes done to prevent postproduction people from just choosing one track for the audio.

Some sound mixers also feed dual mono but run the level of one channel on the camera down a few dB to allow for accidental overs. It’s a safety net in case things get too loud. The, hopefully, the reduced channel isn’t clipped.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Confusing? A little.

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Ernie,

What’s the output connector on you Presonus?
What’s the input connector on your camera?

Regards,

Ty Ford

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[Ty Ford]

Hello Ernie,

How would yours be different than he ones already out there?

Regards,

Ty Ford

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