I am getting awful dialog sound. HELP!!!

[Henchman]

Being on a professional dub stage does not mean the mixer you are using knows what he is doing,or is any good.

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Upload some samples straight from the camera, so we can have a listen

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

[demariai]

Why don't you upload a sample from the camera and after the mixer to compare

[abes]

^Agreed^

Would love to hear a before/after sample.

And what setup was you using when you played back through stereo?

[Branko]

Originally Posted by jujufactory

I just feel there must be a way by spending time on EQ and/or runningf the track through some box that one should be able to get at least decent sound.

You're absolutely right!
There is a process which includes "spending time on EQ and/or running the track through some box". It is called sound mixing, usually done in rooms called "Dub Stages". In these rooms there are several boxes, some of them are really big and have a funny shape - people in these rooms call them "Mixing Desks".
Very often, in these rooms you can find one or two guys who know how to run the sound through these boxes (everyone calls them "Mixers"), and who are willing to "spend time on EQ", if you give them some money. In most cases, people that own the room will ask for money, too.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Henchman

Being on a professional dub stage does not mean the mixer you are using knows what he is doing,or is any good.

This could be the case.

Or the more likely scenario: There is no mention of a mixer or boom-op. Meaning they just had "some guy" hold a microphone. Why else would they go straight into the camera?

There is a reason good location mixers and boom-ops charge what they do.

[Bill@AudioVision]

Originally Posted by jujufactory

... It sounded awful. When I say awful, I mean metallic, harsh and cheap.

The fastest way to that sound is summing two mics to mono. Was there a camera mic on one channel, and the 416 on the other? Editing in 'stereo' would hide that, but summing both channels to mono on a dub stage will be a disaster. If you have a clueless (or vindictive) mixer on the dub stage, than you'll need to make change there, or go back to re-edit the dialog and deliver a mono track.

[Pedantic Sound]

Originally Posted by jujufactory

The mixer said that you can't expect anything better if you don't have a professional sound recordist and a nagra etc.

...riiiiiiight.

[Henchman]

It's hard to make a judgement call without hearing the source.
But this does sound like a mix issue. Not necessarily a record issue.

[ErikG]

If they didnt have a pro boomer I'm not at all surprised.

[its_in_da_mix]

Originally Posted by Henchman

It's hard to make a judgement call without hearing the source.

+1
jujufactory : please post some before/after samples so there is something to reference to. Very hard to give an opinion on sound if we can't hear it.

Did you have a pro location mixer and a pro boom-op?
Did you record several tracks (not only the 416), and did the editor use the correct tracks?


And just a small tip: be a bit careful saying this:

Originally Posted by jujufactory

On the editing room using standard stereo speakers it sounded fine.

... to mixers. We hear it too often.
And an editing suite is rarely a place where you can judge sound. :o)


Branko -
Although your post may or may not necessarily be applicable to the OP's problem in this case ...... (being diplomatic ;o) )

but.....

[jujufactory]

There is no need to be condescending. I know what a mixer is and what a sound recordist does. I also know that it is always better to do things with pros. Now once we can get past the obvious, perhaps we can adress this particular situation. I respect Gearslutz because we are among serious people here who are willing to help each other out. If you need to hear it from me: the recording choices I made were done because of budget constraints. Need I say more? What is done is done. Now I need to worry about the mix, not about what could/should have been done.

So, once again, here is the situation: We recorded the audio using a boom and a 416 plugged into an EX1. The EX1 recorded the audio on two channels with two different levels (One lower level for safety).

Here are two short samples from 2 different scenes. One has a man and a woman talking. The other has 2 women talking. These are combined A/B rolls which means that the people were not recorded together but in individual takes. I exported the audio onto wav from the Premiere Timeline using the original 48hz 16bit sampling rate of XDCAM EX. I picked those to scenes because that is what I heard on the mixing stage and it sounded awful and to me.

The sound mixer has experience but I have never worked with him before. The question is the following: can this audio dialog be made to sound good (or acceptable) in a movie theater? I thank all of you in advance for your feedback. I hope we can avoid the unecessary sarcasm.

Index of /test

[Branko]

Sorry, jujufactory, just had a bad day yesterday... I see productions cutting budgets every day, and the most obvious victim is the sound department. When it comes to mix, it is often too late to fix anything, and the money's already gone, so there are no means to correct things... which makes me sad and angry.
Now, back to business, those examples are your original edited dialog, aren't they? That was the raw stuff you sent to the dubbing stage, right? If I'm guessing correctly, you don't have files that are mixed/processed by the Mixer.

[pethenis]

Just listening on my Imac in the office, so all bets are off but I would say that doesn't sound so bad. I've had WAY worse source material. It is quite roomy and essy though, but you could make it work. And in the second example somebody is off mike so bad, you probably won't be able to salvage that line...

[Henchman]

Are you kidding. Those sound better than any of the dialog in the last scripted pilot I mixed for a network broadcaster. I wish it sounded as good as those two clips. And there is no reason the dialog shouldn't be able to sound great.

[itsyourself]

If it sounds so terrible in the theatre, then either the mixer has done something weird with it, or it is being fed through some sort of processing to upmix it to surround, which is producing phasey artifacts and an artificial sound. I am suspicious of his mention of Nagra etc, as these haven't been used for twenty years. However, i think you should tell him you want to hear it in mono without processing.

[FullFrequency]

Yeah I thought it sounded pretty good too. I've had way better, but also wayyyyyy worse. Would be interested to hear what it sounds like after the dial premix!

[jujufactory]

I have added 3 minutes of the center track of the 5.1 premix.

Index of /test

[pethenis]

Again, a quick listen on my Imac. It doesn't sound as bad as you described in your first post. It does sound a bit flat as in lack of dynamics, as in too much compression and/or limiting. If you want some comments that make sense, please upload the same piece of dialogue, once raw, once mixed. Then we can see what was done.

Wait, you listened on his/her dubstage, right? That could be it. If you edited this thing for a long time, hearing each subtle detail of the sound over and over again with the soothing sounds of your nearfields (...), a horn-loaded cinema system can be, erm... quite something else.

[demariai]

I don't think is anything wrong with the audio. You can easily make it sound good without problem. I heard on the pre-mixed some noises when a guy talks like a lav mic touching clothes or hair

[demariai]

Originally Posted by jujufactory

I have added 3 minutes of the center track of the 5.1 premix.

Index of /test

why do you have music on the center channel at the end?

[Henchman]

I think the original production sounds bettervthannteh mix.
There's lots of clothes rustling etc on the mix, that I find annoying. And the warmth is gone as well.

[minister]

My opinion is that capturing Dialogue with a 416 directly into an EX1 camera is not the best way to record film sound. The pre-amps are not ideal. The room sounds large, there is a lot of clothing noise. In a room such as that, a hyper-cardioid may have been better. The other thing that is not known is how well the boom-op swung the stick. But, it is usable audio for sure!

I actually listened in the studio. I don't care for what the mixer did, and in many ways, to my ear, is not an improvement. He brought up inherent noise when he compressed it, and doesn't sound like first-class noise reduction work. They also got rid of too much low end, and didn't shape it in a way that I would prefer. But I have heard worse and I think your first post over-states the quality -- the mix is not as bad as you announced. Yet, the source recording if pretty decent all things considered. A good Dialogue sound could definitely be achieved here.

Henchman always says that he only mixes for as long as the client pays for. He also always says he only deals with issues he has time for. Perhaps that is at play here : this mixer was given very limited amount of time and very little money.

My advice is have the Director go back to the mixer and give him (her?) another chance. Tell them what you are not happy with. Always best to give people respectful feedback and an opportunity to fix what the client is not happy with. If you are unable to achieve that given the money and time, then move to another place.

Try Steven Ghouti at Yellow Cab...he posts here all the time (and may be biting his tongue.)

YELLOW CAB Studios

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

In my experience lots goes wrong in the field.
Half the camera guys never listen to the audio. He could of had a crusty 416, shit cable, camera fault.
Let's not judge until we hear the source
Sent from my GT-N7000

[minister]

Originally Posted by BIGBANGBUZZ

Let's not judge until we hear the source
Sent from my GT-N7000

Did you see the links he posted above?

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

ok had a listen, I agree with minister.. Its not that bad the mix..heard far worse before. needs a little more de-noise and the bottom end a bit fatter.

Location wasn't great, way too roomy. 416 not the best choice.. needed to Lav it as well.. then blend it with the 416.
If you want perfection start with the source recordings.

[FlorianE]

The center track sounds to me as if he (over)used flat NR to get rid of the room reverb. Or maybe he used 'Unveil' with a lot of 'focus', which could explain why the clothes rustle comes up so strongly.
I don't think the location recording is good at all. 416 is a bad choice, both for boomy interiors and for inaccurate boom ops.

Cheers
Florian

[rhumphries]

OP said the premix sounded "metallic, harsh and cheap". Listening to the premix, I would guess that metallic is referring to the echo/slap of the room it was recorded in; the harshness is probably the clothing noise (though it could be the EQ). Both of these noises were present in the raw tracks, but the mixed version is pretty compressed, which I think brings up both the bad sounding reverb and the clothing noise. "Cheap" is a pretty subjective word to apply to audio, but I'm guessing that it also has something to do with the lack of dynamics.

I wouldn't describe the mix as "awful" like the OP did, but I think it could be improved given the right resources (i.e skill, time and money).

-R

[jujufactory]

Thank you for all the input. I will be taking this to another mixer. What really bothers me with this one is that he did not want to play around with the EQ, claiming it would take too much time to redo everything and he also played the famous 15 years of experience line on me which I don't particularly care for. Obviously this one does not want to make the necessary effort to make this sound right. Regards to everybody. Gearsluts is always the place to go to get good professional advice.

The only other thing is that I need to get this post production facility to give me the editing work they did. Since we won't be mixing with them, I have not checked their work in the mixing room. How can I can check it out before I pay the remaining sum (25%)? They worked on Nuendo. Can I check this on my Cubase? Is exporting an Wav of their edited stuff (without mix) a good way to check? Thank you.