Mixing Audio For Beginners - Part 3

Here is the third installment of Mixing Audio For Beginners. If you’ve been following this illuminating compilation of the intricacies and the basics of sound and audio post-production, we’re gonna be addressing further topics taking it from where we left off in the last post about Mixing. Otherwise, we suggest you start off right from the very beginning. So, without further ado, let’s continue.

Ambiance

We mentioned last time that when editing dialogues in a studio through ADR, it is no less than pivotal to create the right environment for recording new lines. Every time a sound professional is tasked with re-recording lines and additional dialogue in a studio, they always have to pay special attention to several aspects that, if overlooked, could ruin the pace of the scene. Each dialogue edit inevitably comes with several challenges, like the gaps in the background environmental sound.

There’s nothing more unpleasant than listening to audio or a soundtrack where the background ambiance doesn’t match the action going on from one scene to the other. This phenomenon is highly common during ADR sessions, which is why, aside from helping the talent match the intensity each shot requires, sound professionals also need to edit the background sounds to fill any possible hole in order for the scene to feel homogenous.

The problem is when the production sound crew captures room tone on a specific location and then, once production is finished, the audio post-production crew needs to replace dialogue and fill the holes with room tone. Of course, there are tools to recreate room tones based on noise samples taken from existing dialogue recordings; however, it is indeed one of the most common tasks under the umbrella of audio post-production.

Sound Effects (SFX)

Whether coming across the perfect train collision sound in a library, creating dog footsteps on a Foley session, using synthesizers to craft a compelling spaceship pursuit, or just getting outside with the proper gear to record the sounds of nature, a sound effects session is the perfect opportunity for sound and audio professionals to get creative.

Sound effects libraries are a great source for small, and even low-budget, audiovisual projects; however, you definitely must not use them in professional films. Some sounds are simply too recognizable, like the dolphin sound every single time a movie, ad or TV show, shows a dolphin. Major film and TV productions use teams to craft and create their own idea of sound effects, which ultimately becomes as important as the music itself, for example. Think about the lightsaber sounds in any Star Wars movie.

After that, additional sounds can be created during a Foley session. Foley, as discussed in other articles, is the art of generating and crafting sounds in a special room full of, well, junk. This incredible assortment of materials allows foley artists to generate all kinds of sounds such as slamming doors, footsteps in different types of surface, breaking glass, water splashes, etc. Moreover, foley artists recreate these sounds in real time, which is why it is normal to have several takes of the same sound in order to find the one that best fits the scene —they are shown the action in a large screen, and then start using the materials they have at hand in order to provide the action with realistic sounds. Need the sound of an arm breaking? Twist some celery. Walking in the desert? Use your fists and a bowl of corn starch.

Music

Just like with sound effects libraries, when it comes to music, sound professionals have two choices based on their talks with production —they can either use a royalty-free music library, or they can, alongside music composers, create a score for the film entirely from scratch. Be that is it may, the director and productions are the ones who have the final say over what type of music they want to use in the project and, perhaps more importantly, where and when music is present throughout the moving images.

Sometimes video editors resort to creating music edits to make a scene more compelling. Other times, it’s up to sound professionals to make sure the music truly fits into the beat and goes in accordance with what is happening. The trick is to make the accents coincide with the pace of the on-screen moving images as the director instructed, and that music starts and ends where and when it’s supposed to.

Mixing

Assembling all the elements mentioned in the first two parts of this mini guide and this article into a DAW timeline and balancing each track and different group of sounds into a homogeneous soundtrack is perhaps where this fine art reaches its pinnacle. Depending on the size of the studio, it is possible to use more than one workstation and different teams working together simultaneously to balance the sheer array of sounds they’ve got to put in place.

*The images used on this post are taken from Pexels.com