Saturday, January 3, 2015

Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 


Same here. Standard is an EQ with a low-end roll-off on the dialogue tracks, plus a mild compressor to smooth things out. If needed, a brickwall limiter on the master fader. I love the Nugen ISL. Before that I was fond of the L2007 by Massey.

On 3 jan. 2015, at 01:11, Dave Hogan mactvman@yahoo.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I am a big fan of the track effects. 

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Friday, January 2, 2015

[Avid-L2] OT: The most important part of a 14year old girls Birthday party. Wifi and iPhone Chargers

 

Having just observed my daughter's 14 year birthday party I was inundated with requests for our wifi password and if we had chargers for their iPhones.  No mention of turning on the TV to watch a movie but they all sat in the family room playing trivia games with each other on their phones.  More texting than  chat.  The entertainment landscape is changing faster than I had imagined.  The parent conversation centered on how to track the kids with find my iPhone etc...  This makes me understand better why so many of the projects I work on are working on online aspects to the shows and forms of texting style participation.  It's really starting to feel like everything I know is wrong, or at the very least boring to the younger generation.
 
John Moore
Barking Trout Productions
Studio City, CA
bigfish@pacbell.net

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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Nice succinct description, Dave.


It was a red letter day for me when Avid added RTAS effects.  

Careful use of a compressor/limiter as described below makes a tremendous difference in the dialog quality and can save hours of rubberbanding or manual clip gain adjustments.  

You still have to use your ears, but mixing dialog becomes much easier, and mixing music under dialog is easier with consistent dialog levels.

- Rich

On Jan 3, 2015, at 9:11 AM, Dave Hogan mactvman@yahoo.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

I am a big fan of the track effects.  I usually put a compressor/limiter on my narration and dialogue tracks, and it allows me to adjust overall levels of clips to within a few db, and it smooths them out to a uniform level.  Use sparingly to avoid pumping effect and excessive noise.  A rule of thumb I learned long ago was to tend more towards a top end limiter, and never push more gain change than 6 or 7 db.  It really evens out dialogue and narration and often makes it more legible.

Use of Reverb for ring out, and to liven up a close recorded voice over track also works way better as a track effect and is much easier than using audiosuite plugins which have to be rendered.

Dave Hogan
Burbank, CA


On Friday, January 2, 2015 10:47 AM, "Jon Wilkman jon@wilkman.com [Avid-L2]" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Lesson learned.  Thanks for the info.  I was looking for a shortcut to tame wildly uneven levels, and have already made major progress on a standard mix.  I'm glad Zelin is less evident on the site these days.  He would have taken my head off (and I know him personally).
Jon

On 1/2/2015 9:21 AM, 'Job ter Burg (L2B)' Job_L2@terburg.com [Avid-L2] wrote:
 
Like a simple cough, or someone closing a door, or a tiny click. Normalize is not a mixing tool. 

On 2 jan. 2015, at 00:09, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip






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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

I am a big fan of the track effects.  I usually put a compressor/limiter on my narration and dialogue tracks, and it allows me to adjust overall levels of clips to within a few db, and it smooths them out to a uniform level.  Use sparingly to avoid pumping effect and excessive noise.  A rule of thumb I learned long ago was to tend more towards a top end limiter, and never push more gain change than 6 or 7 db.  It really evens out dialogue and narration and often makes it more legible.

Use of Reverb for ring out, and to liven up a close recorded voice over track also works way better as a track effect and is much easier than using audiosuite plugins which have to be rendered.

Dave Hogan
Burbank, CA


On Friday, January 2, 2015 10:47 AM, "Jon Wilkman jon@wilkman.com [Avid-L2]" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:


 
Lesson learned.  Thanks for the info.  I was looking for a shortcut to tame wildly uneven levels, and have already made major progress on a standard mix.  I'm glad Zelin is less evident on the site these days.  He would have taken my head off (and I know him personally).
Jon

On 1/2/2015 9:21 AM, 'Job ter Burg (L2B)' Job_L2@terburg.com [Avid-L2] wrote:
 
Like a simple cough, or someone closing a door, or a tiny click. Normalize is not a mixing tool. 

On 2 jan. 2015, at 00:09, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip




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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Lesson learned.  Thanks for the info.  I was looking for a shortcut to tame wildly uneven levels, and have already made major progress on a standard mix.  I'm glad Zelin is less evident on the site these days.  He would have taken my head off (and I know him personally).
Jon

On 1/2/2015 9:21 AM, 'Job ter Burg (L2B)' Job_L2@terburg.com [Avid-L2] wrote:
 
Like a simple cough, or someone closing a door, or a tiny click. Normalize is not a mixing tool. 

On 2 jan. 2015, at 00:09, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip


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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Like a simple cough, or someone closing a door, or a tiny click. Normalize is not a mixing tool. 

On 2 jan. 2015, at 00:09, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip

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[Avid-L2] Re: A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Normalising is a crude tool and no substitute for real mixing.
You need your dialogue levels to be within an audio level range that still leaves enough gain for high levels like effects or music.
It's all about mixing and balancing.

Pat from his mobile.

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Thursday, January 1, 2015

Re: [Avid-L2] Mbox2 Yosemite

 

I understand. I'm sure part of it is also the security, since the Mbox line acted as dongles for Pro Tools.


- Oliver

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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Ah ha!  The gain PLUGIN!  I was just using the gain faders on the audio mixer.  Thank you.  Thank you.
Jon

On 1/1/2015 4:15 PM, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] wrote:
 
Hi Jon,

When you say "just raising the gain didn't get me much compared to what normalize does", to me, this is nearly impossible. Consider that the Normalize plugin will adjust gain relative to the highest sample in your clip. Assuming the highest sample in your clip is probably within the range of -50 to -5 dBFs, the Normalization plugin is applying a gain change in the range of +5 to +50 dBFs. While +50 dBFs is huge, you'll find that the Gain plugin can apply up to +96 dBFs, way more than you could possibly need. Again, I'm not referring to the faders in the mixer, I'm comparing AudioSuite plugins. Use the Gain plugin rather than the Normalize plugin, and you should be set.

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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Hi Jon,

When you say "just raising the gain didn't get me much compared to what normalize does", to me, this is nearly impossible. Consider that the Normalize plugin will adjust gain relative to the highest sample in your clip. Assuming the highest sample in your clip is probably within the range of -50 to -5 dBFs, the Normalization plugin is applying a gain change in the range of +5 to +50 dBFs. While +50 dBFs is huge, you'll find that the Gain plugin can apply up to +96 dBFs, way more than you could possibly need. Again, I'm not referring to the faders in the mixer, I'm comparing AudioSuite plugins. Use the Gain plugin rather than the Normalize plugin, and you should be set.

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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Hi Mark, and a special Happy New Year.  You may be right that I'm not understanding the normalize process.  I'm not really a technician.  I marked the tracks for the entire program and normalized in and out.  Overall, that lifted the audio levels to max, which is fine.  Since many were recorded too low, just raising the gain didn't get me much compared to what normalize does.  Are you saying I need to treat "unnormalized" clip separately?  In most cases the non-normalized clips are too low compared to the rest of the segment, even from the same interview.  A few are noticeably higher, again from the same interview, excerpted from only a few seconds apart.   Is there a way to adjust the normalization clip by clip, rather than reverting to gain, which doesn't produce a high enough audio level?
Again, I appreciate your prompt and helpful response.
Jon



On 1/1/2015 3:09 PM, Mark Spano cutandcover@gmail.com [Avid-L2] wrote:
 
Are you sure you're using the tools correctly? Normalilze is a gain change to set the highest peak in a clip to a set level. That means that if your clip has a single sample at -0.1 dBFs, and you want to normalize the clip to 0 dBFs, you will effectively be changing the gain by +0.1 dBFs. It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip. Then you can see why normalizing isn't going to do anything.

It seems you may really just be in the market for a gain change. The gain change will increase the level of the clip by the amount you set. If there is a portion where audio clips at 0 dBFs, well, that portion is toast anyway, so adding more gain to it isn't likely to hurt since you probably aren't using that spot anyway.

On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Jon Wilkman jon@wilkman.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

I'm finishing a one-hour documentary as a personal favor for a friend.
A major component of the project are interviews, with varying audio
levels. I've normalized all the edited audio clips and that seems to
work, expect for a few exceptions, when the levels are ignored. In some
cases, these are clips from the same interview that was successfully
normalized elsewhere. I've tried re-rendering and even re-normalizing
the segment where the levels change, with no success. Does anyone have
any suggestions of how to correct non-normalized clips in an otherwise
normalized sequence? I'm thinking the problem may come from trying to
do an entire hour at a time. Would splitting it into smaller segments
(e.g. 20 minutes) help. MC 7.03.
Happy New Year!
Jon



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Re: [Avid-L2] A Normalize Question for Anyone Out There

 

Are you sure you're using the tools correctly? Normalilze is a gain change to set the highest peak in a clip to a set level. That means that if your clip has a single sample at -0.1 dBFs, and you want to normalize the clip to 0 dBFs, you will effectively be changing the gain by +0.1 dBFs. It's worth analyzing your clip to see if there is any point where there's a peak that is significantly higher than the majority of the rest of the clip. Then you can see why normalizing isn't going to do anything.

It seems you may really just be in the market for a gain change. The gain change will increase the level of the clip by the amount you set. If there is a portion where audio clips at 0 dBFs, well, that portion is toast anyway, so adding more gain to it isn't likely to hurt since you probably aren't using that spot anyway.

On Thu, Jan 1, 2015 at 5:45 PM, Jon Wilkman jon@wilkman.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

I'm finishing a one-hour documentary as a personal favor for a friend.
A major component of the project are interviews, with varying audio
levels. I've normalized all the edited audio clips and that seems to
work, expect for a few exceptions, when the levels are ignored. In some
cases, these are clips from the same interview that was successfully
normalized elsewhere. I've tried re-rendering and even re-normalizing
the segment where the levels change, with no success. Does anyone have
any suggestions of how to correct non-normalized clips in an otherwise
normalized sequence? I'm thinking the problem may come from trying to
do an entire hour at a time. Would splitting it into smaller segments
(e.g. 20 minutes) help. MC 7.03.
Happy New Year!
Jon


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Re: [Avid-L2] Mbox2 Yosemite

 

The thing about the MBox line is that they were always Digidesign audio interfaces first, with a Core Audio kludge added on. So they probably never were 'class compliant', where those other devices always were.

On Wed, Dec 31, 2014 at 2:50 PM, oliverpeters@oliverpeters.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

PS: The frustrating part, is that I can plug-in a POS Logitech web mic via USB and Yosemite has no problem seeing it right away. I haven't tested it, but I'd suspect that the same is the case with something like PreSonus AudioBox USB, which is a similar device to Mbox 2 Mini. Oh well.


- Oliver


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