Audio design

[HueyNRolf]

After some discussions here, I thought I'd throw this in as an example of what I'm trying to do with the audio to make the best of the scarce resources we have to work with at an event.

I realize that the video isn't up to much and, I think, the Vimeo upload isn't right, so it looks a bit jerky.

Anyways, your comments on audio design are welcome.

[ame="http://vimeo.com/4823059"]http://vimeo.com/4823059[/ame]

[paradoxbox]

I'm not sure what exactly you were trying to do with this video - it sounds like every other video that just has a bunch of songs thrown over top of the video track and then got uploaded to vimeo??

What are you trying to do with the video? i understand you're trying to tell a story but with the video you have not told it very well, and the music you've overlayed just confuses things further. rather than cleverly design the audio, you just cut out the music or reduce the volume whenever someone speaks. and then of course the video just stops abruptly at the end - very weird.

here is my advice on how to improve the audio:

#1 buy a better microphone. if you want to record ambience buy a stereo microphone and mount it off the camera if possible, if you need to be mobile then you can keep it on camera but you might get some hum that may be difficult to remove in post processing. if you need to record these people's voices, you need a shotgun mic or lapel mics with wireless capability. get the mics as close to the speakers as you can without it getting into the frame. set the mic up below them or use a boom pole and volunteer someone to hold the pole. at a sentimental social event like this one it wouldn't be hard to get someone to do it for you.

#2 the cheesy music fading ABSOLUTELY has to go. when you are mixing audio and dialogue you have to do your best to make it professional or it just sounds terrible. at the start of your film you have the ambient sound and the music at around 50/50 levels. it sounds really really terrible and amateurish. if the ambient or dialogue sound is what you want to highlight then bring it up to over 75% so that it can dominate our attention. when the dialogue is finished, quickly fade it back down to 15% or even mute and have the music back up to 100%. quick fades make audio sound better - slow fades are amateurish in most cases.

in the same vein, at the start of your "nostalgia" section, and during the middle of it, you mix in two pieces of music WAY too slowly and there seems to be some kind of echo effect - it's like there is a radio way in the distance of some empty hallway. bad. bring the volume up more quickly. i know the effect you were trying to achieve but it didn't work here.

#3 when switching between songs you should try to be a DJ as much as possible - try to match the beats of the two songs you're mixing as closely as possible, consider blending the music and crossfading them before the switch if it sounds good.

sorry for the harsh tone but i always figure it's best to hear things straight rather than sugarcoat everything.

the video could do with some cutting - remove the duplicate hallway walk section, and cut down the length of the first hallway walk section. also fade out the end of the video so it doesn't stop in mid sentence.

Edit:
I just checked out some of your other posts and I'm left kind of wondering at this video; it's clear you know your audio stuff pretty well, I can't understand why this video's audio falls so short of what you are capable of doing?

[HueyNRolf]

Thanks for your input, I cobbled that thing together which was from a 40 minute project. The double walk, as you call it, is originally separated by a long sequence of old 8mm film. I admit it looks a bit strange as is, but it works out better in the original.

I posted that thing here in connection with discussions on using sound for event videos.

This was shot last year... since then I've had a retool... mainly on the edit front, but I do have better sound gear now.

Anyways, your comments are very useful, thanks for taking the time

[HueyNRolf]

Edit:
I just checked out some of your other posts and I'm left kind of wondering at this video; it's clear you know your audio stuff pretty well, I can't understand why this video's audio falls so short of what you are capable of doing?

Well it's a bit old and I have learnt a lot since... actually, I'm working on something that should be reasonable (audio wise)... Thanks for your confidence and taking an interest...

HnR