Audio: making sound appear rec outside

patreb wrote on 4/7/2004, 10:50 PM

I'm trying some of the original sounds from my short film and some of teh sounds i get from a Sound FXs CD -- unfortunately some fo them were recorded in a dull, enclosed space and they sounds that way. Is there any way to "open up" those sounds?

Comments

cosmo wrote on 4/7/2004, 11:16 PM

Add some reverb and see if that helps.

PeterWright wrote on 4/7/2004, 11:56 PM

You can record some outdoor ambience and mix that in.

mjroddy wrote on 4/8/2004, 10:23 AM

I'm curious about this as well. I've tried the reverb-thing, but that really wasn't the solution. Outdoor audio is just very different. Adding ambience is an idea, but still doesn't make indoor audio sound outdoor. It just adds audio clues to being outside. Hope to see other incoming suggestions.

JL wrote on 4/8/2004, 10:27 AM

Sounddogs.com

JL

baysidebas wrote on 4/8/2004, 12:12 PM

Take a clue from the professionals and always record a minute , or so, worth of "room tone" for all your locations.

baysidebas wrote on 4/8/2004, 1:04 PM

And just how would adding reverb make it sound outdoorsy? Reverb is typical of an enclosed space with hard reflecting surfaces, just the opposite of what is desired.

AlistairLock wrote on 4/8/2004, 2:04 PM

If your indoor recording sounds too "roomy" then you may be lost.
You could try carefully gating the sound (presumably dialogue?) to try and lose the reverb that gives away the indoor acoustic.

Other tips I have successfully applied in all of my audio productions (and video!) in the past:

Trim the bass from dialogue (again, I'm making a huge assumption here...) below 180-200 hz. Dialogue never has the bass when recorded outside that it does inside, unless of course it has been very close miked, or ADR'd.

If the scene features characters in a street, a subtle, and I mean subtle single slap back echo of around 85 ms can give the impression of dialogue reflecting off nearby buildings. If you want stereo, 85 ms one side, 120 the other. If the effect is put on an aux send, you can adjust as necessary. For raised voices or shouting, the echo can be sneaked in further as needed.

Obviously recordings of external ambiences can help convince and massage the dialogue when mixed in behind it, partially masking any remaining interior accoustic tails.
Finally, if the entire sound for the scene is then put through a gentle compression, this can help the viewer "buy" the fact that the entire scene they are watching was recorded outside. I found this effect by accident, and realised that audiences are used to hearing compressed location sound, particularly in news reports etc., when the limiter on the SQN is slamming down at a ration of 40:1.

I hope some of this helps.