Comments

farss wrote on 10/9/2006, 6:05 PM
For most people on a budget there's not much that I know of that Protools can do that Vegas cannot do. Possibly plugin compatibility might be an issue and that's about all.

Yes SF is for surgical audio work. It also comes these days I think with NR2 bundlesd with it. As far as I know NR2 works as well as the NR in Audition. That's no sleight on either product, there's simply a physical limitation on what CAN be done.

If you want a really good NR tool Sony's Oxford division makes one but it costs. Never quite worked out if it'll run in SF though, would be nice if it did. All that it adds is the ability to track a know unwanted signal as it shift in frequency. Can be very handy or quite useless depending on the nature of what you don't want.

As MrBun has rightly pointed out there's very hard limits to the amount of magic any tool can do. With all due respect looking for the very best, most expensive hammer is not the way to solve the problem of a nail being too short.

Correctly recording audio is the biggest single factor in getting great audio, you've got more chance of fixing dodgy video than audio as you ears are way, way better sensory organs than our eyes. Good audio recording starts with a very simple thing, correct mic placement. The most expensive mic money can buy in the wrong place will be beaten every time by a $5 mic in the right place and nothing, absolutely nothing you can do in post with the most expensive tools money can buy will make up for the difference either.

There's another aspect to this too. So much of what you can spend a lot of time reading on the web relates to studio recordings. Location recording is a very different dark science. Much of the kit touted as being ever so great is quite useless for location recording where you can be dealing with distant sound sources. S/N ratios is high gain mic preamps isn't so much an issue in a studio setting, it's a huge issue in location work. Reflection cancelling mics that cost a bomb aren't needed in a studio either.

MrBuns final bit of advice is very good too. If you really think something stinks, it stinks. Fess up to the client, they might be quite happy with it. I've only last week had this happen to myself to due to events beyond my control. The client thought it sounded great, heck they're only going to listen to it through the crappy speakers in a TV. If you're really unhappy about it and think you'd never want someone to hear something that bad with your name on it just pull the plug on the project. Cut your losses and move on. Better men have had bigger things go wrong in their careers and survived. It's not the stuff ups that define us, it's how we handle them. I've seen and heard some appallingly bad stuff win significant awards.

And one last comment. Learning how the tools that you have and how to get the most out of them is more productive than looking for better tools. One of the audio guys did a major recording and mastering session with nothing but the plugs that ship with Vegas. He's a pretty full on audio geek. Yes it took a lot of work, yes he knows how to use the tools and how they work, yes he would have had to do less work work with better tools, yes the results might have sounded a tad better on $20K monitors, I doubt the average iPod listener will ever notice.

Bob.
ScottyLacy wrote on 10/9/2006, 6:39 PM
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And one last comment. Learning how the tools that you have and how to get the most out of them is more productive than looking for better tools. One of the audio guys did a major recording and mastering session with nothing but the plugs that ship with Vegas. He's a pretty full on audio geek. Yes it took a lot of work, yes he knows how to use the tools and how they work, yes he would have had to do less work work with better tools, yes the results might have sounded a tad better on $20K monitors, I doubt the average iPod listener will ever notice.
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I think this is the key point for me. I really need to learn the tools intimately. Thing is, before I make that investment in learning, I want to ensure I'm devoting my cycles to the appropriate tools for my situation.

I really just want a basic, solid set of plugs that do compression, maximizing, reverb, multi-band compression, etc. I'm under no delusion that I've got the time or experience to put out award-winning mixes. I just want to nail down the best way to improve my audio (whether good or bad) with the most appropriate tools.

Anyone know of any good DVDs that teach the basics of digital audio editing and mastering?
Coursedesign wrote on 10/9/2006, 6:58 PM
Mastering with iZotope Ozone

Lots of stuff that can be used with other tools also, and to get a good basic understanding of mastering.
farss wrote on 10/9/2006, 8:17 PM
Thing is, before I make that investment in learning, I want to ensure I'm devoting my cycles to the appropriate tools for my situation.
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Fair point.
But a hammer is a hammer!
Eq is Eq!
Sure some Eq plugs work better than others, they sound sweeter or warmer or whatever other term some marketing guy dreams up.

Thing is though unless you understand how ANY Eq works you can get into a lot of trouble even with such a simple tool. Example:

You drop a low shelf into a track and get CLIPPING??? Yeah done that and scratched my head for a while. Any Eq outside of the 'forensic' ones will do that. Those pretty looking graphs in almost all graphic Eqs LIE! If you know how Eq works you'll know why this happens. Doesn't matter which one you used to learn this trap, same rules of physics apply.

My very best recommendation and it's pretty cheap at that.
Buy a copy of Jay Rose's book "Audio Post Production for Digital Video" ISBN 1-57820-116-0. Best $45 I've spent. Comes with some good examples you can work through in SF and/or Vegas. It is specifically targeted at the tasks facing videographers. No fancy expensive tools get much of a mention.

When you've really got your head around what you can do with the simple stuff that comes with Vegas and SF, understand how it works and realise it's limitations then you can evaluate the more expensive kit and decide if you need it.

Look just yesterday I watched as we transferred a good piece of video. Been edited by a serious production house on way more expensive kit than I'll ever own and the editing was great, everything else was a technical disaster. Obviously the editor doing the job did not know what he was doing and I mean big time. Everytime he'd added a super the 16:9 flag came and went, what a mess. The audio was supposed to be dual mono, yeah right except which track was the mix and which was M&E kept swapping, a complete mess. The poor guy who'd risked his life to get the footage thought as the guy doing the work had expensive kit he was a "pro", WRONG!

Sorry to rant!

Bob.
Bill Ravens wrote on 10/10/2006, 5:54 AM
I bow before your wisdom and knowledge, Bob. You're definitately a piece of work.
jaydeeee wrote on 10/12/2006, 2:42 AM
>>>Thing is, before I make that investment in learning, I want to ensure I'm devoting my cycles to the appropriate tools for my situation.
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Fair point.
But a hammer is a hammer!
Eq is Eq!
Sure some Eq<<<

Yes, if you're not recording that audio properly (even "decently"), then there's more to be concerned with before discussing plugins.

That said (and not just to argue with Farss),....
when we're talking that "hammer" being izotope/ozone vs, the latest waves bundle (say Platinum to diamond for example)...there is a tool, and there is a bundled PACKAGE of better tools.
In this case the hammer isn't just like the other hammer...not by a long shot.
I'm sorry - it's not.
ozone will address your master buss (maybe...maybe bussing needs - but not well), but that's about it.
The verb is HIT-TRO-CIOUS, the MB comp is HIT-TRO-CIOUS when we get into scenarios calling for mid-heavy usage. A distasteful coloring that is agreed upon across a slew of engineers who've used it. Just fuggin' awful ( it's THAT bad).
To me, right out the gate (and regarding those two key elements he's looking for)...well, it's a losing battle against the more xpensive waves bundle.
Ozone is designed - mainly - for budget buyers/novices getting a foothold. It's when we have discerning ears is when we must get real at some point.

The term you get what you pay for does apply (I'm sorry to say) when we compare these two tools.

Now if he's serious about his audio... and asking where is his $ better spent, (he'll first learn how to get a proper recording)...but after that....I'm having a real hard time seeing people say ozone fits his DESCRIBED bill better.

The MIXDOWN is as important (if not moreso) than the master...ozone just isn't meeting all mixdown needs. Not at all (and please note - in all fairness, it's not marketed as such either).
farss wrote on 10/12/2006, 4:18 AM
I'm not questioning which is the better hammer. My point is that for this problem a hammer is the wrong tool.
Presumably he cannot get mics in where you'd have them in a studio situation. If that's the case then plugs are pretty well useless, no matter who makes them. The right mics in exactly the right place can give you a fantasic natural recording though. The mics that you need though are nothing like what you'd use in a recording studio.

Recording natural sound in alive setting is a very different issue to working in a studio with close mics. It can be done, it is done, with mics a very long way away. Where those mics are place and what sort of mics they are is the secret. I don't know what the top Waves bundles cost but I think for around the same money you could invest in a Soundfield or Holophone mic and a decent recorder from Sound Devices or Aaton.