Best sound boost other than envelopes?

hackazoid wrote on 2/16/2010, 12:35 AM

Amateur with 8.0c and have used audio envelopes to control sound levels, but that's about it for audio work.

My challenge: was at a memorial service when I was asked if I could record a certain 10 min segment. Only had my Pany ZS3 (for outdoor shots after) so put it discreetly in the rear of a small chapel. The video is nice but the sound is a bit low of the microphone talk.

Looking at raising the track volume to 5.0-7.0 dB and also using the audio envelope. Are there other techniques for better quality in a boost situation?

Also curious on three other sound points:

* there is a loud cough in the middle. I can control it with the envelope but is there a way to remove it without splitting the file as I'm worried about lip synch.

* for the DVD, is PCM a better choice for this situation than AC-3 since I read it is a higher quality?

* I also see on Vegas help that PCM is uncompressed but I seem to recall getting DVDA messages that it will be compressed in the DVD burn process. So it leaves Vegas OK but not at DVDA?

Does this mean AC-3 is compressed in Vegas but not in DVDA so they end up the same?

Thanks for the help.

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Comments

rs170a wrote on 2/17/2010, 10:04 AM

Mike, you are the MAN! To think all these years I've been manually creating 4 points, one at a time.

Glad it helped you Jerry.
Until Edward's script came along though, I'd been doing the same thing (VERY time consuming when you have a bunch of them to do) so don't feel bad.

Watch out for the gotcha that I mentioned!!

Mike

Jeff9329 wrote on 2/17/2010, 1:17 PM

Did anyone mention using the compressor? I didn't see that.

In a low wind noise and low levels environment, I normally use the compressor. I have a ton of pre-sets in mine and listen to the track while adjusting for best effect.

Room tone is going to be boosted greatly, but that is better than too low to hear. Use the EQ and roll off all non-vocal high end and the extreme low end.

Insert a levels envelope and ride only, and exactly, the cough down on a stretched out timeline. There will be a little loss of room tone for a few ms, but if you are accurate, no big deal.

IMO, on short projects with plenty of disc space, you should only use LPCM 16/48. The Sony AC-3 totally crushes the DR of audio. Only use the non-normalizing AC-3 if you have to.

In DVDA, set up the properties beforehand to what you are using. If you still get a recompress message, press the optimize button and look at the exclamation point and select that stream. Then highlight and hit no on recompress stream yes/no. You can also prevent video stream recompression this way.

DVD menu audio may all be compressed with DVDA, I cant remember.

Jeff9329 wrote on 2/17/2010, 1:20 PM

"Since your camera is AVCHD Lite, the audio is already AC-3, so there is no point in using PCM in your DVD."

Top quality advice.

musicvid10 wrote on 2/17/2010, 8:45 PM

The Sony AC-3 totally crushes the DR of audio. Only use the non-normalizing AC-3 if you have to.

Not sure what "Sony AC-3" is, but the Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro encoder in Vegas delivers excellent results when set up properly. Unfortunately, the default template is not optimal, but by setting the Dialog norm to -31 and both DRC modes Off in the Custom settings, it delivers exactly the same dynamic range and level as the original. I have quantified this through extensive program and pink noise testing.

HTH

4110 wrote on 2/5/2011, 12:21 PM

I tried to use Edward Troxel's fourpoints script and got an error message. I am new to scripting so I may be doing something wrong, or the problem may be due to program or system changes. I am using Vegas 10 with Windows 7. Does the script work with Vegas 10?

Thanks,
David

rs170a wrote on 2/5/2011, 5:48 PM

David, I just tried it on my machine (XP Pro) and it works with the 32-bit version of Pro 10.
The ducking technique that Bob (farss) and I referred to much earlier in this thread works too.

Mike