The last ADR question, I SWEAR!

goodtimej wrote on 5/17/2007, 7:45 AM

All right, I swear this is the last ADR question I will have!

Anyways, I just got done recording all my ADR and have it lined up pretty good with the video. It was an arduous process, but its there.

Now, of course, I watch it back and although the performances were good, it just doesn't sound like the actors are really "outside". I put ambient sound behind them, which helps a lot. I am gonna mess with it tonight but I was hoping that I could get a couple pointers from the folks on here.

What kind of effects and how much do I use to make it sound like they are outside? Do I use reverbs or delays, how much of them, which ones, compression or normalization? I'm pretty much just searching for advice and experience. Thanks a bunch!

Comments

rs170a wrote on 5/17/2007, 8:32 AM

Do you have Sound Forge?
If so, try the impulses in Acoustic Mirror.
Sony has a bunch of them available as a free download.

I searched the newsgroup R.A.M.P.S. (Rec.Arts.Movies.Production.Sound) using adr matching and got the following hint as well as several more. Take a look and see if there's any more ideas for you.

My approach is to first tune the unproccessed ADR to match the location dialog as much as possible. Firstly removing any obvious ADR room problems. Then after tuning out excessive room resonance from production tracks, apply an inverse EQ on the ADR. Also pay close attention to the hi and lo end (how much proximity effect is there? and is the ADR sounding brighter?)

Then use the hi pass and lo pass filters within the reverb parameters. Being able to filter early reflections and decay separately will help a lot. Usually I find you have to get rid of a lot of top end on lexicons etc. In fact if you pull a LP filter down to 900hz or lower, you'd be surprised at the results. These filters are quite
different from just applying EQ at the output.

Then as a final stage, EQ the Reverb return. It also helps to have an original track to A/B against so that you don't get bogged down in the process.

Mike

goodtimej wrote on 5/17/2007, 8:48 AM

Yes I do have Sound Forge.

Wow! Thanks for all the great info.

One question, though, how do I remove and tune out excessive room resonance? The resonance in the room is one of the main things I am dealing with.

rs170a wrote on 5/17/2007, 9:08 AM

Sorry but audio is one of my weaknesses. :-(
Hopefully one of the resident audio "experts" here has some suggestions for you.

Mike

rs170a wrote on 5/17/2007, 12:34 PM

I talked to my co-worker (moonlights as a recording engineer) and he had one suggestion.
It assumes you have some room tone (i.e. the room sound and NOTHING else) that you can use for this.
Put the room tone on a new track, invert the phase and bring the level up slowly to see if it helps to cancel out the resonance.
Good luck with it.

Mike

goodtimej wrote on 5/17/2007, 12:50 PM

Hunh, interesting idea. I'll give it a whirl.

DGates wrote on 5/17/2007, 1:43 PM

ADR is an art form. Today's movies are a testament to that. If you watch movies from the 70's, most of the ADR dialouge sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom.

I don't expect you to match the quality of a professional ADR editor. Putting too many effects/filters on the vocals could end up sounding worse.

Best advice is to record sound on the location (if possible) with quality mics and a field recording deck like th Tascam HD-P2.

farss wrote on 5/17/2007, 2:33 PM

To get this trick to work you need to add compression to one of the tracks. Adjust Threshold and Slope / Amount as well as Level on the track to suit.

As for doing things like adding reverb with Eq on the reflections you need to get your head around Assignable Fxs in Vegas. All in the manual and very powerful, only plumbed those depths a few days ago myself.

Grazie wrote on 5/17/2007, 11:06 PM

Bob? When you say, "Assignable Fxs in Vegas" do you mean creating, naming and recalling your own, home-grown FXs? If so oh yes! I have masses of them. I use them on-the-fly and fire them at events to get an "idea" of how something could sound or look like.

But it may not be this at all!

G

farss wrote on 5/17/2007, 11:41 PM

Nope!

You add an assignable FX using the FX button in the mixer. Not the one in Master buss. This creates a new fader with pre and post level controls.

Say you use the reverb fx to create this. You set Dry out to nothing.

Now you can send tracks to that Buss as well as the master and with one control vary the reverb on all those tracks. But here's the trick.

Because that mixer chain is wet only you can add Eq into that chain and change the sound the reverb.

Makes sense? It's tricky as you also need to RClick the track faders to reveal the selector for the FX send faders.

Many sneaky things hidden in Vegas.

Grazie wrote on 5/18/2007, 12:53 AM

Thanks Bob.

And thanks for the SKYPE chat too! That cleared a lot up for me.

I must "try" it in reality. Too much to write or talk it out in words.

Grazie

goodtimej wrote on 5/18/2007, 7:21 AM

Well, I gave it a go, and the best results that I achieved were through simple EQ'ing. I just took the top and bottom off of the ADR work and voila! It worked very well. Amazing how it changed everything.

Next time, I will work more on removing the echo from the room I am recording ADR in, but for now, VICTORY!

Thanks all.