FCP 5.1.2's audio filters...

I have worked on FCP for a few years now and am only just starting to check out the audio filters available...usually in my work the audio has been put through a dubbing suite so I never have had to utilize this part of the FCP set up. I am going to work on stuff that with have PTCs recorded on a camera mike and am looking for any tips on how to make it sound richer and is there a way to limit the atmos sound? Cheers.

not new, but very worthwhile reading if you haven't come accross it before
[www.kenstone.net]

It is possible to shoot reasonable sound with the built-in microphone. One of the cutters does this all the time in his large, well cushioned car. But almost without exception, they're not shooting picture at the same time.

Sound services benefit enormously from being close to the talent. Picture services mostly don't care.

Koz

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> It is possible to shoot reasonable sound with the
> built-in microphone.

Reasonable is defining the setup. In most cases the answer is NO! Even if you are doing a news style interview, you would want a held held mic.

The on-cam mics are there as a starting point and can be used as b-Roll audio in some situations, but almost never as primary audio.

> any tips on how to make it sound richer

I'm with John. Koz is talking about how to get usable sound from the camera mike. If you want sound quality, such as how rounded and "nice" the voices sound, then you need to get a good microphone. First line of defense in your audio recording.

In terms of post-production tools, I'd focus on:

- EQ, possibly the most basic tool, to shape the sound of the voices and all effects. AUGraphicEQ (under Audio Filters - Apple) is much more powerful than FCP's own 3-Band EQ (under Audio Filters - Final Cut).
- Compressor/Limiter to "squeeze" the audio, give more presence and balance to soft and hot levels.
- Expander/Noise Gate to weed out background noise.
- Low Pass and High Pass to weed out high- and low-frequency noise, or control plosives. And also to make phone voices, or music blasting inside a club, or make close-miked ADR more "environmental" -- all sorts of "proximity" effects.
- Reverberation. Sometimes you need to add reverb to sound that's too clean, to match the room or another set of recorded dialogue. Reverberation is easy to add and tweak, but nearly impossible to get rid of from a field recording, so sometimes you'll need to dirty up other dialogue to match.
- AUDynamicsProcessor, which combines compression with a convenient audio boost on top of the 12dB in your audio clip.
- AUPitchShift. Changes pitch without changing speed. Can come in handy.
- Don't forget speed. Often a quick way to get six audio effects out of one single one. I've used the simple FCP speed tool on many tasks like getting three different-toned bell "dings" out of a single Soundtrack sample, making a pop song into a low, moody temp-music suspense score, making the FCP NTSC -12dB tone into six different machine beeps, making cartoon voices for girls, young men and old men out of a normal baritone (my own).


www.derekmok.com

<<<- AUDynamicsProcessor, which combines compression with a convenient audio boost on top of the 12dB in your audio clip.>>>

The next sound you hear will be Phil running screaming into the night.

You don't need any of those tools. You just need Nattress's Pro Audio filter.

Koz

Don?t use FCP?s audio filters to spice up your location sound. They are unintuitive and cumbersome to control. Use application like Soundtrack instead.

To achieve ?richness? you need to do two things:

- Make sure you capture at least some lower frequencies (150-300hz) on the vocals. This is sometimes referred to as proximity effect. With camera mic you?re too far away to get any of that.
- Apply compressor (preferably multiband) to balance dynamics.

Derek..that's brilliant...thanks.

> Don?t use FCP?s audio filters to spice up your location sound. They are unintuitive and
> cumbersome to control.

I don't agree with Nick. While it's much better to be able to do your final mix in ProTools, there's also no reason not to try or learn FCP's own audio tools. When you're just doing a pass on the sound to improve your perception of the edit, for example, you don't want to have to go out to Soundtrack Pro or ProTools unless you have to. That can interrupt your editing flow substantially.

And I don't really have a problem with the control aspect of FCP's audio filters. They're not as powerful as a dedicated audio app, but you can get good results with them.


www.derekmok.com