DB Differences from Music to Voice?? +

I'm still working on my Grandparents Day project that has video, stills and an additional music track. Basically, it's kids that have been interviewed and while that's going on images will PIP next to them in addition to background music.

I'm just curious if there's a loose standard for what the difference should be between the voice and the music.

The teacher that I did this for seems very happy, but at first said that the sound was low and I'm trying to interpret that. I think she means that the db level between the music and voice, from the kids are too close.

Also, she's presenting this on a drop down screen connected to a standard dvd player which mutes the colors. Is there a way that I can get the colors right without having to run back and forth to the school just for testing?

All in all she's happy with what she has. I may be getting finicky, but I have a couple days until they celebrate GP Day and was wondering if I can do more.

Thanks for any help.

> if there's a loose standard for what the difference should be between the voice and the music.

"The difference between the voice and the music"? You mean mix levels? There are no "rules", but there are general concepts that can help.

1. When you have voice-over, people will listen to the voice-over predominantly and ignore almost everything else except at a very subconscious level. So never mix the music so loud as to obscure the voice, because people will struggle to hear the words, and neither will have any effect if the music covers the words. You won't get much emotional impact from the music because people will be frustrated with trying to hear the voice-over, and they'll be using the logical part of their brain, not the emotional.

2. Trust your ears, but only if you have proper monitoring equipment. I've had many clients tell me the mix is too soft even when it's hovering at -4dB (over broadcast standards), only to find out they're listening on laptops with no headphones or speakers attached, making everything sound tinny and weak.

3. If the voice-overs aren't well recorded, they may already be mixed loud, but they may not have enough presence (usually that means bass and proximity to the recording microphone) to cut through. In those cases, you can't keep upping the levels of the voice-overs; you have to take down the music or eliminate it altogether.

4. EQing the music to make room in the frequency spectrum for the voice often works better than just taking down the volume alone.


www.derekmok.com

One more thing to add to Derek's points:

Dynamic range

Well recorded voice overs tend to allow for louder background music, because they are usually recorded in a quiet, controlled environment with a good VO artist, which allows for easier EQing and more aggressive compression, which will in turn allow you to raise the perceived volume of the voice.



www.strypesinpost.com

Unfortunately the voices were shot along with the video footage, not separate. No lapel mic or other, just the cheapo built-in mic on the cheapo SD camera that I have, so I get all the other presents that come with it ie. hiss, un-HD focus / color saturation, etc, but it's great for learning right?

> Well recorded voice overs tend to allow for louder background music

The kind of music matters, too.

Hip-hop/rap will never mix well with voice-over, because you'll basically have talking over talking, and loud drumbeats really mess with the definition and enunciation of the words. Hip-hop tends to have very "dry" vocals (no reverb, mixed way up front with lots of presence) and that overpowers pretty much any kind of sound you can layer on -- voice-overs, dialogue, sound effects, even ambience. That's why movies love classical, choral, New Age, ambient, jazz, soul, classic pop, and light folk -- music where the instrumental "attack" is not as accented. Blues, classic rock, rap, hard rock/metal, dance/R&B -- when these forms are mixed with dialogue, they tend to have to be mixed even lower than usual or they'll interfere with dialogue and voice-over.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks. The music I chose is a very soft ambient glockenspiel, non distracting.

> Unfortunately the voices were shot along with the video footage, not separate. No lapel mic or other,
> just the cheapo built-in mic on the cheapo SD camera that I have, so I get all the other presents that
> come with it ie. hiss, un-HD focus / color saturation, etc, but it's great for learning right?

That's where experience comes in. I also work in low-budget a lot, and even within the constraints of that, I see mistakes made all the time.

For example, I've seen camera guys shooting talking-head interviews without a boom or lavalier. But they put the camera too far and zoom in. In these cases, you put the camera as close to the subject as possible so that at least you get better proximity.

Some guys pick an empty room thinking it will have isolation from outside noise. Unfortunately, bare rooms also have lots of reflective hard surfaces that will echo like crazy. That is nearly unfixable even by extremely talented post-production sound mixers. Also, depending on where the building is and how many windows are there, empty rooms actually don't necessarily sound better than, say, a hallway or a living room.

Years ago I shot an interview with a guy from the DGA on a stage with a Canon GL2. I just ran a $10, 10-year-old no-name-brand dynamic microphone and since we didn't have stands, a boom operator or even a table, I put the microphone on the floor close to where he was sitting. Even then, I got a very dry, very boostable audio signal from the guy with nearly no ambience to interfere.

Another trick I use is, on cameras that have gain controls for audio, when I have only the camera mike, I set the left- and right-channel gain differently. One is slightly low, in case I get loud noises, and one is slightly high in case I have people far away that I need to hear. That has saved me many times. Also, when possible, I would plant a separate audio recorder in the vicinity, as close to the subjects as possible. This works great for concerts and stage plays, where the camera is often forced to be at the very back of the auditorium or club. In your case, if you had just put a dictaphone close to the interview subjects, it's very likely it would have captured better audio.


www.derekmok.com

Now I feel like a complete dope. I picked up a digital voice recorder (Olympus DS-2) a few years ago for meetings. It's been sitting in a drawer for more than a year including the day of my shoot. I did shoot in an empty school chapel btw, but the sound was dead if you know what I mean, no echo at all. The camera was just too far, as the teacher wanted the background also.

As I said the teacher is happy, but I know that theirs room for improvement. This has really taught me a lot. Fortunately she wants to do this again for Mothers Day. I'll be doing some dusting off and testing beforehand.

Thanks for the tips Derek.

The other thing that sometimes helps to cross check your mix levels is to go stand over by the door and listen to the show- without turning it up. You want to be far enough away to still be able to hear your main tracks legibly, but only just. If the background audio is too loud in spots, and interferes with your main voicetrack, you'll hear it right away. Ditto for areas where you could bump the background up a bit.

randy

Great tip, thanks Randy. Or I guess I could turn it on and then go sit on the pot... hmmm maybe not.