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Post by odyssey76 on Jan 8, 2015 17:33:59 GMT -6
Not the most exciting work in the audio biz but a very important part - editing.
Here's what I edit:
Manually gate drums or strip silence (not OH's or Rooms obviously), vox or pretty much anything with non-useful or noisy rests
Quantize drums and bass with elastic audio (or flex in Logic which I'm now starting to use).
Tune vocals if needed even though I hate it.
Comping takes, fades, etc.
What are some editing tasks that you feel are necessary for today's professional productions (talking strictly music here)? What do I need to add to my editing check list?
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Post by wiz on Jan 8, 2015 18:19:20 GMT -6
Noise Reduction
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Post by Randge on Jan 8, 2015 18:28:30 GMT -6
I agree with Wiz, Izotope 4 is brilliant at that. I bought in when they had a recent sale and use it way more than I thought I would have.
R
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 8, 2015 18:39:20 GMT -6
How do you use the noise reduction? Where?
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Post by odyssey76 on Jan 8, 2015 20:18:30 GMT -6
. Noise reduction as in electronics noise? Stuff like hum or hiss? Same with you Randge? |
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Post by wiz on Jan 8, 2015 20:20:10 GMT -6
. Noise reduction as in electronics noise? Stuff like hum or hiss? Same with you Randge? all of the above.. if it annoys me .. its gone... its never really talked about, not sexy I guess.. but judicious noise reduction can be fantastic. cheers Wiz |
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Post by wiz on Jan 8, 2015 20:21:00 GMT -6
How do you use the noise reduction? Where? I do it on a track by track basis. With careful tweaking, it can make things sound more expensive than they are... cheers Wiz |
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Post by odyssey76 on Jan 8, 2015 20:22:50 GMT -6
. Noise reduction as in electronics noise? Stuff like hum or hiss? Same with you Randge? all of the above.. if it annoys me .. its gone... its never really talked about, not sexy I guess.. but judicious noise reduction can be fantastic. cheers Wiz I agree that there's nothing sexy about editing at all for me. I find it very tedious but one of those things that has to be done. Are you using a plugin for this? |
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Post by Randge on Jan 8, 2015 20:34:41 GMT -6
Yeah, single coil 60 cycle hum and vintage gear noise kinds of things. I like a little noise as it can vibe a track a little sometimes but nothing excessive. I have received files to mix from artists/bands that were recorded in a large room with ugly reflections that to their ear, sounded cool to them but not the mic. Izotope is able to remove the majority of that bad verb without destroying the vocal tone and save the performance. Those kinds of things are handy when you really need them and Izotope is my first grab. It is expensive but you can catch them on a deal from time to time. That is what I did. Try hitting up an ebay dealer for a good deal, too.
R
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Post by jeromemason on Jan 8, 2015 20:48:52 GMT -6
I fade everything as close as I can, every track. I also go in and yank the gain down on and plosives and S', that really gets you that big vocal sound w/o using a d'esser. Randge does the manual S' as well I believe. Also, I check the polarity on the drums and manually nudge them instead of phase buttons and such. I'll take a look at the OH's against the kick/snare and I'll nudge the OH's little by little until it sounds bigger/wider, sometimes it makes no difference, but more times than not by nudging those OH's off the grid will make the kit sound more open IMO. If I've got stacked guitars I'll zoom in and tighten them up, sometimes if there are chunks I'll chop the whole chunking section and get on track as close as I can to the drums, then I'll move the stacked track in line with the other, sometimes you have to chop every chunk and start/stop, depends how loose the players were and if they meant for it to be that and if them playing loose gives it a vibe, in that case I'd just leave it. Most of what I mix and edit are tracks by players in Nashville, so there's not a whole lot of fixing. Those guys get in the pocket and messing with their mojo is sacred, so I normally just make sure if I move things it's only to fix polarity/phase issues. Also, even the best players can have a hanging note or a squeak, so going in and cleaning that up makes it sound polished. I really don't like using "fix it" plugins unless it is the types that can clean up hiss or cracks w/o messing up the sound. Really if you zoom in and take those types of things out it's the best way. I do much more when I'm editing but those are the main areas I hit. |
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Post by odyssey76 on Jan 8, 2015 20:49:28 GMT -6
Yeah, single coil 60 cycle hum and vintage gear noise kinds of things. I like a little noise as it can vibe a track a little sometimes but nothing excessive. I have received files to mix from artists/bands that were recorded in a large room with ugly reflections that to their ear, sounded cool to them but not the mic. Izotope is able to remove the majority of that bad verb without destroying the vocal tone and save the performance. Those kinds of things are handy when you really need them and Izotope is my first grab. It is expensive but you can catch them on a deal from time to time. That is what I did. Try hitting up an ebay dealer for a good deal, too. R I'll have to check out Izotope. Amazing that it can take out a bad room sound without affecting the vocal tone. How's that even possible? Cool stuff..... |
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Post by Randge on Jan 8, 2015 20:57:31 GMT -6
Here is an example.
R
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Post by odyssey76 on Jan 8, 2015 21:02:10 GMT -6
I fade everything as close as I can, every track. I also go in and yank the gain down on and plosives and S', that really gets you that big vocal sound w/o using a d'esser. Randge does the manual S' as well I believe. Also, I check the polarity on the drums and manually nudge them instead of phase buttons and such. I'll take a look at the OH's against the kick/snare and I'll nudge the OH's little by little until it sounds bigger/wider, sometimes it makes no difference, but more times than not by nudging those OH's off the grid will make the kit sound more open IMO. If I've got stacked guitars I'll zoom in and tighten them up, sometimes if there are chunks I'll chop the whole chunking section and get on track as close as I can to the drums, then I'll move the stacked track in line with the other, sometimes you have to chop every chunk and start/stop, depends how loose the players were and if they meant for it to be that and if them playing loose gives it a vibe, in that case I'd just leave it. Most of what I mix and edit are tracks by players in Nashville, so there's not a whole lot of fixing. Those guys get in the pocket and messing with their mojo is sacred, so I normally just make sure if I move things it's only to fix polarity/phase issues. Also, even the best players can have a hanging note or a squeak, so going in and cleaning that up makes it sound polished. I really don't like using "fix it" plugins unless it is the types that can clean up hiss or cracks w/o messing up the sound. Really if you zoom in and take those types of things out it's the best way. I do much more when I'm editing but those are the main areas I hit. Great info here jeromemason, thanks. Sounds like you do a lot of editing manually instead of relying on plugins. I like the idea of nudging drum tracks instead of flipping a polarity button. I'll give this approach a try and see what happens. |
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Post by Randge on Jan 8, 2015 21:19:32 GMT -6
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Post by wiz on Jan 8, 2015 22:03:00 GMT -6
all of the above.. if it annoys me .. its gone... its never really talked about, not sexy I guess.. but judicious noise reduction can be fantastic. cheers Wiz I agree that there's nothing sexy about editing at all for me. I find it very tedious but one of those things that has to be done. Are you using a plugin for this? Wavearts MR Noise.... Izotope is awesome... just was too expensive for me.... cheers Wiz |
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Post by svart on Jan 8, 2015 22:18:13 GMT -6
Anything that isn't useful audio is manually cut out. I fade a little in and out on each cut. I cut tom hits manually too so I can get rid of the annoying ringing from the other drums and so I can tailor their tails.
Same for everything else. I'll manually duck P's on vocals, cut out things like breaths, loud farts and laughter from the vocalist as the drummer shows his ass through the glass while trying to get the singer to mess up.
Ghost notes on bass and guitar, fret noise, chair creaks, all gone.
I also time align my drums. I find a hard hit on something like the snare, and I'll make sure everything is in the same polarity and drag every drum track separately to line up to the same hit in the overheads. I do the same for DI and bass cabinet tracks. Have the bassist do a hard pluck or strike the strings so that you can line up the hit later.
It's hard to think of it all since it's pretty much automatic these days.
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Post by jeromemason on Jan 8, 2015 23:19:08 GMT -6
I guess I should go through some more things that I think might help some people.
The first thing I do when I get a session is I start with the drums and I will lower the recorded volume down to -18dbfs, that's every track in the mix, gives you a lot of headroom for your gear, plugins and fader. I'll take my drum rooms and OH's and if they are tracked on single tracks instead of a stereo track, I'll set the L/R faders at unity and listen for the kick and snare to see if they are leaning to the left or right, if they are I'll pull the gain down on the track they are leaning towards and get them as close to center as I can w/o causing my OH's and Rooms to sound narrow. Then I'll create a stereo track, select the audio in both tracks and drag it to the stereo track. This way I can use less processing and when I treat either one I don't have to worry about matching settings and such. I do a lot of this for sound, but also because as you're mixing it will really make things speed up when you are starting to balance and automate after you've done your processing. I'll do that exact same thing as well if say a guitar is tracked w/ 2 mics, I'll get the blend by adjusting the tracks gain and then drag those to a stereo track, and again, all my processing and automation is done on one track instead of two. This same principle applies to anything that is tracked in stereo or w/ up to two mic's. After I'm done I'll hide and make the mono tracks inactive and my session is already looking a lot neater.
Just thought I'd throw that in there, it's something I do on every mix usually.
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Post by drbill on Jan 8, 2015 23:52:21 GMT -6
Wow. I'm really going against the tide....
Nothing gets edited until it "pulls me out" of the song several times. Bleed is revered. Good musicians get hired and things get recorded "right". Slight imperfection and humanity breeds character. Old school values makes me feel like the music can breathe as opposed to the vast majority of what's coming out now. LACK of editing breathes life into the music - until like I said it pulls me out of the track several times. Then it gets neutered. NOTHING gets edited "as a matter of fact" because it's supposed to.
My $.02.....
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 9, 2015 1:29:56 GMT -6
True noise gate or strip silence has to be used.
But when it comes to use things like flextime.
Here and there it is Ok, but if you do a lot of correction you get artifacts…
I love to say - lets overdub this or that again.
Have to say that my guitar-students, which ask me for help, are not professional musicians.
The good thing is they learn why to practice with the metronome.
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Post by wiz on Jan 9, 2015 1:33:31 GMT -6
Wow. I'm really going against the tide.... Nothing gets edited until it "pulls me out" of the song several times. Bleed is revered. Good musicians get hired and things get recorded "right". Slight imperfection and humanity breeds character. Old school values makes me feel like the music can breathe as opposed to the vast majority of what's coming out now. LACK of editing breathes life into the music - until like I said it pulls me out of the track several times. Then it gets neutered. NOTHING gets edited "as a matter of fact" because it's supposed to. My $.02..... Of course.. its all relative to the standard of tracks you get to mix.. eh? 8) cheers Wiz |
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Post by unit7 on Jan 9, 2015 1:41:55 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of cleaning up has to do with the style, and if stuff 'pulls you out' of the music. One thing I always do is clean up vocal tracks. Often have to fix bad editing, plosives, harsh consonants. I always leave breaths in but sometimes pull them down a little on some singers. The most annoying I know is certain singers who has this hi frequency whistling on every 'fff', usually around 10-12k. I haven't found any other way to remove it than notching them out manually. I loop the music, search the frequency by boosting on the channel eq and then paste that into the 'same' eq in Audiosuite, notching about 10-15dB. Then on to the next 'fff'... Very tedious.
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 9, 2015 2:02:25 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of cleaning up has to do with the style, and if stuff 'pulls you out' of the music. One thing I always do is clean up vocal tracks. Often have to fix bad editing, plosives, harsh consonants. I always leave breaths in but sometimes pull them down a little on some singers. The most annoying I know is certain singers who has this hi frequency whistling on every 'fff', usually around 10-12k. I haven't found any other way to remove it than notching them out manually. I loop the music, search the frequency by boosting on the channel eq and then paste that into the 'same' eq in Audiosuite, notching about 10-15dB. Then on to the next 'fff'... Very tedious. There is no way to track the singer different? If I read this it takes a lot of time would not be hitting record again more easy??? |
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Post by wiz on Jan 9, 2015 2:23:04 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of cleaning up has to do with the style, and if stuff 'pulls you out' of the music. One thing I always do is clean up vocal tracks. Often have to fix bad editing, plosives, harsh consonants. I always leave breaths in but sometimes pull them down a little on some singers. The most annoying I know is certain singers who has this hi frequency whistling on every 'fff', usually around 10-12k. I haven't found any other way to remove it than notching them out manually. I loop the music, search the frequency by boosting on the channel eq and then paste that into the 'same' eq in Audiosuite, notching about 10-15dB. Then on to the next 'fff'... Very tedious. I tend to do the FFFF thing... I recently got the Fab Filter De Esser... apart from it being an absolutely fantastic de esser... it err... ahem... De "ff" d me quite nicely. 8) cheers Wiz |
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Post by unit7 on Jan 9, 2015 2:23:45 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of cleaning up has to do with the style, and if stuff 'pulls you out' of the music. One thing I always do is clean up vocal tracks. Often have to fix bad editing, plosives, harsh consonants. I always leave breaths in but sometimes pull them down a little on some singers. The most annoying I know is certain singers who has this hi frequency whistling on every 'fff', usually around 10-12k. I haven't found any other way to remove it than notching them out manually. I loop the music, search the frequency by boosting on the channel eq and then paste that into the 'same' eq in Audiosuite, notching about 10-15dB. Then on to the next 'fff'... Very tedious. There is no way to track the singer different? If I read this it takes a lot of time would not be hitting record again more easy??? Could be. Mic placement/angle could help. I didn't track. Have had two projects with this singer, and sometimes heard it from other singers. Perhaps it's a swedish language thing? For a while I thought there was something wrong with the basket on the mic, but then heard the singer live, and when talking to her, noticed it's there when speaking too. |
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Post by unit7 on Jan 9, 2015 2:26:10 GMT -6
Yeah the amount of cleaning up has to do with the style, and if stuff 'pulls you out' of the music. One thing I always do is clean up vocal tracks. Often have to fix bad editing, plosives, harsh consonants. I always leave breaths in but sometimes pull them down a little on some singers. The most annoying I know is certain singers who has this hi frequency whistling on every 'fff', usually around 10-12k. I haven't found any other way to remove it than notching them out manually. I loop the music, search the frequency by boosting on the channel eq and then paste that into the 'same' eq in Audiosuite, notching about 10-15dB. Then on to the next 'fff'... Very tedious. it err... ahem... De "ff" d me quite nicely. 8) cheers Wiz   Not a 'swedish' thing then! So do you use one deesser for the sss and another for the fff? |
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