Tutorial: 10 + 1 Tips to Improve Editing and Mastering Audio
1. Check Your Work
This is the #1 skill that separates the pros from the amateurs in any profession. Just check your work before you deliver.
Wait a day before you listen to your mastered work: you will have fresh ears. Play back the audio and you'll spot editing errors quickly, such as:
- bad edits (hiccups or bad crossfades)
- dead air at the head or tail of sounds
- bad fades (does not ramp up or out smoothly)
- bad loops
2. Ditch the Recordist
Make sure you remove any presence of the recordist from the track. This is one of the most common errors. What we hear most: breathing, clothing moves, slight foot shifts.
3. Fade to Black
Airborne once was delivered a crowd sound that had a 30 second fade out. This was, unfortunately, useless. Why? Everything after the first second cannot be used it is only partially audible. The following 29 seconds were wasted.
Each sound will require its own appropriate fade length, but a good guideline is a 1/2 second fade in, and 3/4 second fade out.
Also, choose a good point to begin the fade: not in the middle of a yell or a bell toll, for example. Begin the fade where the sound effect takes a breath.
4. Louder, Please
Sounds that are -15 dbFS or less should be normalized before they are used; they're just too inaudible. So save the editor some time and bring up the gain. Use your judgement to choose the right gain range.
Some guidelines:
- guns or specifics: -5
- close crowds, traffic or bird atmospheres: -7 to -10
- rain: -10
- wind or room tones: -12 to -15
And for that matter, there's no need to blast every sound you cut. Not every sound works well at maximum level. A soft breeze shouldn't be as loud as a gunshot.
Note: if there is too much noise floor after you've raised the level, erase the file.
5. Turn the Music Off
Remove all music from your recordings. Broadcast music (TV, radio, shopping mall PA) or buskers and street performers, whether close or distant, are copyrighted. Using a sound effect with music in it could get you sued. Don't tempt the RIAA.
Also questionable: video games, Windows or Mac OS X sounds, cell phone ring tones. All are copyrighted.
6. Check Your Work
This is so important it is worth mentioning again. Give yourself some time and re-read your sound file names with fresh eyes.
Bad spelling and inaccurate names are distracting, and also take up an editor's time trying to puzzle out what the sound is. You can spot these errors easily looking at sounds side by side in a folder, or by lining them up in Pro Tools session.
7. Check, Check, One, Two
Use a spell-checker. Go to Dictionary.com.
8. Tense Up
When naming, use one tense consistently: the present. Don't use the past tense, or the continuous tense (i.e. words ending with -ing).
9. Power Words
Remove redundant words like short, long, loud, various, near, or ambience - they aren't helpful and you won't miss them.
Use powerful nouns and verbs. Replace weak words like place, thing, noise, and many. Be specific. What kind of place or what kind of thing? Thesaurus.com will help you with this.
10. Image Shift
Sometimes the recordist turns the microphone, or it wobbles. The result is that the sound seems to waver. This is difficult to detect, but it must be removed so that the sound's perspective will be consistent.
And for extra credit:
+1. When in Doubt...
...throw it out. Not sure if a sound is worthwhile, or valuable? Heavily edited? Erase it. Poor or even mediocre sound files will not help your projects, or make your library more valuable. Great sounds make you want to cut. Poor sounds will bore you, and your clients.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
