https://www.personal-view.com/talks/categories/sound-and-music/p10/feed.rss Sat, 18 May 24 23:46:44 +0000 Sound and Music en-CA https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1879/best-field-recordingvoice-over-re-dub-on-a-budget-microphone-placement-made-simple Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:32:13 +0000 AlexManta 1879@/talks/discussions

When placing a microphone for best effective sound placement (Not Aesthetic but efficient and balanced sound frequency wise so that you won't need to correct much later on, except for volume and noise reduction) you should always think of the sound source you are capturing with your mic as a Flame of Fire, a Sound-Flame...

The tip of a fire-flame is always the hottest part and you want to capture the hottest part with your mic...

If you put the mic too close (within the flame) the sound gets muddy ( proximity effect ) too far from the tip and you'll have a lot of ambience sound and you'll miss a lot of the frequencies that are in the voice of your actor or in the details of your sound source ( the Sound-flame won't be hot enough ).


So what you are looking for with mic placement is always the tip of the Flame of your Sound...

Off course, the bigger the flame the further you'll have to put the microphone to keep the sound nice and natural...

So if your source is really loud...like an explosion or a gunshot, the idea is to have your mic far from the source at the tip of the sound-flame NOT AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE...otherwise you ll just get a POK kind of sound...


And if you are tracking soft dialog ( a smaller/quieter Sound-Flame )...you'll need to get closer to the tip of the Sound-Flame...


The worst thing you can do is to always put the mic at the same distance just because it looks nice, or because it is not framed in your camera shot...a microphone mostly cheap ones transform the sound but they all work pretty nicely if you put them at a correct distance...Correct distance being the tip of the Sound-flame...Off course you also don't want to see the mic or the shadow of it in your frame so you'll have to make choices about that according to the rule you just learned...But you can also redo a lot of your sound in studio...

Now an other amazing voice-over/dubbing trick...Microphone harshness level:


Let's say you are on a budget but you want to achieve the best sounding dialog you'll do voice-over/dubbing recording but how to get the best possible results on a budget??? The most important thing to think of is:

Harshness of microphones vs softness of your voice actors:

If you have a few microphones (even very bad ones) and you have to re-dub the dialogs...the best microphone for the job might not be your most expensive one...it all depends on the Sound-Flame softness level...Even a 75$ mic can do an amazing job depending on the source.


In this situation the rule is: A "beautiful balanced" sound is made from balancing Harshness and Softness.

If your Sound-flame is harsh, smooth it with a dull microphone...Some dynamic mics ( like the Shure SM58 ) can give amazing results on a Voice-Actor who has a metallic/nasal/harsh type of voice.


On the contrary if your Sound-flame is too soft use a harsh microphone...these can be models like the RODE Nt-1000 or NT-2000 for example...or Chinese brand SE 2200A...they are pale imitations of Neumann U87 or U47 but because I own many of these mics and also the one they tried to copy i can tell you that they can become really useful according to the type of Sound-Flame I need to capture.


These are very basic rules to use your microphones in the best possible way...and even if you have more budget the same rules will apply...but in a bigger budget situation we will be able to add an amazing tool called a mic preamp which changes a lot on how your microphone reacts...to use this correctly you'll need more ear-frequency-training and skill...or a sound engineer :D

I you have questions about preamps, compressors, reverb, noise reduction,gate/thresholds, equalizations or anything else in the audio field i'll be very happy to answer,

it will be my way of contributing to this amazing website that our incredible @vitaliy_kiselev created...]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1840/free-sequencers-and-daw Tue, 27 Dec 2011 11:13:05 +0000 Vitaliy_Kiselev 1840@/talks/discussions Samplitude Silver - SoundCloud Edition

Good thing that it is Samplitude, but has 8 tracks restriction.

http://www.magix.com/index.php?id=9002&L=52]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1869/online-test-station-for-virtual-instruments- Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:57:41 +0000 Vitaliy_Kiselev 1869@/talks/discussions

http://www.try-sound.com/
]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1802/sooperlooper-free-live-loop-recordersampler Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:09:33 +0000 kanintesova 1802@/talks/discussions
I had so much fun with this! MIDI-mappable controls (as well as computer keyboard). Check it out:

"SooperLooper is a live looping sampler capable of immediate loop recording, overdubbing, multiplying, reversing and more. It allows for multiple simultaneous multi-channel loops limited only by your computer's available memory."

http://www.essej.net/sooperlooper/


P.S. it's not me playing ;)

]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1826/free-samplers-with-libraries Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:34:07 +0000 Vitaliy_Kiselev 1826@/talks/discussions Plus one more thing - libraries must be, preferably, quite universal.

Ones that I know:

Independence Free 2.5 (about 2GB library contaning many instruments), company had been aquired by MAGIX
http://www.yellowtools.us/cp21/cms/index.php?id=842

SampleTank Free (about 500Mb library)
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/sampletankfree/features/

East West / Quantum Leap - Symphonic Orchestra Free Edition (about 1.7Gb)
Not available for download from producer anymore, but easy to find.

Sample Players
NI Kontakt Player- http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kontakt-5-player/ ,
Steinberg Halion - http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vst/halion/halion_start.html,
Yellow Tools Engine - http://www.yellowtools.com/cp21/cms/index.php?id=842 (now part of MAGIX)
SampleTank - http://ikmultimedia.com/sampletankfree/features/
Liquid/Elastic ,

Note
NI Kontakt Player (their free version) allow to run only specially authorized libraries (who paid fees to NI) :-)
Otherwise it'll time out fast.]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1830/how-the-ear-works- Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:20:39 +0000 Vitaliy_Kiselev 1830@/talks/discussions
Note that this article won’t attempt to cover psychoacoustics in its entirety. In particular, we’ll be restricting our focus to monaural audition and setting aside the notion of integration time, which is the audio equivalent of ‘persistence of vision’. Stay tuned for future articles covering stereo image issues and the very diverse uses one can make of the ear’s integration time in music production.



We’ll start our study of the ear by looking at Figure 1, on top. This drawing shows the morphology of the ear, as usually represented. This is divided into three sections. The outer ear consists of the auditory canal and the exterior of the tympanic membrane, better known as the eardrum. The malleus, incus and stapes, which are small bones often referred to as ossicles, belong to the middle ear, along with the interior of the tympanic membrane. Then there is the inner ear, which includes the cochlea and the semicircular canals. Last, we find two nerves that connect the ear to the brain. (The semicircular canals and vestibular nerves don’t relay any information relating to hearing; their purpose is to give us a sense of gravity and balance, so we’ll leave them aside.)
Figure 1: The morphology of the human ear (diagram derived from Chittka L, Brockmann A (2005): Perception Space — The Final Frontier, www.plosbiology.org).
Figure 1: The morphology of the human ear (diagram derived from Chittka L, Brockmann A (2005): Perception Space — The Final Frontier, www.plosbiology.org).
What we call ‘sound’ is in fact a progressive acoustic wave — a series of variations in air pressure, spreading out from whatever source made the sound. When these pressure variations strike the ear, they find their way through the external auditory canal to the tympanic membrane, setting it into vibration. The signal is thus converted to mechanical vibrations in solid matter. These vibrations of the tympanic membrane are transmitted to the ossicles, which in turn transmit them to the cochlea. Here the signal undergoes a second change of nature, being converted into pressure variations within liquid. These are then transformed again by specialised hair cells, which convert the liquid waves into nervous signals.

Read the rest at: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar11/articles/how-the-ear-works.htm]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1797/midi-keybords-and-controls-surfaces-49-keys Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:05:12 +0000 Vitaliy_Kiselev 1797@/talks/discussions No problems with transposition, etc
Plus many of them are cheaper.

Best build quality I think goes to Arturia Laboratory, alu and wood sides.
Novation SL MkII is also good.
Worst to cheap M-Audio Axiom (non-pro) and Behringer.
]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/129/making-ones-own-music Mon, 23 May 2011 14:13:19 +0000 stoney 129@/talks/discussions https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/1061/most-overused-music-from-movies-and-series Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:00:44 +0000 Retina 1061@/talks/discussions
In no specific order:

From Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie): Comptine d'Un Autre Été (this is the longer version)

From Requiem for a Dream: Theme

From Dexter: Blood Theme

Please share yours, as well!

]]> https://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/512/free-sound-effects Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:22:55 +0000 HillTop1 512@/talks/discussions
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/55-great-websites-to-download-free-sound-effects/]]>