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Exercises

  1. Sit outside in a park or other outdoor setting and listen for 10 minutes. Make a list of all the sounds you hear during that time. Are there any sounds you only notice after listening for a few minutes?

    Which of these sounds do you notice in everyday life when you are not specifically paying attention to the auditory background?

    Which specific sounds would you want to record, or include in an ambience track, to provide an auditory setting for a similar location on video? Are there any sounds you would find problematic or want to exclude from a location sound recording for video?

Editing Software

For many of the exercises that follow, access to sound editing software or a digital audio workstation will be necessary. While several of the processes in 2–6 and 7–9 are mixing processes and are best performed on a digital audio workstation running Pro Tools, Soundtrack Pro, Audition, or similar software in a calibrated listening environment (“Calibration Tracks”), it is possible to perform many of them on basic audio editing software such as Audacity or WavePad using built-in functions or VST plug-ins.

Editing Exercises

The editing exercises below should be approached in conjunction with the exposition given in Chapter 9 of the second edition. In particular, editing exercises 2, 3, and 4 focus on hiding a cut between two audio clips and relate to the discussion of editing production sound on pages 233–240.

For exercises 2, 3, and 4, download the recording “Matching Exercise Intro” and import it into your sound editing software. In each of the exercises that follow, this master recording will serve as the first of two takes intended to be cut together. Your goal will be to match this clip with a second clip made under different conditions, so that the two can be cut together without the edit point drawing attention to itself.

  1. Download the recording “Matching Exercise Background” and import it into your sound editing software alongside the master clip. This recording was made in the same room, but with a higher background noise level at the time of recording. Using presence from this recording as needed to fill out the first track, perform a clean audio edit from the master clip to this one. Possible editing strategies are detailed at the end of the clip.
  2. Download the recording “Matching Exercise Wider” and import it into your sound editing software alongside the master clip. This recording was made in the wide, more reverberant entryway of the house used to record the master clip. Add reverberation to the master clip so that it cuts together seamlessly with this one. You may also use equalization on the voice in one or both clips. Once the voice matches, try using filters to remove background noise from the second clip as necessary.
  3. Download the recording “Matching Exercise Lavaliere” and import it into your sound editing software alongside the master clip. Then, perform equalization to match the timbre of this recording to that of the master clip, adding reverb and editing presence as necessary for a seamless cut. Specific advice on equalizing lavaliere recordings, with frequency response diagrams for raw and equalized recordings, can be found on pages 282–285 of the second edition.

Mixing Exercises

  1. Download the recording “Noisy Room Dialogue” and import it into your sound editing software. Using filters, with additional equalization if necessary, try to remove as much of the background noise from the recording as necessary, without making the voice sound “metallic” or otherwise processed. While some of the noise is broadband noise and may be difficult to remove completely, there are also tonal elements to the noise that may be easier to filter out. High-pass, low-pass, and notch filters, and other noise reduction processes, are introduced on pages 283–286 of the second edition.
  2. Download the recordings “Reverberation Exercise Wet” and “Reverberation Exercise Dry” and import them into your editing software. The dry track is a recording made in a small, quiet room. The wet track is a version of the same recording with artificial reverberation added to make it sound like it was recorded in a large, reverberant space.

    Using a digital reverb plug-in, add reverberation to the dry recording to match the sound of the wet track provided, adjusting parameters such as the reverb time, algorithm, balance of high and low frequencies, and wet to dry balance of the processed sound until the resulting space sounds similar to that of the reference track provided.

Listening and Ambience Mixing Exercises

  1. This is an exercise that is helpful in thinking about the use of sound as a beginning practitioner, or as an experienced hand brainstorming ideas before a new production. Go out and make a recording to set the sonic landscape for your story. Use the recording along with added effects to tell a portion of the story without picture. The finished soundscape can include minimal dialogue, but ambient sounds and effects should be used to provide the setting and indicate the tone as much as possible.
  2. Filtering can be useful not just for dialogue or sync production tracks, but for backgrounds and recorded effects as well. Download and import the file “Ambience Raw Track”, a stereo ambience recorded on a clear day in a residential neighborhood. Paying careful attention to the frequency components in the recording, use your editing software to “clean up” the sound by filtering out the tonal noise (i.e. whine or hum tones) present.
  3. Equalization can be used, in moderation, to color music or ambience tracks. After removing the tonal noise in the recording in Exercise 8, use the bands of a parametric equalizer to adjust the recording so that it sounds both pleasant and appropriate for use as a residential ambience. Play the recording under dialogue, if possible, and adjust the background level and frequency response so that it fits in without drawing attention away from the foreground action.

    Be careful not to overemphasize any particular element in the background; the job of the ambience track is, after all, to remain in the background and provide a foundation for the soundtrack being created. Overemphasis on a particular frequency range, while striking, may also be jarring in the long run. For example, adding in more bass can seem exciting in editing many types of scenes, but is easy to overdo, particularly when listening through headphones or speakers with a weak bass response.