Indie Film Audio Level Questions...

I posted this in Final Cut Pro Forum as well, but no answer yet...
Been doing a lot of reading, but still cannot find a clear answer to this question...
What should my average audio levels be set at for a Standard DV indie film headed for the festivals on DVD?
I've read about the difference in audio ranges for TV & Cinema, and I've read about the average being around -12db & no more than -3db...
As a reference, I put 3 professional movies in my DVD player, and my sound is a lot lower. I need to boost them, but where should my meter read at on average?
Should I be using the Sound Mixer only? Or the Normalizer as well?
Can anyone help me out, so that I can put this film in the bag?
Thanks
Frankie

Hi Frankie:
I'm afraid your on a very slippery slope. First of all your comparing a home release of a DVD and comparing that with a movie. These are very different animals. The second question would be what are your comparisons and how are you making them. The speakers that you use for editing may not be useful for this job. Second of all you must calibrate your system so that you know what is what. Remember that -12 dB full scale digital is equivalent to 0+- within the analogue scale. You must calibrate your system so that you get a reading of -12dB at your outputs and 85dB when measured with a dB meter on fast and "B" weighted at the mixing position. You must do this using a 1k sine wave which is now calibrated in the room. Mark out this level using a dorrough meter. That will give you the proper level you are seeking. -3dB fsd is for peaks only. That is the loudest point at which your movie can fall. This is not for just dialogue. and -12dB fsd is the average of the soundtrack. The next question is what is the format of your deliverable? Film has it's own issues which are further complicated by each of the formats such as Dolby, Dolby digital, DTS, SSDS, etc. Remember that film is an optical medium unlike delivering on Tape or as files on a disk or HDD. In addition you may find that the festival should have restrictions and guidelines for audio levels as well as video levels and color standards if they don't they generally don't have their act together. I recently submitted to a film festival who's restrictions were incomplete and their guidelines ambiguous at best. Their guidelines were as follows. The deliverable must be as a DV tape accompanied by an AVI file. no audio levels, no video levels and a request that makes no sense. AVI file format or DV tape. These should never be the only required settings, and they seemed to be aimed at rank amateurs. DV tape is a very highly compressed format and in this day and age if your not shooting in HD you must be an amateur. What your acquisition format is should be irrelevant. EX Cam EXD Cam EX SR HDV P2 SxS, SDHC etc. are the formats you need to deal with to get the project into your editing system. Once you have completed your edit, color grading, and post audio including music you should then deal with a codec standard for deliverables. I can only say AVI isn't one! There are several Quicktime file types that should be acceptable depending on the audience and how big the screen will be. Mpeg 2 used in television or Mpeg 4 should be acceptable. Most if not all systems should be able to output these files but there are more. The audio should be in a standard format either aiff or wave for stereo but more complicated mixes such as surround mixes should use a compressed format such as Dolby or Dolby digital of the 5.1 or 7.1 variety. These are industry standards and folks who run these festivals should know this. If not perhaps they need to be replaced.

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I've not tried this and my system is busy, but...
Have you tried panning the first clip to center, then control-click on that clip, choose 'copy', then lasso the remaining clips, control-click, paste attributes?
Not sure it works for panning audio, so let us know.
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I have 10 clips of audio on my time line and they are all panned to the left. Is there a way to mark in at the first clip, mark out on the last clip and pan them all to the center at once instead of doing them individually?????
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I've not tried this and my system is busy, but...
Have you tried panning the first clip to center, then control-click on that clip, choose 'copy', then lasso the remaining clips, control-click, paste attributes?
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I have been editing my films and spent hours fixing the audio levels. Everytime I close and re-open final cut audio levels go back down.

I have been busy editing my film and for the third time now, i have been correcting my audio levels with each clip - this takes me hours - and everytime I go back to the project, the audio levels fall back down. So everything i did previously was a waste of time.
Does anyone have the same issue? Is there anything I am doing wrong here?

Gosh, that sounds aweful close to the same problem people are experiencing with the undo bug. They don't know their having a problme until they hit Command+Z to undo their last change, and they can't, the undo command is actually grayed out in the menu. I understand if this happens, X is not auto saving your changes either. So, the next time you make all of your changes, check to see if your undo command is grayed out from the menu. If it is, duplicate your project to force a manual save. Then Quit X and reopen it and insure you project is intact.

Audio Level for documentary

Hello Everyone,
I am currently editing a short documentary focused on a Rock band. As I never really spent many energies on Audio in my previous projects, I would like to be precise in this one.
Does anybody knows what are the audio levels that I should mantain for dialogues? I heard that they should stay below 12-dB. Is that true and is there anything else I should know?
In addition, I obviously will put rock songs during the film, is there another rule for music?
And my last question is, whenever I want the interviewees to talk, with the music on the background, what level should I decrease the songs so that they don't interfere with the dialogues?
Thank you so much!

Richard,
Really? That low?
I generally find that setting the total output to -6 or so makes it about the same level as commercially made videos - like from Vevo.
Just to make sure, I downloaded a video of Maroon 5 running all over LA to play at weddings (I know - illegally - but only for a test) and put it into Premiere Pro. I set the audio to max out at -6 by putting in a -6 gain. I took turns playing it back from YouTube and from Premiere Pro and it sounded like the same level to me. A non-scientific test of course, but it seems reasonable to me.
If you want to recreate the test, I downloaded this video:
I used this web site to do it. Free Online YouTube Downloader: Download YouTube Videos, Facebook and many others!
It doesn't make you download any software. I imported the resulting MP4 and set the gain to -6. You do it and see how you feel about it.
Please, anyone reading this, do not use other people's work in your own videos. This is for the purpose of testing only.
As for how low the music bed should be under the speech, that is something to be experimented with. Just make sure that the total lever is around -6.

Manual Audio Level Controls! - Sony Alpha DSLRS (A65)

Dear Sony -I absolutely love your DSLRs. However, to use the camera as an acceptable tool for amateur/indie/professional film, manual audio level controls in video mode are a must-have. Equal Canon competitors all feature this simple leveling option for managing audio.Currently, the automatic gain control is the only option for audio recording capabilities on Sony Alpha DSLRS in video recording. While in theory OK, AGC leads to terrible problems such as unnecessarily high and distracting background noise/hiss. Filmmakers desire crisp, clear audio!For quality results using an external microhpone, manual audio levels are the only way for filmmakers to achieve decent in-camera audio to compete with Canon users. Many amateur and professional videographers are in desperate need of this function! Audio is often MORE important than the image quality of your film, although Sony seems to increasingly neglect its video DSLR users by not implementing this ability and falling short on video options (Auto-focus in Manual Mode, audio levels on HUD etc.).To keep my Sony A65 a viable option for video work - please see if anything can be done! (Should be able to be added with a firmware update to all current and existing Alpha DSLRS) Thanks!!! - Love, a filmmaker who would desperately like to keep their A65 for professional video work! (Also from "Join The Inspiration")

Though a great idea, you also have to understand that the a65 isn't as film oriented camera like other cameras.
DSLR cameras with the audio controls are designed with film making in mind, thus they have that option.
Most DSLRs (at least, back in the days) was simply a camera to take photos. If you wanted to do film, you'd buy a dedicated film recorder for that. Having video capabilities in a DSLR was a bonus.
Nowadays, it's merging, bang for buck, reaching to a boarder audience, one size fits all, etc, and unfortunately, the a65 wasn't part of that 'nowadays' era.
The a99 and a77ii, if I remember correctly, has audio controls.
A lot of the newer Sony models (mirrorless) also have audio controls, that is, the ones that a targeted towards film making and not just great photos with the bonus of great video.
Also, I would presume that a lot of 'professional' videographers will either use external mics such as on a pole, a lapel mic, etc, to capture perfect audio, or if not, at least a shotgun/boom mic attached to the camera.
When doing such, there technically shouldn't be a lot of problems with the audio quality. Of course, if those external mics are still recorded into the camera, then yeah... but if they're recorded separately and slapped on during post processing... shouldn't be any problems...
If you're relying purely on the a65 and it's AGC, then there definitely will be shortcomings here and there unfortunately.
I recently filmed my niece-in-law's wedding. I didn't have any fancy mic setups (can't afford it at this stage), and this wasn't any sort of 'professional' work, more of just something for the family (free), but the audio came out excellent. Yes, it caught ambient noise (obviously), but I don't hear any cutoffs or badly pitched noises, or anything. The loud music and people cheering on and such all came through very clearly. Sure, it's no 'professional' bitrate or anything, but at 192kbps, it did the job.
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I've been mixing a feature film scene by scene (STP can't seem to handle a full feature mix at once due to memory problems) and generally pleased. However, I've noticed on two out of 10 scenes mixed so far, when I exported the aiff file as a master mix, audio levels on various clips (not all) drop considerably in the mixed file. Even clips in the same track lose audio level in places in the mix, seemingly randomly. It's very weird. Then, when I listen again in STP the levels have been mysteriously dropped as well. NOT the volume slider bar. It stays the same. No change in gain. All LOOKS as it was before exporting but the drops are there. It's as if the exporting process has done something to the STP timeline levels without visually changing anything. If I change the layout screens or play around with the submix locations, all returns to normal in STP. But after I tried exporting again, the same problem happens.
I couldn't find any other forum help with this. Some people suggested 'Render to Action' or 'Flatten Audible Actions' for a similar problem someone else posted, but those options are ghosted out on my multi-track project.
I tried deleting all .plist files related to audio, soundtrack and final cut studio (not easy to find, may have missed something). And this problem doesn't exist on some other scenes using the same process which worked fine.... so it's extremely odd.
I am using minimum filtration, just a limiter with -4.5db and 3db of gain on one track. All dialogue going to a submix and all fx to another. There are only 4 tracks of audio in the mix in question.
I 'analysed' and 'fixed' all phase issues in clips. No change.
The original recordings are .wav files from a Zoom H4N set at 44.1 hz, but that's the same in all scenes, so not sure why only two would make a problem. (the project itself is set to 48hz)
I'm fairly experienced in FCP Studio but getting a bit loony over this one, so hope you can offer some help. Please don't suggest using other software like Pro Tools for this mix. It has been working fine and I'm happy with 8 scenes. There must be something simple going on with the 2 odd ones.
Thanks, Ken STP 3.0.1 Snow Leopard, Intel Quad MacPro
'It's not a question of becoming. It's a question of uncovering what you really are, of letting everything that is not yourself fall away'. - Journey to Ladakh
I think this applies to editing as well....
Ken Barnes, Producer, Director, Editor
www.blissmonkeyfilms.com

I may have found a clue, but still don't know how to fix it. The file from FCP to STP was a stereo file with mic A on left and mic B on right (used a Zoom H4N). I split the file in STP into two mono files and separated the tracks. So actor A is on track 1 and Actor B on 2. All levels fine. I checkerboarded the tracks so there wasn't a lot of overlap. So far so good. Somehow, STP seems to be reading only Track 1 when it does the export; the level drop I'm hearing seems to be Actor B appearing on Actor A's lavalier, even though that data has (supposedly?) been chopped for the checkerboarding. Is this clear? IOW, even though the timeline shows clearly distinct and clearly audible separate mono tracks 1 and 2, the export mix isn't reading it that way and ignores my separation of stereo to 2 mono tracks, preferring to read from only one of the stereo tracks (or possibly only Track 1, but not throughout the track, only where the checkerboarding has occured). And then it somehow 'remembers' the export when it re-opens the project until I make almost any adjustment in STP and it magically returns to normal. Help!!

Different Audio Levels in Edit View vs. Multitrack View

Here's what happens...
I begin a new session. I then import a .wav file and it appears in the left column. I double-click the .wav so I'm in Edit View. When I play the clip, it ranges from about -9 to -6 dB. Now I go back to Multitrack View without having edited or changed the .wav in any way. I send the clip to Track 1. When it plays back, it now ranges from about -12 to -9 dB on the levels meter...this is an issue. In terms of trying to balance audio levels within a session, something that sounds good in one view might be too loud or too soft when playing back in the other. It's my understanding that regardless of Edit View or Multitrack View, a .wav should play at the same exact levels (unless you tamper with the mixer which I have not done).
So my question is, why is there a 3dB difference between playing a clip in Edit View vs. Multitrack View?

Try setting view>advance session properties>mixing>
L/R cut logarithmic
discussion here:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b56d34

Audio levels on the timeline & Audio Mixer

I'm confused why when you change the audio levels on a clip using the Audio Mixer it changes the levels for everything on the track?
I'm from an FCP & Avid background where you can adjust each clip using the Audio Mixer, is there a way I can do this? I find using the yellow sliders in each clip is very unaccurate and having to open each audio clip in the viewer is such a time waster.
Thanks, Andy

Audio in Premiere Pro is different--but quite a lot, in many circumstances. I'd recommend going through the help file's audio section to get a better idea of what some of the main controls are: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 & CS5.5 * Editing Audio
But to answer your question more directly: the Audio Mixer controls track volume, not clip volume. By default, the Audio Mixer isn't set to drop keyframes, so it will affect the level of a track as a whole; check out Recording audio mixes to get more background on setting up the Audio Mixer for automation, so that you can record level changes.
The rubberbands (the yellow lines you're referring to) can be more finitely controlled by holding down the Ctrl/Cmd key as you drag; the values will move in smaller increments, then.
You don't have to load a clip into the Source Monitor to adjust the levels, if you want to adjust by the numbers. Just single click a clip in the sequence, and if the Effects Controls panel is forward, you'll be able to adjust the volume with the standard effects sliders/dials. Note that keyframing is enabled by default for the Level property, so if all you want to do is adjust the total level of a clip, it might be faster to do it in the sequence.
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What are the iTunes digital audio levels in and out

I am having a lot of trouble with finding out and setting the audio levels in and out of iTunes.
Digital audio has 16bits at '1' with an analog signal level of +12dB, 24bit has all'1's at +18dB. Making the overhead capability for CD 16bit 12dB and that for HD 24bit 18dB.
I would like to record (using SoundStudio) a set of standard audio tones from 20-20kHz with digital levels of "all 1's" 16bit, or +12 dB analog level, "all 1's" 24bit ditto, and the same for levels of analog 0dB (-12dB digital) for 16bit and 0dB(-18dB digital) for 24bit.
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As an addition to my first question. I asked the makers of Sound Studio about levels. They tell me that the Mac standard is to have all '1's in the digital stream defined as 0dB.
Which helps as I can now record a tone at the CD level of -12dB and the HD audio level of -18dB. And if I make recordings I know to keep the input levels well into the green, not yellow and definitely not up to the red.
As you say the output of iTunes is boosted, and from my measurements this boost is in the analog circuitry and is about +8dB.
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Audio level setting for music tracks in dance recital video project

I am editing dance recital using the CD music tracks and editing in the audience clapping, some of the music tracks have lower audio level than others.
I am setting up the audio levels between -3dB (for the lower audio tracks) up to -6dB (for the higher ones) including the audience clapping. I am making the adjustments by listening to the tracks on fixed output volume level.
My question is if the final output (DVD) will have the the same adjusted audio levels I am hearing, or should I just stick to fixed level (-6dB) for all the tracks? If so is -6dB ideal for DVD output?

Thanks for your reply Steve,
I normally watch DVDs on different sound system than the TV, however, from your answer I gather you're setting the master level -18 to -20db. If it is so, are you setting the individual tracks below that, and in my case where the audio levels of the original music fluctuate from high to low, would you set them all on the same level or adjust to hear them out the same?

Audio level peaks in FCP

Is there a range that you audio levels should be while editing, such as between -18 and -12?

There are a different suggested values because you're measuring an average
of a moving target. Also different types of sounds produce different
measurements. Typically, peaking at -12dBFS most of the time works out well.
As a point of reference, you can record some pink noise at -18dbFS (RMS)
and that should produce 85dB SPL (C-weighted) from each speaker.
That way you'll know how loud your mix will sound in a theater.
Your question asked about a range of levels rather than a peak value.
That's a little trickier. How soft should the "quiet" sounds be?
I usually get the loud sounds set up with good levels (peaking at -12dbFS),
then turn down the volume of my system, so that I can hear the effects
of background noise in the listening environment. Make sure you can
still hear those soft sounds. Usually you'll have to make the softer
sounds louder that they would be in real life.

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Greetings,
I have 2 issues while some audio tweaking for a Multicam edit. I have assigned the audio for a single angle to apply to the entire sequence.   There are some clips in the sequence where, at times, I cannot adjust the level of the audio. It will show the level when clicking with the selector, but it cannot be dragged up or down.   Stranger still, if I select it within a series of clips and use CTRL -/+ to change levels, it is unchanged even though all the others changed. There is nothing differnent about the clips in question (they are not Compound Clips or anything.)
Restarting seems to often fix the above problem. But it seems to be happening enough that it's a real inconvenience. Also I am having similar issues with the audio level meter freezing up intermittently. Sometimes when I toggle audio skimmer it can correct it for a while, but once it starts, a restart is inevitable.   Does anyone have any workarounds for making this work properly?
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Thanks for your time and assistance!
Brian

I would think it would be easiest to open the muticlip in the Angle Editor where you would have a clear view of each individual angle and its audio.
Russ

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Hi,
I'm editing a film.
Voice over level is set to maximum for most part of it. It sounds as it supposed to sound after encoding.
There are several parts of the film that are supposed to be quiet. They are set as quiet on the timeline and do sound quiet during preview playback.
The problem is after I export the film to mpeg (I've also tried many other formats) the sound level in those quiet parts is automatically raised to very high. Those pieces sound almost as loud as the voice over. Looks like Premiere or Media Encoder have some automated audio level normalization or something like this.
I've tried to find encoding settings that are perhaps responsible for that, and I've also looked up for a solution on Adobe forums -- but I couldn't find anythind appropriate.
I'm using Premiere CS5 on a PC.
Thanks in advance!
This man seems to have the same issue: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/3/906064

Igor,
Always glad to help, even if not directly.
I use MediaPlayer Classic HC for playback testing on the computer, and it seems to handle my Audio better than WMP, and some others. Do not know KM, so cannot comment on it.
I also edit Audio by ear, with but a glance at dB levels, from time to time.
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Good luck,
Hunt

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When I change audio level in the clip (I usually need mute/unmute, so I do 100-0% or back) iMovie doesn't respond that chage for a while. After some time it becames ok. What can be the problem here?

Hi there
Assuming the audio clip is the longest object on the slide, you can fairly easily adjust the slide to match the audio clip exactly. But it will require a small and simple adjustment for each slide. Perhaps this will help?
To make the adjustment, just click the slide in the film strip so it has focus, then click on the time indicator field over in the General section of the properties panel. Type a 1 in the field and press Enter. The slide should auto-adjust to the audio clip timing.
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