Subject:Vegas Editor Needs Help With 10 Second Sound Editing Predicament

Posted by: jcg

Date:1/26/2004 1:26:03 PM

Is there a way in Sound Forge to make two voice clips from the same actor, each about 10 seconds long, as similar sounding as possible (using one as the reference) without me having to fiddle a whole bunch? I am not an experienced Sound Forge user and so far my fiddling isn’t getting much of anywhere useful.

After finishing editing a film, the director decided one of several voice over scenes needed to be rewritten and re-recorded. Through the movie, the main character reads several letters, all as voice overs. The one the director has had rewritten and re-recorded is separated in the film from the next one by only about one minute, so the fact that it is different is very noticeable. Unfortunately, both different equipment (camera and microphone) and different location were used for this re-do. Now I have one odd piece of audio that I need to make sound as much like the other voice overs as possible. They really sound substantially different to me, even in pitch (maybe the actor was feeling differently on the re-do as well?).

Thanks for any advice on how to crack this nut.

JCG

Subject:RE: Vegas Editor Needs Help With 10 Second Sound Editing Predicament

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:1/26/2004 5:19:11 PM

The first thing you need to do is make the environment sound the same. You will need to pick the environment with the most noise in the background. You then select just the background noise and put it behind the record with less background noise. The next thing you will need to do, is eq the voices to match one another as close as possible. Also, If you can't get the backgrounds to match quite right, then use the entire time between the 2 parts to do a gradual crossfade of the environment backgrounds, so that it goes unnoticed that the environment has changed. You also, might want to try mixing in some pre recorded background environments, so you can mask the different environments with the same prerecorded environment over both parts.

Subject:RE: Vegas Editor Needs Help With 10 Second Sound Editing Predicament

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:1/27/2004 1:17:41 AM

I take you have the original script, and the new 10 sec bit that needs to being editing into the old 10 sec segment ?

open both soundfiles, identifying the said segment. Zoom in on that segment, and align it visually (horizontally tiled) with the new bit.

You will need to flick from the old one to the new bit while adjusting the EQ and dynamics to match as best possible the new bit to the old, then replace teh old segment with it.

As Red said, the background noise may change, which will make the inserted bit stick out more. Maybe some background noise from the original (a 'silent' part) mixed in with the new segment would reduce the effect...

geoff

Subject:RE: Vegas Editor Needs Help With 10 Second Sound Editing Predicament

Reply by: jcg

Date:1/27/2004 2:54:02 AM

Guys, thanks a lot for the replies. I am lucky enough to have a background music track in this part of the movie that can mask background noise in these two recordings pretty well. It is the sound of the actor's voice that is so different. I am quite inept at describing this, so please bear with me. In the new recording his voice sounds more muffled and with lower tones. It sounds “flat”. I will try to go about “adjusting the EQ and dynamics” of the new track after I fully figure out how to do that. Thanks again for the help.

JCG

Subject:RE: Vegas Editor Needs Help With 10 Second Sound Editing Predicament

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:1/27/2004 7:01:25 AM

Sounds like a Voice over intonation/inflextion problem. Nothing you can do about that except re record. That's the producers fault, probably due to inexperience. Don't let them tell you, that "you" should be able to fix it. The only true way to fix it, would be to redo the record, and while watching the film, you need to do a punch in and make sure the inflextion matches.