Wavehammer for dialog and voice-over? -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Wavehammer for dialog and voice-over? Posted by: Gweilo Date:3/18/2004 3:06:14 PM I see a voice preset for wavehammer. To get smooth levels and similar perceived volume from clip to clip, is this better or worse than rMS normalization with dynamic compression?
Subject:RE: Wavehammer for dialog and voice-over? Reply by: RiRo Date:3/18/2004 10:31:51 PM I use the RMS normalization daily on radio production. This includes news, commercials, and voice-over type work. Your question does not say where the clips are to be used... so I will shoot from my situation's hip. I use different settings for different purposes. For loud spots (tractor pulls, etc) I use -4 rms (way too tight, but this is a tractor pull spot, after all) and then clip the peaks with wave hammer to -6. This sounds just awful for anything but tractor pull spots. Ok, maybe monster truck spots, too. For a funeral home spot, I leave it open, I forget the setting but it is the preset for voice in the RMS normalize, but I watch the levels very close and use a volume envelope Vegas to keep it out of the music (slow music with lots of strings usually). If I spend the time in Vegas to get it right it can be done with the volume envelopes and won't need anything else. If the spot airs in 10 minutes, I may drop the music back a bit too much and hammer it back up.... but only until I can do it right. For news, again it depends. I do a daily human interest feature that varies so I use what conveys the sound I am going for. If the feature is on a hot local band, I hop it up a bit (not into the monster truck level) to work with the music clips I use in the piece. If it is just straight talk, I normalize the voice of my interview first to get the optimal sound, then tweak my voice to get it consistent. If the interview is noisy, not always a bad thing if the noise adds to the story, and my voice is ultra clean from the studio, using the same settings on both voices will not sound good. Your ear is all that can make this right, and that takes time to learn, you have to know your monitors, and use multiple playback devices. It also helps to know what the station processing sounds like. One AM station I do work for is so compressed with multiband compression that it just doesn't matter what I do, it is squished to death anyway. When using special effects and sound effects, all rules are off. After all, when you close a spot with a nuclear explosion, it needs to be louder than the voice... RiRo
Subject:RE: Wavehammer for dialog and voice-over? Reply by: grig Date:3/20/2004 9:05:39 AM really interesting topic, thx a lot!! but one question: you're compressing the voice, ok but, does the final mix of the commercial or whatever, needs to be compressed too, and how regarding that the voice have already been compressed? I think that you have to use different settings for tv or radio, no?

I use the RMS normalization daily on radio production. This includes news, commercials, and voice-over type work. Your question does not say where the clips are to be used... so I will shoot from my situation's hip.

I use different settings for different purposes. For loud spots (tractor pulls, etc) I use -4 rms (way too tight, but this is a tractor pull spot, after all) and then clip the peaks with wave hammer to -6. This sounds just awful for anything but tractor pull spots. Ok, maybe monster truck spots, too.

For a funeral home spot, I leave it open, I forget the setting but it is the preset for voice in the RMS normalize, but I watch the levels very close and use a volume envelope Vegas to keep it out of the music (slow music with lots of strings usually). If I spend the time in Vegas to get it right it can be done with the volume envelopes and won't need anything else. If the spot airs in 10 minutes, I may drop the music back a bit too much and hammer it back up.... but only until I can do it right.

For news, again it depends. I do a daily human interest feature that varies so I use what conveys the sound I am going for. If the feature is on a hot local band, I hop it up a bit (not into the monster truck level) to work with the music clips I use in the piece.

If it is just straight talk, I normalize the voice of my interview first to get the optimal sound, then tweak my voice to get it consistent. If the interview is noisy, not always a bad thing if the noise adds to the story, and my voice is ultra clean from the studio, using the same settings on both voices will not sound good. Your ear is all that can make this right, and that takes time to learn, you have to know your monitors, and use multiple playback devices.

It also helps to know what the station processing sounds like. One AM station I do work for is so compressed with multiband compression that it just doesn't matter what I do, it is squished to death anyway.

When using special effects and sound effects, all rules are off. After all, when you close a spot with a nuclear explosion, it needs to be louder than the voice...

RiRo