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Filed under: Audio •Editing •Post Production •

On The Level

Tweaks and Timing

Notice in the figure below that the volume level of the voice track does not stay the same. People rarely talk at a consistent volume - especially if they are not trained voiceover talent. Even if they do, what they are talking over (the music) is rarely consistent, and maybe certain words should be emphasized for expression or because they are key points.

The second figure from the previous page, zoomed in on the narration track: a closer look at how the volume curve has been edited to even out the loudness of the overall speech, and to emphasize selected words.

I will constantly tug at the volume of the voice to make sure it appears to be consistent and has the expression I want. Set your work area (the yellow bar on top, in illustration above) to overlap the segment you are working on, and don’t be afraid to preview the mix again and again and again to get it right.

Notice that after the voiceover ends in the figure below, the music fades back up fairly quickly. This is a personal preference; when the words are done, I tend to wrap up and move on as quickly as possible:

After the last word finishes on the narration track (on top), the music track (the middle one) fades back up to fill the void. The ambiance track (on the bottom) also sneaks back in.

More important is timing the music fades to beats in the music track. You know how people count “ONE Two Three Four” in time with music? Than “one” is the downbeat, and is usually marks the most important timing point in the music. When ducking music, it’s nice to start the fade either just after the One or on the Three, and to be down by the next one - and to start the voiceover there. When fading back up, I’ll usually start as soon as the voice stops and get back to my normal volume right at the next One to reinforce that beat.

This is where the markers in programs like Adobe Premiere come in handy - I will often start an entire project by first marking important beats in the audio, such as in the figure below:

Markers are placed on the main beats of the music, to make it easier to spot to these points in the timeline. (Click here to open a higher resolution verison of this figure.)

Timing can affect intelligibility as well. Sometimes words are hard to hear no matter what you do with the levels. Although I will often time important words or starts of sentences to the Ones in the music track for reinforcement, sometimes these beats can step on the words. Moving a voice track back or forward by as a little as a frame is often enough to get it out of the way and make it intelligible again. Don’t move the entire voice track; make cuts during silences and then move the in and out points to compensate for whatever moves you decide to make. Slide these in and out points to make sure the voice track never completely stops - the difference between “silence” in a voice recording and the pure silence of a cut can often tip off the listener that you’ve been editing.

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