When it comes to natural ambience sounds, such as cars passing and birds tweeting, should you keep them centred, or is it safe to pan them in either the left or right direction?
Hi Mitch,
Just wanted to check whether you are the same person who has been asking identical questions on the DV forum under the name of Ryan Wray which now runs to 17 pages and also the same person under the name Ryan Elder asking the identical questions on Creative Cow.
My apologies if you are not, just that there are remarkable similarities.
Roger
Hi Mitch,
Just wanted to check whether you are the same person who has been asking identical questions on the DV forum under the name of Ryan Wray which now runs to 17 pages and also the same person under the name Ryan Elder asking the identical questions on Creative Cow.
My apologies if you are not, just that there are remarkable similarities.
Roger
Hi,
No, I’m not the same person at all.
Hi
. . . . When it comes to natural ambience sounds, such as cars passing and birds tweeting, should you keep them centred, or is it safe to pan them in either the left or right direction? . . . .
IMHO that depends on the sound source
Note for examples like the motorbike and other moving objects eg trains, planes, cars etc, and you are 'synthesizing' a sound effect to match or using an effect loop, then to achieve realism you should cater for 2 extra parameters:
HTH
John EB
There are many variations to ambient sound. Typically you would record a general non specific ambience of the area you are in as an overall background, usually in stereo to give space. You could then record sounds that are specific to the shot in the video, e.g. a car passing or pulling up, a gunshot, door opening etc. These could be recorded as they are filmed using a close boomed mic etc, then placed into the stereo scene as John said, using pan for positioning. Frequently though, specific sounds are the work of the Foley artiste who creates realistic sounds to position in the audio scene that represent the required sound, or special effects artistes for gunshots, explosions, car sounds etc. Often real sounds do not actually sound real when recorded at the time of shooting and are often artificially created then mixed in to the audio tracks with perhaps reverb or echo added to match the original ambience and distance from the camera. Typical well known special effects sounds are coconut shells for horses hooves, screwing up cellophane for a crackling fire etc, etc. Film audio is in fact a complete art form on it's own and is important to focus the listeners attention onto the subject they are viewing. It is also a fascinating subject on which many books have been written.
Roger
I would agree with John but would add caution and further conditions.
As part of a mix of sounds, I feel there should always be a stable audio background track for everything else to adhere to. If it's on its own it will sound odd.
Watch out for other background noises within the track you wish to pan as they will pan with the sound you wish to move.
Make sure the additional sounds match the location. Additional echos or reverberation where none exists or vice versa will also not 'gel' well. Close-miked effects sometimes sound dead within a mix if not padded to match the surrounding ambiance.
There are many variations to ambient sound. Typically you would record a general non specific ambience of the area you are in as an overall background, usually in stereo to give space. You could then record sounds that are specific to the shot in the video, e.g. a car passing or pulling up, a gunshot, door opening etc. These could be recorded as they are filmed using a close boomed mic etc, then placed into the stereo scene as John said, using pan for positioning. Frequently though, specific sounds are the work of the Foley artiste who creates realistic sounds to position in the audio scene that represent the required sound, or special effects artistes for gunshots, explosions, car sounds etc. Often real sounds do not actually sound real when recorded at the time of shooting and are often artificially created then mixed in to the audio tracks with perhaps reverb or echo added to match the original ambience and distance from the camera. Typical well known special effects sounds are coconut shells for horses hooves, screwing up cellophane for a crackling fire etc, etc. Film audio is in fact a complete art form on it's own and is important to focus the listeners attention onto the subject they are viewing. It is also a fascinating subject on which many books have been written.
Roger
And should that overall background sound be kept panned to the centre like with the dialogue? And then the other type of effects such as door sounds, tap running, etc, can be panned how you want it?
If you are recording background ambient sound in stereo to give width and space to it, it would be panned centre to give equal balance to left and right stereo positioning of the recording. If you panned it to one side, you would completely lose the whole point of recording it in stereo.
A natural ambient sound is made up of the sounds being reflected from various surfaces with differing reflective characteristics. That might be from nearby buildings, walls, trees etc, or if recorded inside, could be from carpets, curtains, hard or soft floors etc. All of these characteristics give us a sensation of the environment that we are hearing them in, based on our previous experiences. If the recording is mono, then that feeling of space and direction is removed, particularly if there are distant sounds of voices, vehicles, city hum, wildlife etc. It all has a place in the stereo image of a natural recording. Any specific sounds that are added later, can be recorded in mono and panned to the stereo positioning appropriate to the subject.
As an example, you could record the general stereo sound of a busy shopping mall with people passing buy, background chatter etc. To that, you could add your subject talking to a friend in a close up shot, which would need to be recorded in mono with a close mic to cut out reflections. That would give a feeling of intimacy to direct the viewers attention and would be panned to match the audio stereo positioning with that of the subjects video positioning.
Roger
As an example, you could record the general stereo sound of a busy shopping mall with people passing buy, background chatter etc. To that, you could add your subject talking to a friend in a close up shot, which would need to be recorded in mono with a close mic to cut out reflections. That would give a feeling of intimacy to direct the viewers attention and would be panned to match the audio stereo positioning with that of the subjects video positioning.
Roger
So if the two characters talking were positioned in the centre of the frame, then the mono recording of their voices would be panned to the centre?
As an example, you could record the general stereo sound of a busy shopping mall with people passing buy, background chatter etc. To that, you could add your subject talking to a friend in a close up shot, which would need to be recorded in mono with a close mic to cut out reflections. That would give a feeling of intimacy to direct the viewers attention and would be panned to match the audio stereo positioning with that of the subjects video positioning.
Roger
So if the two characters talking were positioned in the centre of the frame, then the mono recording of their voices would be panned to the centre?
Quite correct, although if you had made a close stereo pair recording of the conversation and they were facing each other on the screen, you would have a left and right positioning of the audio anyway. Alternatively, if you recorded both voices with one mic, you could change the pan in post to correspond to which side each of the characters were speaking as appropriate.
When I film a wedding, the Groom wears a stereo lav mic on his jacket, which also picks up the Bride alongside him and is recorded to a stereo pocket recorder. It is then quite noticeable which side of the stereo audio image each voice is coming from. I also record the stereo sound of the church as a whole and can feed in as much of the clean lav sound as I want, or take out the overall church sound and just leave the close sound as required.
Every scenario is different and I adopt a belt and braces approach to give me as many options as possible in post.
Roger
. . . . the two characters talking were positioned in the centre of the frame, then the mono recording of their voices would be panned to the centre . . . .
Is this a true mono recording ie one audio channel only in the file or is it a mono recording in a stereo file?
Mono recordings in a stereo file often have the audio on the left channel only and cannot be panned because the right channel is silent.
To work with this sort of file, you have an extra step to take in MEP, ie make both channels = L or both channels = R using the appropriate Audio Cleaning, Stereo FX preset - once this is done then you can pan to the centre.
HTH
John EB
As an example, you could record the general stereo sound of a busy shopping mall with people passing buy, background chatter etc. To that, you could add your subject talking to a friend in a close up shot, which would need to be recorded in mono with a close mic to cut out reflections. That would give a feeling of intimacy to direct the viewers attention and would be panned to match the audio stereo positioning with that of the subjects video positioning.
Roger
So if the two characters talking were positioned in the centre of the frame, then the mono recording of their voices would be panned to the centre?
Quite correct, although if you had made a close stereo pair recording of the conversation and they were facing each other on the screen, you would have a left and right positioning of the audio anyway. Alternatively, if you recorded both voices with one mic, you could change the pan in post to correspond to which side each of the characters were speaking as appropriate.
When I film a wedding, the Groom wears a stereo lav mic on his jacket, which also picks up the Bride alongside him and is recorded to a stereo pocket recorder. It is then quite noticeable which side of the stereo audio image each voice is coming from. I also record the stereo sound of the church as a whole and can feed in as much of the clean lav sound as I want, or take out the overall church sound and just leave the close sound as required.
Every scenario is different and I adopt a belt and braces approach to give me as many options as possible in post.
Roger
I see. And so would your stereo recording of the church as a whole be your ambient sound?
Yes the stereo recording in the church would give me the overall sound with the huge church natural soaring reverb, but when I want just the vows and readings, I would mix the two together to give a much more intimate sound to those parts, sometimes leaving the ambient sound out altogether. During Hymns etc, I want to capture the massive sound generated in the church, and to some extent adding a little of that to the voice recording of the person conducting the ceremony. It's about directing the audio focus of the viewers to where the main emphasis is. During the vows, I want them to hear every word in intimate detail, rather than the distant reverby sound of the church, but the last thing I want in the hymns is a close up sound of the couple singing out of tune. Having said that, I have been asked in the past to leave that in as the couple were notorious for singing out of tune and thought it would be funny!
Roger