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VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!
Established November 10, 2004
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Yoda117
M&M
Joined: 20 Dec 2006
Posts: 2362
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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 Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:19 am Post subject: |
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| jasbart wrote: |
Question: other than personal preference, is there something inherently wrong with using a normalizing plug-in? In other words, does it degrade the file in some way? I honestly thought that, in Pro Tools for example, all the normalizing process did was increase the level of the highest peak of a particular file to the desired level, say 90%. Does that actually change the file? I know music engineers who do this as part of their standard operating procedure, ie record at a "safe" level, then normalize to a more workable level.
Thanks for continuing this discussion!
Jim |
Well, part of it is personal preference, part of it is having access to tools that allow me to do the same thing without inserting transients into the file. I know a lot of folks have differing opinions, but I've looked at spectral graphs of stuff that I've normalized via DAW applications (Audition, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, also used Waves and Izotope) and compared it to what I did using outboard gear when I simply took the signal and increased the output of the end signal. The differences were more than a little interesting to me and the latter technique was, albeit more time consuming, sounded much more natural in the final product.
I simply noticed that there was some "clipping" (not in the traditional, absolute limit sense that we're all familiar with, but for no reason I noticed that parts of the wave simply clipped and went totally horizontal along the spectrum in a rather unnatural way if you looked closely enough then leading to a sharp spike... I was using a dedicated spectral analyzer to see this, but I'm sure you can find it using a DAW interface). The end result was that I didn't feel that total ITB (in the box) mixing or processing was as good as using outboard gear.
If I can find some screen shots I took of the experiment, I'll post them up or PM them to you. If Redco gets my cables and patch panels to me within the week (I'm moving over to DB-25 and TT connections... MUCH easier on the maintenance and usage), I'll just re-do the experiment.
FWIW: on the SW side of the fence, I LOVED using Izotope and Waves. Also, I've noticed that from AA 1.5 - 3.0 that they've greatly improved the SW processing capabilities. 2.0 wasn't all that impressive, but 3.0 quickly earned back the lost respect, and then some.
/had to toss out the props for the SW where deserved.
Honestly, this is way more that most folks, even most of us want to go. I've taken the insane route because of my personality and also some of the stuff I've learned while examining various accidents, plane crashes, etc. From an HCI perspective I noticed that a lot of errors caused and much of the panic was directly related to the sound of a klaxon or alarm. Often, people couldn't differentiate between multiple alarms, and the sounds used had a common tendency of eliciting an instinctual panic response (it's an evolutionary trait according to most scientists that examined the phenomenon). If you've noticed over the past 10 - 15 years, the tone of the alarms used stores, malls, schools, etc. have changed. There's a reason for that, and it's because people stay calmer when they are alerted by sounds using one pattern of wave form, vs. one that is peaked and clipped wave form (which we used to use).
I'm way off on the "too much info" side of the fence right now, but looking at the graph of what I was doing with SW DAW applications compared to what I was getting while using outboard gear stoked the memory of those studies. Using processes like normalization which exacerbate it just didn't make sense to me after that, so I found another method to do the same thing.
But I think we can all agree that I'm rather insane when it comes to how my insights are gathered, so I usually just leave them as the musings of someone with too much time on their hands to think about such things.
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Voiceovers by Gregory Houser
Philadelphia based Voice Actor
Blog - A man, a martini, and a lot of microphones |
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Jeffrey Kafer
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Joined: 09 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 11:09 am Post subject: |
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| jasbart wrote: | | Question: other than personal preference, is there something inherently wrong with using a normalizing plug-in? |
Your caveat before of "assuming no noise" is the holy grail of VO. As we've shown in other threads, everyone has some sort of a noise floor. So if you normalize, you are raising the level of all sounds the same amount as you're raising the highest peak.
So if you have a noise floor of -60db and you normalize by +6db, your noise floor is now -54db. Do you really want to do that?
Conmpression/limiting will raise only those signals that are above a certain threshold and reduce those that are below. Go easy on this, too or you'll sound flat and yucky. a little bit goes a long way.
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com |
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jasbart
Been Here Awhile
Joined: 26 Sep 2006
Posts: 293
Location: Gilbertsville, KY
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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| JeffreyKafer wrote: | | jasbart wrote: | | Question: other than personal preference, is there something inherently wrong with using a normalizing plug-in? |
Your caveat before of "assuming no noise" is the holy grail of VO. As we've shown in other threads, everyone has some sort of a noise floor. So if you normalize, you are raising the level of all sounds the same amount as you're raising the highest peak.
So if you have a noise floor of -60db and you normalize by +6db, your noise floor is now -54db. Do you really want to do that?
Conmpression/limiting will raise only those signals that are above a certain threshold and reduce those that are below. Go easy on this, too or you'll sound flat and yucky. a little bit goes a long way. |
Sorry...I should have said "assuming little noise".
Thanks for the tip on compression/limiting. Realize though, that after you compress/limit, you're going to have to increase the output of your comp/limit to achieve an acceptable level. I really think we're all talking about the same goal with different ways to achieve it, whether by normalizing, comp/limiting, or just by feeding your recording unit with a hotter level. Personally, I do all three.
Jim
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Jim Barton
Barton Voice & Sound
www.bartonvoice.com |
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Jeffrey Kafer
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Joined: 09 Dec 2006
Posts: 4931
Location: Location, Location!
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| Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:42 pm Post subject: |
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I give my signal a boost as well. My recordings tend be a bit on the quiet side and in the compander setting of Audition, I boost the gain by about 4db. But this occurs after the limiting, so my noise floor has all but gone away. As well, this only boosts volumes in the lower frequency ranges above a certain level threshold. This gives my voice a little more oomph since I'm a low tenor by nature.
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com |
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