• Most new users don't bother reading our rules. Here's the one that is ignored almost immediately upon signup: DO NOT ASK FOR FANEDIT LINKS PUBLICLY. First, read the FAQ. Seriously. What you want is there. You can also send a message to the editor. If that doesn't work THEN post in the Trade & Request forum. Anywhere else and it will be deleted and an infraction will be issued.
  • If this is your first time here please read our FAQ and Rules pages. They have some useful information that will get us all off on the right foot, especially our Own the Source rule. If you do not understand any of these rules send a private message to one of our staff for further details.
  • Please read our Rules & Guidelines

    Read BEFORE posting Trades & Request

ROTS Audio - Center Channel Echo in Other Channels

TV's Frink

TV's Frink

You Catch On Pretty Quick
Staff member
Donor
Faneditor
Messages
23,687
Reaction score
419
Trophy Points
193
I'm working with six mono wav files from the Revenge of the Sith DVD. I've muted the center channel, and yet for some reason I can still hear a faint echo of the dialogue in the other channels. The volume level varies from barely noticeable to reasonably noticeable, depending on the point in the movie I'm listening to.

I'm listening on headphones, so I'm sure it's making things a little more obvious than it would be otherwise. But still it's odd. Has anyone else run into this? Could it be a fault of hypercube?

Possibly related question - should it really take hypercube 5+ hours to split the ac3 file?

Thanks. :)
 
It is not really an echo, the dialog is usually in the center channel but sometimes it can be heard in the other channels, the reason is for "ambience" because if the voice was limited to the enter track always, thing would get a little dull.

Hypercube allways takes a gagillion years to perform the job, it is an older program sir, but it checks out ; )
 
Ah, ok. Thx.

I always heard that working with Star Wars audio sucks, now I'm learning that firsthand. It's going to make things difficult on me :(
 
Yeah, Frink, sorry about that. It's one of Ben Burtt's trademark moves in mixing audio. I'm running into the same problem with KOTCS. It makes for a lush sound mix, but it's very tough to work around for fanediting.

boon's done some remarkable work with audio mixes; you might want to talk to him. You might also check out the KOTCSJTF thread for one possible technique I've come up with that's a slight variation on boon's techniques. I can't remember what page the "tutorial" I wrote is on offhand, but it's when I'm talking about working with the audio in the diner sequence. Good luck!
 
I've thought of using one or two for alternate Indy lines, though I'm finding that there are often distinct differences between how HF reads lines as Indy and how he reads them as Han. I think you're the one who originally pointed me towards those soundboards, BTW, so thanks!

I'm curious about that recent Sounds of Star Wars book that Ben Burtt worked on (heard about it through NPR's Facebook feed). Looks like it could be very useful, but if I understand correctly how it works (a big if), it may involve playing the sound in the book and recording it with a microphone. If that is the case, it's hardly ideal...which may be precisely why George did it that way.
 
TV's Frink said:
Thanks heb.

Hey, here's a thought. Has anyone tried working with the soundboard audio on the official site?
http://www.starwars.com/games/playnow/soundboards/
Click to expand...

Yes, TWOTS is filled with those soundboards sounds :)

EDIT: and it appears that The Clone Wars series center channel audio have NO music on it, only voices and sound effects.
Could be very useful.
 
TMBTM said:
Yes, TWOTS is filled with those soundboards sounds :)
Click to expand...
So how did you get them on your computer and into your editing program?
 
TV's Frink said:
So how did you get them on your computer and into your editing program?
Click to expand...

Yes, I just recorded them on my PC with audacity, then imported them on Premiere Pro.
 
You can get the direct files if you have the DownloadHelper add-on installed in Firefox. Easier than recording, and no quality loss.
 
Cool...I'll give it a try.
 
once you've added DownloadHelper to Firefox, all you have to do is navigate to each soundboard page, the MP3 files will automatically show in your DownloadHelper list, and you can grab them all!! Let me know how it goes :)
 
Rogue-theX said:
It is not really an echo, the dialog is usually in the center channel but sometimes it can be heard in the other channels, the reason is for "ambience" because if the voice was limited to the enter track always, thing would get a little dull.
Click to expand...
^ This.
Of all the projects that I've worked on, the Star Wars movies have always been the biggest pain in the ass to edit audio-wise due to the dialog ambiance that's almost always present in the surround channels (sometimes I'd got lucky and a voice would be located in the center channel only like with what I did with Jango Fett's voice modulator or the Analysis Droid redub in SOTOR, but that's still pretty rare).
 
Is the dialogue ambiance also present in the front L-R channels? If I'm going to do a 2.0 anyway, could I just leave out the surrounds from my mix?
 
If it's the same way as in KOTCS, it's variable. LS and RS are usually good channels in a Ben Burtt mix for ambient sounds and unimportant (background) dialogue. L and R are trickier, since they (can) contain music, ambient dialogue, some main dialogue, and ambient sounds.

I'm planning a full 5.1, and my plan at the moment for the trickier parts looks something like this:

  • create new center channel audio by mixing the original center, L-R, and/or LS-RS to get the cleanest audio possible
  • create new L and R channels using music and ambient sounds from LS-RS and mixing in a bit of the new center channel
  • keep original LS-RS as much as possible (music syncing may be an issue here for rearranged bits)
  • tweak as necessary
Lot of work, but the theory's sound; once I'm done with the new diner cut (nearly), I'll be able to tell how it will work in practice.
 
Not being the slightest bit good with the software end of things, I've had to make do with troublesome workarounds myself.

For a lot of scenes I just use the John Williams soundtracks along with ambiance and effects I capture from games or get off the web. My TV is hooked up to an old DVD recorder I bought for 10 bucks. Then I put in a game like Battlefront II or Old Republic and call up a location from a movie or an effect that I need. I did this for some sections of Attack Of The Clones--such as the Cloner world interiors-- where I was heavily mucking around with the dialogue.

Fresh soundtrack files in the front L&R along with pristine captures of ambient room noise in the rear L&R, and a little tinkering with the CC dialogue audio (such as I am capable of, anyway) allowed me to 1) mask the ghost music in the reordered CC dialogue channel (where the music doesn't usually match with my new cues) and 2) completely alter the tone of the scene.

The downside is you have to mix the whole scene from front to back; you can't just do one section of a scene cause it usually wont match up. The results on my 5.1 setup are fine for me, but maybe faster or better ears might hear artifacts or ghosts.
 
TMBTM said:
Yes, TWOTS is filled with those soundboards sounds :)

EDIT: and it appears that The Clone Wars series center channel audio have NO music on it, only voices and sound effects.
Could be very useful.
Click to expand...

Sounds great since I've been contemplating a Clone Wars edit. I actually contemplate a lot. I better write some stuff down :p
 
ThrowgnCpr said:
once you've added DownloadHelper to Firefox, all you have to do is navigate to each soundboard page, the MP3 files will automatically show in your DownloadHelper list, and you can grab them all!! Let me know how it goes :)
Click to expand...

Can you believe I have Downloadhelper, but it never occured to me? :oops:
Goshdarnit, please don't hit me Mm-hai bw-ha whoa-hoa (punt at Frink definitely intended) :p
 
Haven't tried it yet. All my free time has been spent uninstalling and reinstalling Movie Studio 10 over and over :x
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom