Audio Post Production & Mastering 1

Audio Post Production & Mastering 

Assignment 1 Report

For this post production project, I am given a 1-minute video advertisement to find the Foley, sound effects and music for the video. This video is made for the purposes of advertising an Italian restaurant and the delicacy they serve. The video also showcases fresh ingredients being chopped and washed in the chef’s kitchen. Furthermore, I had a basic insight on how the sound and music is going to be because the original audio was attached to the video. However, this does not change the difficulty of searching for the suitable sound for each ingredient in the video. Here is my process on how it all went down.

Firstly, once I got the video and load it up on Logic, I started to skim through the video and audio to get the whole picture. Then, I started to write out the timeline for the video. The timeline helped me to list down the important parts that I wanted to highlight with its own individual sound in the video. Throughout this process, I have used a website called ‘SoundSnap’ to find the sounds I need. It was all trial and error when placing the sound to each section. For example, layering it with different sounds to chopping, reversing the sounds. All of the sounds I have picked are wave files.

Secondly, after I have gotten my desired sound, I went to the mixer panel on logic to add compression, gain, channel eq, reverb and pitch shifter. I started with the faders and slowly gaging it by constantly monitoring the output meter and gain is only added when the volume is really low or peaking. Channel eq was added to every track to take out certain frequency and boost frequencies to get the accurate sound. Next, reverb is only added if the object seems far away or to get a smoother sound. Pitch Shifter is added most of the time in the project to pitch down and up in order to achieve the closest sound. Volume automation is only used on two tracks to get rid of unnecessary sound. Furthermore, I used the fade tool later to crossfade some of the tracks and to smoothen the start and end of each track, so it does not come as a shock to the listener.

Besides that, after the rough mixing of the sounds are done, voice over and music is then added. The voiceover is placed at the near end of the video with the tagline ‘authentic taste of Italy’. I boosted the 1k to 2k range on the channel eq, added a deesser to take out the sibilance and I have also added reverb to it. The music has an Italian theme to it and it fits perfectly with the video. For the music, I have lowered the fader in order to bring the main focus to the sound effects. Channel eq is added to cut the 1k to 2k range because I wanted to make space make space for the voice over and the sounds. The music is switch to stereo pan to push the music back and to make it sound more ambient. Lastly on the main output channel, I added a direction mixer to widen the overall audio, graphic eq to cut and boost certain frequency, compressor and a limiter to have the standard broadcast output level.

To summaries, I would say finding the correct sounds to fit the actions and the ingredients was a little tough and time draining but after the stage of finding the sounds it was smooth sailing. One of the tips that I have learned was to cut the 1k to 2k range in the music so that the sound effects and voiceover can cut through in the mix. At the end of this assignment, I have learned how to modify the sounds fast and have it sat in the mix properly.