Hi

I have a newbie audio question:

I'm in a 35mm 3 perf project, PAL (sped up 24 to 25 in telecine) synching in the Avid (Sound in at 100%).

Until now, I have been getting .bwf (m) from the shoot, with 25fps timecode, and bringing all the audio tracks into the avid, but synching only the mixed down stereo pair audio tracks. Does this sound sensible?

Now there is a new sound recordist. I have received single track .wav files (with 25fps timecode).

What shall I do with them? should I ask for a clone of the original sound files? or sync up with these ones and figure out how to conform it later?

Thanks

x x

It is very likely that these WAV files are also BWF (BWAV), and do contain metadata. If so, just work with them. The .bwf extension was only used by a few manufacturers, and I think it has been completely abandoned, and everyone seems to use .WAV these days.

indeed, they do contain metadata.

they are very tiny files, though. and only contain one track... are the other tracks hiding somewhere?

x t

Maybe they just ran one mic? No telling without contacting whoever recorded it, I guess.

yes, it turns out that they only ran one mic on the track i was looking at.

the other tracks do turn out to be multitrack, as you predicted.

however, my editor wants to edit with stereo pairs only. how can i sync these single multitrack files so that there are two, mixed, A1 and A2 tracks on the timeline?

thank you thank you thank you for all your help so far

hellotansy:

my editor wants to edit with stereo pairs only.

That makes no sense. Production sound is very rarely stereo, and even more rarely an X-Y stereo pair.

Maybe the editor prefers to have dual mono tracks (which is not at all the same as stereo) in order to fill his stereo output bus. Still not a clean way to go about it, not recommended practice. The other tracks that have been recorded will also be several mono tracks, and they need center panning, not hard L/R panning, to be monitored correctly.

If you sync up in a timeline, duplicate the sound from A1 to A2, then subsequence VA1A2 from the timeline, then perform AutoSync on the subsequences, and log them, then you would have two-track source clip.

As said, bad & clumsy way to go about it. Really.

The better way to go about it is to select all audio clips or synced clips, and choose "Center Pan" from the Clip Menu. After that, even in stereo mode, the mono sound will come from both the L and R outputs of the Avid.

thanks, job.

have sunc with with all the polyphonic files, as you suggested.

does that mean he has to edit with lots of audio tracks on the timeline? he is not keen on this idea at all.

any workarounds?

thanks in advance

hellotansy:

does that mean he has to edit with lots of audio tracks on the timeline?

hellotansy:

he is not keen on this idea at all.any workarounds?

A lot of production sound mixer will deliver a multitrack recording as well as a mono or stereo mixdown. The latter can be used when syncing in telecine, or for picture editorial. It does however require the sound editing department to conform the Avid cut to the original BWAV recordings, which takes some preparation, tools, and time. You would definitely need to confer with the sound editing dept.

sound are indeed expecting to conform the sound.

production sound does not contain any kind of mixed down tracks that i can see: there is only one production sound file per take (unless they are hidden in the .wav files somewhere?), which appear in the avid as a single file with multiple tracks).

working with multitrack audio is definitely not an option for the offline edit.

what can i do to get the sound onto two audio tracks?

thanks

and, yes, dual centre-panned mono pairs is, in fact, what am looking for :)

No need to center pan dual mono pairs at all, since they are basically already sending a mono signal over two channels.

As for making a mixdown of the multitracks, that is a problem that should have been caught in preproduction. I would have production ask the production sound mixer to supply a mixdown if that is what is needed in the workflow. To start doing this in the Avid would be a major hassle *).

Or you could opt to subclip only VA1A2 from the synced clips. You may then matchframe back to the orginal multitrack at any point in time.

*) OK, suppose you prefer the hassle, and assuming that there's a boom track always on A1:

Throw all picture and sound (per shooting day) onto a timeline and line them all up. Set a global level of -6dB on audiotracks A2 and lower (keep A1 as it is). Perform an audio mixdown of audiotracks A2 and lower to a new audiotrack (let's say A11). Subsequence each take, and select V, A1 and A11. Log each of these sequences and turn them into sync clips by selecting them and choosing AutoSync.

Now you have a sync clip that consists of picture, boom track from production sound, and a mixdown of any other tracks. However, this mixdown has NO metadata which will allow sound post to track it back, so you will always need to splice in A1 as well as "A11" in order for them to be able to conform it. Also, you have no way to automatically re-do or relink this stuff if you loose your media. You could make an extra copy of the media for the mixdown tracks as a backup, though.

thank you for detailed reply...

am working from external hard drives, which just love offlining the sound files seemingly at whim, so hopefully will be able to find a more re-linkable solution.

will see what the options are re: production sound!

:)

Subclip VA1A2 from the synced clips and give the subclips to the editor.  (what Job said)

Easy.

-Phil