The Purpose of Post Processing
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ค. 2024
- I discuss the purpose of post processing and one of the biggest mistakes people make when processing their audio.
00:00 - Intro
00:26 - Step 1: Good Audio Before Record
01:40 - Step 2: Process With a Purpose
02:36 - Step 3: Make It a Good Listening Experience
03:41 - Step 4: Stop That! It Sounds Bad!
05:46 - Outro
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I agree with you AND you are just a little bit crazy which is why I love your videos.
The king has spoken. Bandrew's opinion is now law. Bandrew is also now officially crazy.
@@zaim_ipek We knew that, but... anyway :D
We NEED a little crazy in a Podcastage Video.
I don’t totally agree that unprocessed audio can be perfect completely. Why? Every mic has advantages and disadvantages. I always eq etc before post, that way I know my mic will sound how I want and I know that no problems can occur. The amount of eq added/subtracted will depend on your mic. Like I said no mic is completely perfect, plus every body knows wat sound they want so they should do this pre record.
Little bit 😳
After 24 years in pro audio, I couldn't agree with you more. More people need to watch this!
Great video - as a voice actor who does home recordings I've spent so much time and energy learning how to do all this the right way. Most of us consider audio quality an afterthought or think the engineers can just fix it in post, but there's such a difference when everything is done right from start to finish.
Great video as always! I would add that the “sound”, including post-processing, should match the emotions in the content. Eg Don’t overcompress and eq an emotional or sad story. Bear in mind your intended audience demographic too and be empathetic. Always go for intelligibility and listen on as much different kit as possible before publishing.
Mark (37 years doing this stuff at BBC Radio and still not always getting it right!)
Indeed: context!
These new relatively short guides are a very nice addition to your channel!! Much appreciated!
5 years of home studio experience here is the tips I find most important :
1) If your room is untreated : Dynamic > Condenser. Unless you're in a sound booth, condenser microphones will just pick up noise, not just room noise like reverb and stuff, they will pick other things in the house, they'll pick up the truck or the motorcycle that just did a fly by etc. dynamic microphones are less sensitive and you'll get away with some of these things.
2) Never get only one take : Even if the take sounds great to you, always get at least 2, ideally 3. Because you never know, maybe overtime you'll notice a little detail that goes unnoticed at first , the recording is where the magic actually happens, half assed recordings always sound bad and unnatural.
3) Background noise removal : It is easy and it helps get rid of preamp hissing and some background stuff
4) Microphones sound the best when they're being themselves : Your mic is tuned this way for a reason, do as little as possible, because otherwise you'll end up with an unnatural sound.
5) "test" your recording through as many things as possible. Whenever I record something, I test the audio out of my booth headphones, my reference, my daily driver earbuds, sometimes through cheap earbuds, my speakers and a phone speaker. To get an idea of how it'll sound, to everyone
6) Don't bother with usb mics: If you're serious about recording something quality, usb mics are not for you, sure they'll humiliate any webcam mic, but a cheap xlr mic with a cheap audio interface will be better, and will offer cleaner gain and better upgrade paths .
7) If your recording sounds wrong , it's you fault : You don't need a Shure SM7B, you don't need a Neumann to sound good, a cheap Behringer can do the trick. If you sound like shit, it's almost never your equipment's fault, You'd sound bad out of an expensive setup too.
Lots of good well grounded advice here. Thanks for taking the time to post it.
When testing your recording, I got a couple of HomePods, airpod, some Sony headphones and a 5.1 Sony system that I test on after mixing on my trusty audio technica headphones. When it sounds good, I will go to car, if it sounds good, then I call it done. Because the HomePods get very bassy, if you get it sounding good on there, then it usually sounds great on everything else.
@@RockG.o.d yeah, that's it, the last one reminds me, there was an old studio monitor, that most studios tested it, everything sounded so bad at itt because of the way it was tuned, it was so flat everything was completely soulless , and audio engineers said "if it sounds good on this, it sounds good everywhere." I see some of that statement in your last sentence hahahahaha
@@culturedsquid8442 haha well they knew what they were doing. Though I wasn’t saying the homepod sounds bad. The HomePod is a nice tuned speaker made to play music from one place. It can get very bassy and not distort. I recommend it for like a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen speaker. Even throwing one or 2 in the living room for when you have a party.
4 and 6 are bullshit. The rest are great tips.
4. It absolutely depends on what you're recording and in what context you're gonna use that recording. A recording of an acoustic kick drum isn't gonna sound very good within a metal mix if "as little as possible" is done to it, vocals in modern pop mixes are intentionally made to sound "thin" and "harsh" (no microphone that I know of naturally sounds like that), "hard hitting" orchestral percussions are often just really boring sounds EQed and compressed to 11, and so on.
6. "but a cheap xlr mic with a cheap audio interface will be better"
Pretty sure this isn't universal. Really depends on what cheap usb mic and xlr+interface combo we are comparing. There's also the fact that microphones sound much less different to each other than the average person expects. What matters *way more* is the space you're recording in. A cheap usb mic recorded in a well treated room is going to sound orders of magnitude better than an u87 recorded in a trashy room.
Totally agree with you. Based on your reviews we ended up recording audio books with the Procaster as well as the RE20. Still I do love to fiddle around in RX for subtle mouth de-clicks and such, but to have an unedited rough cut that could be just loudness normalized and published like that is just a joy to work with.
No love for the SM7B?
Bandrew...Thank you. THANK YOU! As a post pro for spoken word (audiobooks) and this is the most difficult/frustrating part of the work that I do with my clients and students and will be linking to and sharing this to the end of time. THANK YOU! Keep doing what you do.
Here's a tip for the newbies trying to get into streaming: Don't learn how to process audio by watching advertisements on youtube.
Bonus tip: The famous streamer trying to sell you a streambeets subscription or some USB affiliate garbage that can be "just as good" as an expensive studio mic doesn't actually want your stream to sound good. You're not just his/her customer, you're also their competition.
THIS! A lot of the people in the industry gotta start being more open that they are influencers, and nothing else. I talk to people every day who base their purchases of these influencers. It's their job, which i can respect, but man...they have got to start being a bit more honest.
Thanks for the spiel, Bandrew!! Post-processing for audiobooks has become less hectic. I've done over 50 now and it wasn't until book 42 I was in okay shape thanks to audio peeps like you.
I really appreciate these commentary videos. Helps self-directed learners like myself to make necessary improvements when we can grasp what should(and shouldn't) be done. Thanks!
The mad-lad does it again! I completely agree with this video and epitomizes my work as a podcast post-producer. I'm definitely going to be saving this video for the future.
Guilty as charged. I've used post processing to essentially change the way my voice sounds, as well as removing background noise and what not. I will now limit my post processing to removing background noise and do little to no EQ. Thanks Bandrew.
Amen. Put this message on loud and on repeat. Thank you.
Great video !! Your demonstrations, along with the concepts, were very effective, in this video. Thanks !!
I laughed so hard at the radio sound, it was so damn accurate, reminds me of Howard Stern's show
bUt HoWaRdStErN sOuNdS sOoOoOo GoOoOoD!
Dat scooped sound 🤢
radio sound = bassy MC type sound
I follow your channel because your reviews are honest and informative. Now I see your recent videos are mor informative. Happy to subscribe .
I needed this video a couple years ago when I was first starting out in Audiobooks. Hopefully this prevents folks from doing the same mistakes. You don't need that compression, past me! You don't!
Thank you so much for the awesome video. I just started my channel and learned a lot from you. Keep the great work going!
Excellent points in an excellent video!
I have to admit, I do process our podcast audio pretty heavily to get that up front sound, but I also do my best to get it as clean as possible at the source. 2-SM7B and 1-RE20 plus 4 additional laptop/ipad audio sources with ground lift where needed. I cut 70 and below, I boost a little in the low range, then lightly boost a high shelf at 3k on up. I also use a gain rider to help control the overall level of each person, then comp, then limit. I also use a gain rider and a limiter on the additional audio sources. So far, so good. It does have that "radio compression" only because I can't stand having to adjust the volume every time i listen to a podcast. Honestly, a voice sounding like it's in an echo chamber and the lack of output level control are two main reasons i shut off podcasts. I think you made a great example of an echo chamber, too.
I could always learn more tips, though.
GIRATS. Get it right at the source.
YES!
Totally agree that great audio starts at the mic. But also believe that there is a time and place for post processing. In my case, my audience is often listening while working out. I need to make sure our content is not drowned out by the sounds of the listener's environment. So yeah, I do reach for an eq, stage some compression and limiting to help my audio cut through. I also use the same effects to create a little excitement when the content changes gear. It is also my goal to make sure that all the voices in our podcast are level matched. We are a show that helps people reach an athletic goal and we try to keep the positive energy flowing on a content and audio level. So I would say, know your audience first and then respond with the kind of dynamics and EQ that best fits how they listen to your content.
Good advice as always, especially that you need to start with great audio to end up with great audio. I always try to get the best audio and then I don't need to do much, if any fixing in post.
Great video Bandrew as always and a great topic for sure.
Thank you for opening my eyes on things that wasn't aware of them
Thanks for the video!
The process of learning how to do audio the right way has been exhausting. Thank you for your videos, I am slowly learning how it all works.
The next to the last section is hysterical! Thanks for the laugh and the education!
So right. With music too. This saves so much in mixing. People waste endless amounts of time thinking they need to add stuff.
Excellent advice. Thank you so much :)
I just think we should all use unprocessed ribbons so we can sound like the announcer on the Mercury Theatre saying, "The Columbia Broadcasting system and its affiliated stations...." Actually, we should just all use ribbons because they sound really cool.
Based.
Would you recommend them to a guy with an already dark-ish (bass-baritone) voice?
@@gaborkiss1425 The KU5A has a high pass filter that helps with lows. But your results may vary. I know that Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre days was actually on a condenser because his voice was so deep.
@@gaborkiss1425 I suppose it depends. Certain ribbons are way darker than others. The KU5A is a great example of a ribbon that has a surprisingly open and clear top end even though it’s still very smooth and low midforward as you would expect from a ribbon. Then AEA also has the KU4 which is very bright for a ribbon, almost condenser like, but that one is $4k lol. It sounds excellent though. So really it depends.
This video is perfect and much needed!!!
Hi - You are bang on with your first point. Any amount of post processing won't cure a poor recording. Also, - you've got me on a roll now lol - So many over use the toys like compressors, noise removers, even removing breath noise!! - People have to breath...... lol. Rant over - Love your videos - keep up the great work. .
This video and the one before it are gold, I tell you! GOLD! Would you consider making it a trilogy with a video about The Purpose of Pre-Processing? You get the same alliteration and plosives, and who wouldn't want that? As you said in this one, get it right going in, and you have less to do before it goes out.
Definitely needed to hear this.
I needed to hear that!!!
Great points!
This dialogue re-recording mixer gives a phat thumbs up to this video. My job is to make the dialogue serve the story. To that end we record well, edit with great care and mix to make the sound invisible for lack of a better word.
As always, great advices ! I realise it is a "make your own podcast" channel but I'd like to add my two cents about podcast/video editing and post : a decent half of the video and podcast clients that employs me are not audio tech (or don't bother to add a sound field recorder for the video ones) and fail to provide me good audio materials. Thing is, retakes (and ADR) are pretty expensive and almost always cannot fit in the client budget or schedule so he/she is open to quality compromises. You will often face poolry recorded files, messy edits/exports from previous long-gone collaborators or dodgy gain-rides and the client will expect you to attenuate those problems to a mid-range level (i.e. podcasts, shorts, Netflix, ...) - thus paying you for this tech part. Of course you can avoid working on such projects if you manage to get enough income from your activity and only work with top-notch recordings - I wish I was able to do so ! Long story short, I've been mastering and teaching iZotope's RX advanced for years and could only advise young audio techs to get into this type of restoration software because at some point most of the clients will ask for some de-noising of pitch edits and those software are time saving in terms of workflow. Use it with parsimony though, don't be greedy : it can cause more harm than good when used in a wrong way ! There's plenty of documentation online, it's worth it.
Appreciate this!
Well i agree. Adding to many filters, as not the idea. I should had realised this as well, being in music myself. All i added is a EQ, gain and a filter that removes background static. It sound so much better. Will be looking at a xlr mic. Right now, im able to work with my nw 7000
great explanation
I want these videos to be called "Audio rants" so bad 🥺 I love it so much
Grreeettiiingggss Marrssliiinngggss .. I would like to know how to make my audio EASY TO LISTEN TO my audiences .. Jokes aside, I would love to see Podcastage recommendations for audiobook processing 😊
Even when you purposely try to make bad audio, it still comes out good. Magic.
Great basic tips!!
Great video as always.
I would still say that for the post post processing you need to test in different audio gear, cause sometimes you do EQs, for example, that sound amazing with your gear, but the viewer is going to hear it and it sounds terrible for their gear. TH-camrs love to boost their bass frequencies, what sometimes make them so hard to understand if your gear also has a bass boost (very common in cheap headphones, for example).
Wonderful video Podcastage, I think you should do a video on some hardware such as the DBX286s or the ART Pro channel II.
Based on some of these comments, i can tell alot of ppl are still missing his point. ppl are practically saying " If you cant drill a screw through the wall u can always reach for a hammer and bang it in!"' guys move the nail over an inch and try again... theres a pipe there. ... u get the point.
A lot of people don't seem to understand that the "phat" radio vocal sound was out of necessity rather than an artistic choice. Radio signals are inherently very noisy, so we use a lot of tricks to get around that, the most common being pre- and de-emphasis. Basically, all of the signals coming out of the studio are boosted in certain frequency ranges (pre-emphasis or PE), and then the receiver in your radio will look for a metadata flag that tells it whether to apply de-emphasis (DE). This lowers those frequencies back down, which also lowers the signal noise in those ranges too, making the signal artificially sound "cleaner". The problem though is that some stations started boosting past the needs of PE, and thus when DE is applied, you have that "thick" radio sound that makes the DJs sound like James Earl Jones.
Very true but if they like that sound then they like that sound haha.
@@TriWaZe Oh absolutely. There's times I enjoy it myself, but there's sadly too many people who just think that's the way good mics are "supposed" to sound, rather than it just being a sound our ears grew accustomed to because of choices made by radio stations.
this has strong Professor Dad energy and I am here for it. Preach brotha.
Thank you for this @podcastage , its very educational. If i may ask, could you create content explaining, the best acoustic treatment for broadcast/podcast or whatever setup that you are currently using, i would really love to hear your thought/opinion about this topic
Thanks in advance :)
love your videos
you nailed it. everything is true.
helpful! thanks
Okay, I need this hat! Great video!
As the Proverb says, you cannot make a silk purse from a sows ear. Start with quality audio and tweak it not freak it. Loved the vid Bandrew. Keep it up.
Love it!
Great video!
very informative
I agree 100%. The post processing should make the audio easier to listen to, and you should get everything as good as possible before you start.
This video is grossly underrated
For the brief time I did my own podcast, any post effects were added tastefully. Very mild EQ on the final mix to bring back what was lost to mixing or limiting. My thought was always get it as tight as you could on the master because anything you add may very well bring up a defect that you didn't or couldn't hear prior. I used my channel as a lead, then any other channel had a noise gate. Kept the floor lower and because it was quiet enough in the room I used, with very light compression it sounded very natural. I did roll off low end slightly only because my voice tended to come off as muddy sounding and it is. It is a characteristic of my voice and all I did was mix it so it wasn't detracting from the recording. Again, very very mild, 3db max change.
I agree by default. I record the best I can according to my wife's opinion. I seldom do any post processing because my old ears can't hear any difference. Enjoy your show and am a regular viewer. Cheers.
100% agree with you sir
Great video. Funny and accurate. 👍
Preach
5:18 What compression software is that? I have the Fabfilter EQ but I've never seen that compressor before.
best video I've seen from you
Sounds like good advice, get it right first then play about if you want
Totally agree with ya. Garbage in, garbage out. You can have absolutely stellar audio with even cheap gear if you educate yourself a little bit.
I usually prefer to have the gain a bit lower to start with and tweak the levels a bit higher if necessary later , because it's easier to add a bit of volume and keep it clean than have it too loud and clean it in post, I'm saying this as a singer knowing that my vocals can vary from soft to screaming
That's a great approach o setting level. You can always add some level, but can't take away clipping.
I need to know how you record these videos they look so good
Perfect video
I actually liked the radio sound propeller hat audio. Do more with that EQ pls.
You are absolutely CORRECT.
99% of all post processing is UNNECESSARY if you recorded the signal correctly 'going in'.
Bill P.
If you polish a diamond it will look like an even more beautiful diamond. But, if you apply the same polish to a piece of asphalt, it will still look like an old piece of asphalt. Post processing is polish for something already good, not a miracle cure for garbage.
In Reaper for indoor recordings I subract out the computer fan noise, add a highpass filter, then either a de-esser or a narrow EQ for sibilants with a limiter at the end of the chain just to be safe. So mostly I am just dealing with noise.
That's awesome that you've developed a work flow that fixes the one thing you aren't able to control. Good job Wayne. Happy recording.
Hi man! A big follower and fan from Baghdad. I like to host you in a Zoom meeting to talk about your recommended mics for teachers.
Hi, what's the name of the microphone you're talking? I didn't find it in the description. Thank You and congratulations on what you do. I envy you for all the microphones you have :D
THAT EQ CURVE!!!!! Interesting because I feel like I saw that EXACT "crazy" looking EQ decision in some other TH-camr's video last week. I was like HUH?????? 😱
Hello ! I have gotten a lot of valuable info from your videos. Honestly great info, especially for noobs like me. I agree with you, and the reasoning and the funny example I can relate too 😂. What would have been awesome is to understand and have more example of step 1 and how do you manage to get good proper unprocessed audio. Thanks mate
Thanks for the kind words. I have a dedicated video on tips to getting better sounding recordings: th-cam.com/video/Ty8YLqOmbV4/w-d-xo.html
@@Podcastagemuch deserved, you’re welcome! Thanks for the link i will watch it tonight for sure!
To be honest post processing can help for certain audio devices. I've often used it to a bit better sound out headset microphones, such as with the Steelseries Arctis Pro Wireless. The "Clearcast Microphone" used on those headsets can sometimes sound rather nasaly, but the recent release of the Steelseries Sonar software, I can choose the "Deep Voice" preset, which boosts the low end slightly while reducing a lot of background noise. The slightly boosted low end also helps microphone just sound a bit more natural in my opinion.
I love how when you listed the different platforms of content creation, you visibly winced on TikTok
Can you please review these 2 mics?
1. Fifine K658
2. Fantech Leviosa MCX01
I'm the person people hie to "fix it in post".
I can say it's always better to get it right going in.
It is possible to get rid of noises without much artifacting. (I could've cleaned up that noise without nasty artifacting)
What you can't "fix in post" is microphone placement, burned in processing or bad acting.
"Fixing it in post" will make editing/mixing take longer too.
I've had to fix audio for quite a bit of podcasts (that I didn't record) and can only agree with you. No amount of noise gate and RX will save bad audio. It's not fun work either imo.
Danke!
With this all being said, how would you eq a clean good coming in recording using the re20 that’ll sound good and make a listening experience good?
Beautiful!
Very much agreed. Of course, I had this one "ADR" session where a video I shot in the middle of the city has a small segment of audio that I wanted to dub over. Good thing I used the RE20 to record the dub. The deeper dynamic range of the RE20 than the on-camera Movo VXR-10 and Rode WirelessGO2 combo I was using originally was a perfect mismatch. I couldn't get it to match and I had to roll with it. Why didn't I just re-record with the original setup? Those mics were recently stolen and I'm waiting for replacements!
So even though you may only have one short section where you want to punch in and re-record it with an overdub, I'd suggest overdubbing the entire section(or video if it's all the same mic and area), and then blending those two sources together and processing them as one. That way you're not going to have any jarring jumps in between those sections. Also, if it's super long and a lot of talking, that's an area to use actual ADR software to match it. It'd be way too difficult to do that all manually, even if you are really good at capturing and editing the takes.
Also, Izotopes software with eq match and their RX plugins and software specifically for post-processing. There are also specific things for doing ADR. But really it's one of those area's where trying to match all those variables with our limited human attention span, especially in a non-musical context, is just way easier for computer algorithms created specifically for these tasks really come in handy. Plus, you can usually get the cheapest tiers of the Izotope software for free or very cheap if you keep an eye out for deals that include it, and then use that to get a heavy discount on an upgrade to the ones you need.
If you do end up doing it without any specialized plugin's or software, I'd say it's an area where having an equalizer with a EQ spectrum visualizer comes in handy, so you can view it side by side when you are eq'ing. I'd first EQ the camera audio to the place you like it, than try your best to bring the overdub as close as you can. Sometimes flipping the phase and trying to purposefully get the voice to null(As best you can), can be a better tactic than just going back and forth between the two.
@@magicmark3309 Great thoughts and thanks for such a thorough response! I will keep this in mind for the next time similar happens.
Off topic. Which is best for bedroom.
Yamaha Hs8
Adam audio t8v
Focal evo 80
I thought I’d ask you since you make the most sense of all the videos on TH-cam lol.
I agree with you 100%. Just record it good and forget about post altogether. Even if it takes 1000 takes it'll at least still sound better in the end
Could you please give a hint how to set up the Sony D11 lav mic before hitting record button ⏺ Thanks
Great message. My audio sucked until I got rid of everything and went super simple. Sm7b into a MicPre3 and got rid of all the other crap. :)
Same. Re20 into an Apollo. Boom.
no processing is better than too much, but a little bit can go a long way. On my streaming setup I have a noise gate, a high pass @60hz and a small 0.5db high shelf to not sound dull and I love it, I doubt anyone but me would notice the difference to unprocessed though
Edit: also a transparent limiter to not accidentally blow out viewers ears
I can't help but agree with this. I am against any post processing. I prefer to have everything as is. For a while I used noise reduction but now I don't need to.
Well can you do now some tutorial on how to achieve some of those sought after sounds / flavors in post?
i would love a basic EQ/frequency tutorial...this is so alien to me
Heelllp! I did some videos in the past using a basic video recorder but I want to improve things a bit and putting together a small home studio. Right now I’m torn between getting a simple USB Audio Interface, like a Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, or a USB mixer, Mackie or Yamaha. I use a Mackie 1402 VLZ for our band so I’m familiar with mixers. I may on occasion have another person in the video with me, but that’s it. Which would you recommend for TH-cam videos and occasional live streaming? Thanks for your thoughts and excellent videos.
Legend!