On Friday 18 January 2002 at
7:30pm, 12 members and 33 guests of the AES Singapore Section
gathered at the NUS Guild House @ Orchard Road for a seminar on
“Essential Basics in Studio Audio”. There were 3 sections for this
seminar, each presented by a different speaker. Mr Augustin is
currently manager of SAFRA Radio, and being a voice over talent himself,
does VOs for Radio, TVC, corporate videos, and other media. Mr Pereira
does pre-mastering in SonoPress, and has pre-mastered titles for labels such
as VMP, Sony, BMG and Rock Records. Mr Anthony, who is currently also
our Secretary for the AES Singapore Section, works in a digital audio studio
called Mind & Media. Among his specialities are sound for picture, audio
restoration, and live recording. The talk started after a brief introduction
on the AES by Singapore Section Chairman Mr Robert Soo.
“Getting the Best Performance
from Your Voice Over (VO) Talent” by Mr Joe Augustin
Augustin started the first
section of the seminar by describing a typical voice over recording session,
and highlighting and sharing points that he felt would aid the voice over
talent to deliver the best results.
He recommended that the recording
engineer should get himself more involved in the session by doing some
research before the session. That would mean to read the script, finding out
the essence of the story, understanding the characters, and getting beyond
the technical aspects of the recording session. This would be followed by
doing some pre-production work to provide necessary sound effects and music
cues. This in turn provides the voice talent with a live and audible
description of the mood to deliver a more convincing voice in the role
played.
Augustin then spoke about
how scripts should be prepared, detailing points like font size, spacing and
stapling scripts. Although these may seem trivial, Augustin felt,
through his experience as a voice over talent, that a well prepared script
does help the voiceover to concentrate and perform better in the role he is
to play. He then talked about sound booth ergonomics, touching on issues
such as air conditioning, lighting, presence of a script holder, and the
physical state of headphones for the voice talent.
He felt that it is important to
keep an open communications channel between the voice talent in the sound
booth and the audio engineer and the rest of the people in the recording
studio. This gives the voice talent the confidence of knowing what exactly
is happening outside the booth. That said, Augustin also warned of
negative feedback that may be discouraging for the voice talent. He ended
his section of the seminar with a short question and answer session.
“What is Pre-Mastering” by
Mr Aaron Pereira
On pre-mastering, Pereira
started by explaining that pre-mastering is the last stage of a CD or media
production after the mix down process. After mix down, pre-mastering
processes the overall sound before the CD is pressed. He said, “The
(pre-mastering) engineer marries the art of music with the science of
sound.”
He then explained that a
pre-mastering engineer must understand the various musical styles, and at
the same time be sensitive to the requirements of the producers and
artistes. Pereira talked about the reasons for the pre-mastering
process, which include ear fatigue after completing a multi-track mix down,
and having another trained ear to listen to the final mix.
He also described pre-mastering as
the last ear to the musical project, thus giving the final touches to ensure
a required final mix of the audio to be pressed to CD. Pereira then
described the pre-mastering process, which includes a whole list of tasks
such as inserting the PQ code, balancing, stereo enhancement, leveling of
tracks, dynamics processing, and equalization. He explained that
pre-mastering can improve acoustic quality, dynamics, punch, presence,
impact, warmth, transparency, clarity, and many other qualities. He also
talked about how DSP is being applied in pre-mastering. After a short demo
on some of the pre-mastering work he has done, he ended this section of the
seminar.
“How Do We Make Digital Audio
Work?” by Mr P V Anthony
In his introduction, Anthony
encouraged the audience to participate in his talk, to promote the sharing
of knowledge, the willingness to share knowledge, and also to reap the
benefits of mutual learning. He first spoke about delay in digital audio in
the studio. He touched on the delays in the AD/DA, the processing, and even
from microphone placing. He then described how one can find out the delay in
the setup, and how to use the delay setting in the mixer to overcome some of
these problems.
Anthony proceeded to talk
about clocks in the studio. He explained the functions of various clock
types, including black burst, word clock, setup clock, time code, and how a
good quality clock can affect the sound by reducing timing errors otherwise
known as jitter. After a brief discussion on microphones, and how to select
the right microphone, Anthony briefly talked about the upcoming
technologies that may greatly affect the digital audio studio. These include
MLAN, higher sample rates, increasing-channel surround sound, and the new
mediums for audio such as DVD, which has the capability to also carry video.
The meeting ended after a session
of question and answers. The AES Singapore Section would like to thank all
three speakers for their kind presentations at this AES event. |
