This page is for readers of
Jay Rose's Audio Solutions Column
in Digital Video Magazine.
Follow this link to books mentioned in Audio Solutions.
Follow this one to an index of Jay's columns, with links to online versions.
And this one to the top of the site.
April, 2008
Great Sound for Film and Video, 3rd edition preview
Figures that wouldn't fit in the DV Magazine edition
December, 2007
Confessions of an Autodidact
Books mentioned in this article.
August, 2007
Decapitation
This 150K zipped file has some audio examples for this article. Use them as a last resort. You'll get more from the column if you can work with problems from your own tracks.
July, 2006
Time Piece
This zipped file has the audio examples for this article. There's also a ReadMe file explaining them.
February, 2006
Creating surround in Soundtrack Pro
While Soundtrack Pro is advertised as multi-channel, it's got some serious problems working in surround. Here's how to do it -- something not in Apple's documentation. This accompanies my review in the 2/06 issue of DV.
This article appears a bit later than promised. I've had other things on my mind.
January, 2006
What I Learned Last Summer
Here's a pdf with more tips for working on something as big as a feature film. Read the DV Magazine article first.
September, 2005
Say it ain't so
Here are the tests showing exactly how much mp3 encoding will take from typical voice and music tracks.
July, 2005
Beep, Beep!
Here are the Shepard Tones referred to in the article.
September, 2004
In the Blink of an Ear
- DV.com has removed the April '01 feature article about voice editing from their website. Here's another copy.
- Here are the two audio files for this article, as a zip archive (663k).
- And here's a link to the Walter Murch book mentioned. Read it if you want to take your picture editing to the next level.
April, 2004
On Golden Ears
Someone in the DV Forums asked how you can work when you get older and your ears start to deteriorate. Really, it's not hard if you've still got some hearing. But it requires knowledge and ear training.
This article, reprinted from 2000, gives another perspective.
March, 2004
Here's a little challenge...
Got good intuitions about processing? Listen to the piece of music on this page and figure out how it was done.
November, 2003
Home on the Ranges
Follow this link to the sample audio files.
September, 2003
Production Proposal
Here's a sample proposal my production company uses, as requested at DV.com. You may copy from it as needed for your own business, but please don't distribute or publish it.
While this has worked for me, there's no guarantee it'll work for you and it definitely shouldn't take the place of proper contract advice from an attorney.
April, 2003
Vox Mechanica
Here's the sample file demonstrating vocoding. First my voice, then a hockey arena crowd as carrier, then the two processed through a vocoder. If we did a couple of passes this way with slightly different original voice tracks, and added a few appropriate random shouts, we'd have true crowd control...
I did this using the vocoding function Arboretum's Ionizer, a noise reduction plug-in, because it's so fine-tunable. But there are plenty of other vocoders around, including a VST version in the freeware "mda" series.
December, 2002
That's DAT
An alert reader pointed out a source for digital input/output cables for the Sony PCM-M1 recorder. Core Sound sells a variety of aftermarket accessories, including adapter cables for this purpose.
November/December, 2002
Attenuators!
Most MiniDV cameras will sound much better if you use an external preamp or mixer, but these devices put out too large a signal for the camera. Here's a brief excerpt from my book Producing Great Sound for Digital Video, Second Edition, which explains how to adapt the signal properly.
September, 2002
Comb Neatly
Here are the demo files for this article: a documentary track with really bad dimmer buzz, the buzz almost totally eliminated but the voice a little hollow, and a good compromise with the buzz greatly reduced and very little effect on the voice.
June, 2002
A New Stereo Synthesizer
I've re-written the stereo synth preset originally posted in September '01, using a better algorithm. Download it here. It's a file for SFXMachine, a low-cost Swiss-Army Audio Processor that every Mac-based audio person should have.
Windows users can use an app contributed by DV Magazine reader Timothy J. Weber,Stereoizer. It seems to work pretty well. Full instructions are included inside the app. He added this note:
Here's my stereoizer applet based on your article. The design follows your schematic, using biquad Butterworth filters from a cookbook for the low-pass and high-pass. Other than that, there's nothing remarkable; it uses my own simple C++ audio-processing classes. Parameters are exposed for the separation frequency, gain on the filters (to avoid overloading), delay length, and the filter resonance.
While we're at it, here's a SFXMachine preset that simulates a 16mm classroom projector.
January, 2002
Working with Stock Music
The capsule music library reviews at DV.com have been delayed because of production problems.
But there's a new page of my music library reviews here.
November, 2001
Thanksgiving Hymn
The best project I ever worked on (so far) -- directing, editing, and mixing a series of dramatic spots for the phone company -- was also one of the last things I did analog. But it's sophisticated from an engineering point of view, as well as a production one.
Have a listen. Then comment or ask questions about the technique.
October, 2001
A Delicate Balance
DV.com's online version of this article left out figure 2, a table of how to interconnect balanced and unbalanced equipment. Here's a printable .pdf copy.
September, 2001
Stereotypes
Here is a zip archive with all the audio files (mp3, usable on Mac or Windows). This material is protected by copyright; see notice in the zip.
Here's the stereo simulator preset for SFX Machine (see the May 2001 entry on this page). This is a new version, revised in June '02.
AS reader Timothy J. Weber sent me this Windows version, which seems to work pretty well. Full instructions are included inside the app. He included this note:
Here's my stereoizer applet based on your article. The design follows your schematic, using biquad Butterworth filters from a cookbook for the low-pass and high-pass. Other than that, there's nothing remarkable; it uses my own simple C++ audio-processing classes. Parameters are exposed for the separation frequency, gain on the filters (to avoid overloading), delay length, and the filter resonance.
May, 2001
Sounds of the Silver Screen
Here's the 16mm Projector Simulator:approximately 6 k download.
If your browser displays this as a blank HTML page, go back and click-and-hold to save it to your desktop.
This is a preset file for SFX Machine, a "Swiss Army Audio Processor" in a Premiere-format plugin*. Get more info on this useful software from SFXMachine.com.
*-Also runs in Peak, Deck, and some other Macintosh programs. Astute readers can create a similar Windows preset for WaveWarp, following the recipe in this month's article. If you've written such a preset and send it to me, I'll post it for all to share.
April, 2001
Say What?
Here is the file Audio1 for the editing tutorial.
Depending on how your browser is configured, you may need to right-click (Windows) or click-and-hold (Mac) to save these files to your hard drive.
April, 2001
A Place to Play, II
Here is the article about balanced wiring.
A reader wanted clarification of some construction details for the absorbers described in the article. Here it is.
November, 2000
On Golden Ears
Here's the high frequency test file mentioned in the article. It's a 44.1 kHz s/r, 16 bit mono WAV file (playable in just about every Windows and Mac application) with about four seconds each of digitally-generated pure sinewaves at 7.5 kHz, 10 kHz, 12.5 kHz, and 15 kHz. All the tones are at exactly the same volume. See how much of it actually comes through on your speaker system.
The zip file is about 25k and should download quickly. You'll need to unzip it, but there are plenty of shareware utilities for Mac and Windows that can do the job. Once unzipped, the audio file is about 1.3 megs! Test tones are about the only audio signals that can be zipped efficiently, because they have so much redundancy.
September, 2000
See What I Hear
SpectraFoo Foo: A gremlin slipped into the web address for this excellent program, and the version printed in the magazine won't work. You can reach them at http://www.spectrafoo.com.
August, 2000
Ransom Note Rules
What's a tutorial about dialog editing have to with a recipe for chili? Read the article to find out.
May, 2000
Un-Absolute Zero
Whoops! After an almost perfect, error-free run of more than fifty articles, this column had production errors.
Sidebar: "Ring Those Decibels"
Somebody wrung out the decimals. All of the logarithms should be numbers between -1 and zero... but they printed as numbers on the order of -4,000! Please add the little dots yourself, so that the third paragraph reads "For example, the ratio one-third is log -.4771; one-half is log -.3010..." and so on.
Reader's Corner Files
They got lost somewhere. Here's a fresh copy you can download (approx. 50k, zipped).
Other local resources:
20 Oct 2001