ANNOUNCER PRESENCE w/ MUSIC

[Scott Hutchcroft]

I am mainly producing :30 and :15 spots for television. I am using new audio talent and his voice does not have as much presence as the last guy I used. Now all of my mixes sound a little thin and I have to turn down the music to make the announcer stand out. I have experimented with putting an EQ on the announcer track and boosting the upper-mids a little, which seems to help. Is there a few filters in Adobe Premiere that will help me remedy my problem? I need his voice to stand out without sacrificing the other sound elements. Any help or guidance would be much appreciated. And I know there might not be an easy solution, but I would like to know at least what direction to head in.

[Jon Fairhurst]

One "trick" is complementary EQ. In the areas where voice is important, boost the voice and cut the music. Where voice is less important, boost the music and cut the voice. Here are some general guidelines:

* Below 200 Hz (Music bass)
* 200-300 Hz, Smooth (Voice fundamantal)
* Smooth area around 600 Hz (Music)
* Sharp area around 1200 Hz (Voice consonants)
* Creatively around 2400 Hz (Voice & music character)
* 5-15 kHz (Air for both voice and music)

The 2400 Hz area is the pickiest. Cut it and voices sound dull and similar and oboes sound like flutes. If you want the feel of the music but don't care about it being consumed, you can cut the music here.

For "air" the exact range depends on the quality of the signal. You can boost both voice and music if you like and they won't step on each other. There's very little energy up there so it generally doesn't affect peaks and clipping.

You can also play with compression. One approach is to make a very compressed voice track which will bring out vowels. Mix to taste with the uncompressed track for consonants. EQ the two independently for lots of control. Of course, the more complexity you add, the more likely you twist yourself into a corner. Sometimes when mixing, I'll get used to some weird EQ. I come back to it later or hear it in context with other stuff and I wonder what the heck I was thinking. :)

EDIT:
You can also consider an exciter to add more sparkle to the voice. I don't have much experience with them so I won't make any specific recommendations.

Another advanced tool is multiband compression. Unlike standard compression, which hammers the whole track when anything gets loud, with multiband compression, you can compress, say, just the bass when the music gets too loud. This keeps the whole track from "pumping" and just reduces the offending EQ range. You might consider this for your final compression. That way, if the voice fundamental and music bass sum together to create a large peak, it will just reduce the bass/fundamental when needed. This lets you get an overall louder mix without killing the overall dynamics.

Of course, the end result needs to comply with the CALM Act, so if you mix it too loud, the station's processors will step on it.

I see that Sony Vegas 13 now includes loudness meters and has tools to comply with CALM. Maybe Adobe Premiere (or more likely, Audition) includes similar tools.

[Scott Hutchcroft]

WOW! Thanks Jon! This gives me a lot of information to focus my energy. You're AWESOME!

[Dave Farrants]

Check out Mike Russell's video's on YT - https://www.youtube.com/user/musicradiocreative/videos there's loads of great tips and tricks there.

[Bruce Watson]

Originally Posted by Jon Fairhurst

Here are some general guidelines:

* Below 200 Hz (Music bass)
* 200-300 Hz, Smooth (Voice fundamantal)
* Smooth area around 600 Hz (Music)
* Sharp area around 1200 Hz (Voice consonants)
* Creatively around 2400 Hz (Voice & music character)
* 5-15 kHz (Air for both voice and music)

Yes.

What I was taught was that the 200-450 Hz range is "warmth", lower for men and higher for women. You can boost this area to increase how "warm" the voice sounds. Conversely, you can cut in this area to make a voice sound "cooler". Play with it and you'll understand what this means. To find the right frequencies, you can make a narrow peak with your parametric EQ and move it back and forth while listening. You should be able to home in on the correct placement pretty quickly, then broaden the peak out and shorten it as required.

The area around 600 Hz doesn't have a lot of meaning for voice. You can decrease this to make room for music and sfx to come through.

Vocal consonants are in the area around 1.2 KHz. A narrow boost here can increase intelligibility. A corresponding dip in music here can help. As before, you'll have to make a peak and move it around to find the correct placement.

The area around 2.5KHz is the "nasal" area. A broad boost can help with a dull voice. A broad cut can help with a nasally sounding voice. This area helps us distinguish between individual voices, and between instruments like the various woodwinds. There can be particular problems in this region that can be helped with narrow boosts / cuts.

The 3-5KHz area is "presence". A broad boost can help intelligibility. A boost here is often needed with lavalier mics which don't record this area particularly well, usually due to placement issues, or clothing issues.

The area above this, say 5-15KHz is "air". A broad smooth boost can make voice and music both sound like there's more air around the source, or more air between speakers / instruments. A broad smooth cut can dampen noise.

It's important to note that with these corrections, a little goes a long way. What you are trying to do is enhance the voice; you don't want to fundamentally change it. Think fine grained sandpaper instead of a grinding wheel. If you find yourself boosting / cutting more than a few dB, stand up, walk away, and take a break. Less is more. Really. I'm serious.

[Jon Fairhurst]

Some good EQ guidelines:

1) You can cut sharp, narrow bands deeply (like when removing 60 Hz hum)

2) When adding boost, use wide, smooth ranges and be subtle. Don't add big, sharp peaks.

3) Breaking rule #2, on dialog you can boost narrowly around 1.2 kHz to add clarity to consonants. Take care to avoid doing too much as it can result in a ringing sound. You can boost sharply by a large amount, but I would only resort to this for bad recordings and mumbling speaker. (When my son was in high school, he made a documentary asking if footbag was a sport. Unfortunately, using a cheap mic and being a high schooler, it always sounded like "spore". I wish I knew the 1.2 kHz trick then!)

[Rick Reineke]

The area above this, say 5-15KHz is "air"
Yes but the human voice has very little content above 10k and below 100Hz and I normally use filters at either end of the spectrum.
Another technique I use is a side chained muti-band compressor tuned to compress the competing frequencies on a music track. The VO track triggers the compressor.

[David W. Jones]

Scott, the first thing I would do would be to talk with your voice talent. Many times producers want an unprocessed VO delivered to them so they can do the needed finish work on their end. Maybe your VO talent is used to delivering straight from the mic. You might see if he or she has the ability to deliver a produced VO track to you.