I was editing a scene we shot on a busy street. The performances were good, the audio was not great in some of the takes.

I had the actors come in and re-record their dialogue. I got the new audio to match the video. I put another track of street noises on, at a lower volume.

The audio and sync look in sync, but something about it screams 'dubbed'! Something about them sounds like it was recorded in a room, which they were.

Any suggestions? I have clear audio that matches the video, so I guess I can't be too unhappy. But I'd like it to be a little better.

Any ideas? Any thoughts? I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and Adobe Soundbooth CS3.

echo , reverb, that's something you got in a room, not in the street.
something too is proximity of the mic.
you have to equalize to find the best frequencies you will keep and cut.
start by cutting bass, increase medium.
there was a plugin for mic. modelling, i do not remember, but it is very powerful at recreating the sound of a particular space.

The variables are almost endless, and trying to match location dialogue with dubbed lines is quite task. Even if the lines were dubbed perfectly to match the shoot there are always things like mic placement, proximity, type of mic used, ambience, environment, etc that all come into play. If you can, it would be ideal to dub your lines on location using the same gear used at the day of the shoot. That'll automatically bring in all the elements that you need to match with the original take. Also, if you've recorded sound on location throughout your production and then suddenly one scene is in a recording booth it'll obviously stand out.

Yeah, I'm betting you're getting reverb from the room you did the dubbing in.

Thanks everyone. I dropped the bass as low as it could go, and that actually helped a lot. I might tweak some of it more, but it's not as bad as it was.

I don't think I'll fool anybody, but I think I'll get less reaction of 'What is up with the sound on this scene?!'

I've only done a limited amount, but the main thing I've done is to use the same mic I did in the original shoot and keep it about the same distance from the talent, rather than having them up close as you normally would in a studio. I record in a fairly flat room but then mix in room tone from the original shoot (always get room tone, even outside)