The Syren Studios Sonic Dictionary: Vol. I
PRODUCTION AUDIO
Boom Mic: A microphone attached to a boom pole that is held up by a boom operator. It is suspended near the sound source without dipping into the frame (although film blooper reels will tell you that this is harder than it looks). These mics are highly directional to eliminate unwanted sounds in the recording, following either a hypercardiod, supercardiod / shotgun, or lobar polar pattern.
Boom Operator: On set these key crew members, sometimes just referred to as 'boom ops', operate the boom mic for the Sound Mixer and will help the sound crew in arranging the placement of microphones and other sound equipment.
Dead Cat:
- noun -
A deceased feline.
No not really. This is a wind shield made of artificial fur that is placed over the microphone to minimise wind noise when recording audio in outdoor conditions, without harming the acoustic qualities of the recording.
Peaking / Clipping (and Distorting): When the audio levels pass (generally) 0db, the sound wave will clip, like it is hitting a ceiling. This peaking may even lead to unpleasant distortion - though this can be used for intentional artistic effect in some cases.
Phantom Power: DC power delivered to a microphone that requires electricity to run active electronics. Its spooky name refers to the invisible way this process functions, as the power uses the same cable as the audio signal.
Plant Mic: A microphone that is placed, rather than being boomed or attached to an actor / talent.
Polar Pattern: The directionality of a microphone. These patterns can range from: Omnidirectional (picking up audio from all directions), to Lobar and Supercardiod (picking up a highly directional, narrow focus of audio).
Production Sound Mixer / Location Sound Recordist: The head of the sound department during the pre-production and production stages. They are responsible for the recording of all of the required sounds whilst on set. This will involve decisions about microphones and other sound hardware, as well as the careful mixing of levels in order to professionally capture any audio without it being too quiet, or too loud leading to clipping.
Radio Mics / Lav (Lavalier) Mics: A small microphone, often attached to an actor / talent, either directly to their body or to their clothing. These can be wired or wireless using a transmitter that is attached to the actor / talent.
Room Tone: The sound of a certain space / location. During filming, room tone will often be recorded with all cast and crew staying absolutely silent (achieving this can be a task in and of itself), capturing the acoustics and subtle audible characteristics of the space, be that air conditioning, wind noise, or distant traffic noise creeping in. This can then be used in post-production by the sound designers to solidify the character of the setting, or even to patch gaps and issues in the location audio.
Rushes / Dailies: The raw audio (and video) footage from the day's filming.
Self Noise: The signal a microphone registers of itself when no sound is present. If a microphone produces a lot of self noise this limits it's usability, especially for very quiet sound sources, as it then has a high noise floor, so if the recording is raised in post-production the audible noise may be made even louder. Self Noise is measured in dB-A or as the Signal-Noise Ratio: Signal-to-noise (dB-A) = 94 dB – self-noise (dB-A).
Sound "Speed": On set this will be called typically in response to the First AD (First Assistant Director) in a sequence something like this, to confirm that the sound is recording ready for the shot -
First AD
Sound?
Sound Mixer
Sound Speed!
First AD
Camera?
1st AC
Roll Camera!
*shot is then slated*
Camera Operator
Set!
Director:
Action!
Flesh of My Flesh (2021): Behind the Scenes
Walla: Indistinct chatter from actors imitating a group of people or a crowd, that can then be applied to a scene in post-production by the sound designer. This could be the loud shouts of a busy bar or the soft murmurs of a library.
Wild Track: Audio recorded on set, typically a line of dialogue (though location foley effects can also be useful recordings), without the camera rolling. This is usually in order to aid the dialogue editor in post-production who can then replace production audio with said wild tracks in cases where the line was unable to be captured well during the shot.
POST-PRODUCTION AUDIO
5.1 Surround Sound: A multichannel audio setup comprised of 5 full bandwidth channels using a front left, a front right, a centre, a left, and a right speaker, as well as a subwoofer channel for low frequency effects.
AAF: These are Advanced Authoring Format files, and will be the typical format in which you will receive the production audio from the editor. AAFs preserve track information delivering you the audio as it was on the editor's project, including clip size and placement, fades, manipulatable handles etc.
Acoustics: The physical characteristics of a space that effect the way in which sound is transmitted and reflects off of surfaces. Rooms can be acoustically treated to alter this, for instance acoustic foam can be used to cover foley/vocal booth walls to absorb reflections so audio can be recorded with no reverb.
ADR: Automated Dialogue Replacement is a process in which lines of dialogue are re-recorded during post-production in a controlled environment, usually with a view to improving the quality of the recording, going in a different creative direction with the performance, or responding to issues in the production audio, such as planes flying overhead or a phone ringing in the background.
Atmos (/ Ambience): Atmospheric sound refers to background sounds that add texture and life to the scene's setting - these can be man-made (traffic, air-conditioning, lighting humming) and natural (wind, rain, thunder, tree rustles, ocean waves).
Automation: Where your DAW will automatically adjust variables that you have set, such as bypassing on and off plugins or adjusting the parameters of plugins. Touch automation allows you to record your movements on knobs and faders, letting you smoothly adjust aspects such as, the volume or panning settings on a certain track with full control.
Bandpass Filter: Allows you to hear frequencies in isolation when using EQ plugins.
Bass: Low end frequencies.
Binaural: Bi (two) Aural (refers to ears and hearing) - An immersive sound experience created by recording stereo audio through a two microphone setup in which the microphones are placed approximately the distance apart that ears would be. Mimicking ears in this way causes the sound to have a natural, three-dimensional feel, as sounds will reach each microphone at slightly different times, allowing the listener's brain to approximate the direction that the sound came from. The internet phenomenon of ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) often exploits this immersive recording technique.
Bus / Bussing: Routing tracks/signals together to a bus allows you to treat them as a group, adjusting parameters such as the group's level in the mix, or applying effects plugins to the whole group (rather than to the individual tracks which would waste time and processing power).
Compression: Reduces the dynamic range of a piece of audio through lowering the loudest parts.
Cross-fade: These are transitions spanning the end of one clip and the beginning of the following clip. They smooth the abrupt change in audio preventing pops and clicks at the cut. Within Pro Tools you can adjust the duration of a fade, as well as whether it is an Equal Power, Equal Gain, or S Curve form.
Equal Power Cross Fade
DAW: Digital Audio Workstation - Our preferred DAW at Syren Studios is Pro Tools, however other programmes are also popular with professionals in audio post-production and music production such as, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and Cubase.
dB (decibel): A logarithmic unit used to measure the amplitude of a sound.
Delay: An effect created when a delay plugin will store an input signal for a period of time before playing it back creating controlled repetitions. The amount of repetitions created is referred to as ‘feedback’.
Dialogue: The spoken exchanges between characters / talent. This may have been recorded during a take, recorded as a wild track, recorded as voiceover, or even recorded as ADR during the post-production audio phase.
Diegetic Sound vs Non Diegetic Sound: Diegetic sound are the sounds that are supposed to be really occurring within the reality of a scene. Here's an easy way to think of this: Imagine a scene in a car where the character turns up the car radio. We, the audience, can hear the song playing out of the radio, but we also hear a piece of film score playing over the top of the scene that the character cannot hear - because it isn't actually happening in the world of the film. The radio song is diegetic, and the film score is non-diegetic.
Distortion: When an audio signal overloads the limits of a DAW (typically 0db), the waveforms are clipped leading to distortion. Distortion can be intentionally created however for artistic effect.
Drone: A low frequency, continuous sound - often used to add subtle tension to a scene.
Dry vs Wet: Dry refers to the unaffected original signal / sound. Wet refers to the processed signal / sound. If you say set a reverb plugin to 100% wet, you will only hear the reverberations and none of the original input signal.
Dynamic Range: The range between the loudest peak and quietest sounds in a mix.
EBU R128: This is the name for the standard industry recommendation for measuring and normalising audio with loudness meters (rather than peak meters (PPMs). The short version of it is that you want to make sure that the audio is hitting -23 LUFS. At Syren we measure this with Nugen and iZotope Insight loudness meters.
Echo: Reflections of a sound as a result of the sound waves bouncing off of a hard surface. When meeting a soft surface, sound waves will instead be absorbed.
EQ: Equalisation refers to boosting or attenuating certain frequencies within a piece of audio. Tweaking these parameters is achieved with notch filters, bell boosts, shelf eqs, and high/low pass filters.
Vol. 2 Coming to a Blog Entry near you in Spring 2022…