Pro Tools 11 brings great new features for post sound

Avid’s latest iteration of Pro Tools, version 11, brings some fantastic new features to the world of post production sound.  Some of the best additions include offline bounce, full native 64-bit support, new metering ballistics, gain reduction metering for all tracks, and native support for Avid video codecs like DNxHD.  Let’s look closer at a …

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Clip Gain: A Surprisingly Good Feature For Post

When I first heard that clip gain was being added as a feature in Pro Tools 10, I thought it was a terrible idea. “We already have an excellent automation engine,” I said.  “Why over-complicate things by adding yet another layer to the onion?”  Then I actually started working with clip gain, and boy was …

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Printing Mix Stems Internally

Whenever your mix is complete, you’ll probably have to deliver stems to your client.  Stems (stereo masters) are continuous audio files that contain your full recorded mix, as well as separate audio files that add up to your full mix when played together.  As the world marches towards tapeless workflows this is starting to become …

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Fix dropouts or pencil-shy ticks with Elastic Audio

Elastic audio is quite the jackknife tool for post production sound.  You can stretch and compress audio like a rubber band without changing pitch or rendering new media.  This is useful for things like synching ADR, speeding up or slowing down music, and also fixing dropouts and nasty ticks.  Elastic Audio won’t solve ALL your …

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Thoughts on Tapeless Workflow

  Tapeless workflow is the current Holy Grail of post production.  We all want a world where acquisition, editing, and mastering all no longer require tape-based media.  But just like the flying car, it’s a future “just around the corner” that seems a lot more plausible in theory than in practice.  Here are some thoughts …

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New from Waves: WLM Loudness Meter

Waves has released a new metering plugin targeted at post production sound called the Waves WLM Loudness Meter.  This new metering plugin is the perfect tool for keeping an eye on your mix to make sure it is compliant with the new ITU 1770-based network specs being adopted by various broadcast networks.  It also serves …

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Convert from drop-frame to non-drop (or vice versa) and keep it all in sync

In the world of television we frequently deal with converting shows from non-drop frame timecode to drop frame time code, or vice versa.  It’s easy to change a Pro Tools session from NDF to DFTC in the session setup window.  But when you make that change, things are shifted by 3 seconds and 18 frames. …

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Elastic Audio: The Magic Tool for Sync Problems

Sometimes you just want to massage that audio, knead it like dough, and stretch it out just a little bit.  We all know that the TCE trim tool can let you shorten or lengthen a region’s duration without changing pitch, but it renders a new file each time you use it.  If you change your …

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