how do you split an audio track into multiple tracks for 5.1 and for volume control?

[Simon Lok]

I've got my sound file. It was made with a guy holding a boom. It is a clean file. Technically it is fine.

However, I've got three "sounds" in the file. I've got the birds chirping in the background. I've got two actors.

What I want to do is put the birds onto the RL and RR channels. I want to put actor 1 onto R and C and actor 2 onto L and C.

What is the method the you guys use to separate this stuff out?

If it was just actor 1 and actor 2 then I can do it. Will take a bunch of time, but I can do it.

How do I move the birds / adjust the volume of the birds?

As a stop gap I could just add more birds to RL and RR I suppose, but that seems like a bad cheat.

Is there plugin you guys use to remove the birds... or to lower the volume of the birds?

 

[Tom Dowler]

Is it just a mono file with one track?

 

[Simon Lok]

Is it just a mono file with one track?

I've had both situations, where it is a single file and multiple files.

When it was a single file, the sound guy did it with a boom.

When it was multiple files, the sound guy did two lavs (one on each actor), plus a boom.

In both cases, the birds are clearly audible in all files.

 

[Tom Dowler]

So if it's a multitrack file, you can easily split out the tracks in Adobe Audition or similar.

But if the birds are audible in all the tracks then you're pretty SOL, except if you can find a way to spectrally paint out the frequencies the birds are at. There's still likely to be a fair amount of crossover with your actors' voices' frequencies though.

You'll probably need someone with some audio editing expertise for that.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Well... you could hire a pro sound editor/mixer to prep the file.

If it's 3 tracks, mix the tracks together and pan their relative positions to taste. If it's mono (all sounds married together), you'll have to get a sound editor to use tools like iZotope RX Advanced to try to remove or minimize the chirping birds as much as possible. Be warned this is not easy, because the birds constantly change volume and frequency; it'd kind of be like trying to visually remove flashlights that are randomly shining into a room.

When you wind up having to dump more sound effects on top of a scene in order to smooth out uneven background sounds, it starts to get real noisy real fast. It's kind of like having a nice meal on a plate, only it has a little bit of crap in it... and you add more crap to distract the people trying to eat the meal.

My best advice would not be to try to mix surround sound in a small room unless your speakers and acoustics are optimized for surround. Otherwise, the results are not going to translate well in a large room (like a theater). If it's a short film with a limited budget, I would suggest just mixing to stereo and optimizing the mix for that kind of environment. That will play pretty well online, on streaming, on TV sets, and it should be adequate for festival screenings. If you can raise a little money, book a day on a real mixing stage and at least finesse the 5.1 mix so that it will mixdown to stereo online.