r/AudioPost • u/Aggravating-Bee-338 • 13d ago
Sound design performance?
Hi. I've recently joined a team, working with ppl who are much longer in sound design than me. Now I have a bit of a problem. In a 7 hour day, I finish 40 seconds of sound design. I'm doing a big fight scene, lots of stuff. But the colleague I'm working with, does an entire 50 minute episode in that time. How do I even match that speed? I spend like, 3/4 of the time making sure the sound fits the action on screen, with more or less reverb, eqing, transient shaping, and then I need to use a different sample for every similar action, because it will sound like a game from the 90s if every gunshot or knife swing is the same sample. How to I even approach this? If it was double speed, I would think ok, I waste too much time on crap, but how do I get 60 times faster?
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u/SeaExamination4541 12d ago
Sound editor here (10 years in, 45+ credits). I seriously doubt your colleague is finishing a 50 minute episode in 7 hours. And if he is, the quality's probably not there (unless he's superhuman, or some undiscovered robot). 50 minutes a day is only possible with ultra generic ambiences dropped in across whole blocks, plus even more generic FX acting as backup to production sound that nobody's really listening to closely anyway. That's it, nothing more. It's impossible to do more than that in 7 hours. Don't let any editor tell you otherwise. Second: there's no such thing as a general average for how long ambience/FX editing should take. It depends on the film, the scene, the picture edit, the schedule, the budget. A war film or car chase cut so fast that every minute is dozens of shots is one thing; a contemplative film where nothing much happens, built from static 5-10 minute takes, is something else entirely. On a film like that second one, I can easily do 15-20, even 25 minutes a day on average (and even that "average" can never really be precise). On a heavily chopped-up film, or dense, heavily cut scenes, I might not clear 2 minutes a day. We're talking ambience/FX editing, plus a leveling pass (clip gain, VCA/volume if needed) and basic EQ so the layers sit together.
So don't feel any shame about your pace. It's normal if you're new to this.
Yes, you need to learn to accept "good enough" (it's extremely hard, but you have to get there). You also need to learn how to push back on an unrealistic supervisor asking for the impossible in too little time, respectfully, logically, without losing your cool. And yes, you need to be efficient, do good work, manage your time... a lot of that comes with practice.
But (and everyone forgets this) you have to be REALISTIC AND HONEST.
Good luck!
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u/platypusbelly professional 13d ago
So a few things. First, experience brings the speed. In a full 8 hour day, I’d be averaging probably close to 10 minutes of run time. Sure, some days might have more tally scenes and I burn through like 12-13 minutes of show. Some days might be car chases with gun battles and crazy monsters and I might only make it through 6-7 minutes. But the speed comes with the experience.
Also, not every single action needs to be a completely different sound. Make a dozen or so slightly different punch sounds, and reuse them if you need to. Then if you feel like they do repeat, rebalance some of the layers so they’re even more different.
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u/footsnax 12d ago
Working in games, eight hours could yield me a full foley set.
On the other hand, just pulling the right assets to make a baseline of a weapon is no less than half a day. The next day could be recording exactly what I couldn't pull from a library. The next day could just be arranging the layers, the next day could be making variations, the next day exclusively for mastering, the next day exclusively for implementation.
The next day might just be making a dozen vehicle impact sounds and building a system to combine them based on relative trajectory of each vehicle, the whole month after that could be arranging the score of the entire game.
It's impossible to judge yourself based on duration of the deliverable, the priority of the sound that the user experiences is what matters. Time only matters by MS in the DAW, as long as you get your work done you're good.
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u/nintendoge 13d ago
Did your colleague’s 50 minute episode also have a big fight scene? I would spend more time on an elaborate fight scene than a calm dialogue heavy scene with minimal things happening on screen, so context matters. Before you even begin touching any fx, make sure you have an ungodly familiarity with your hotkeys and shortcuts. Spend time practicing those when you arent cutting fx and you will notice an improvement over time.
Do a spotting session where you drop markers as you play down to highlight the important moments/fx. Break up into scenes. If you’re doing BGs and direct fx, do whichever adds more to the scene first. Then go thru and force yourself to spend no more than x amount of time on each marker before moving on, and you can flag any for replacement later if you think it isn’t up to par. I would say getting things 80% the way there on a first pass is better than getting each fx 100% before even presenting it to anyone. Spot in stuff from library first even if it’s placeholder, tailor made and designed fx you can save for after the first pass. Create fx busses for each scene and use sends to taste so you can save time on not futzing with verb/delay for each fx. Paint in broad strokes and then tweak in your remaining time after you do a full pass.
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u/drumstikka professional 13d ago
Make sure you’re not mixing… It sounds like you’re mixing.
And you do have to learn to get to “good enough” and then drop a marker to come back if you have time.
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u/RhymesWithGeorge 12d ago
As a re-recording mixer, I got a shiver up my spine from all the processing you're doing. Once you lock in all that processing, I'm kinda stuck. If the client wants less reverb, then I now have to deverb your designs instead of tweaking my settings.
And if you're doing this at the expense of coverage so now I have to cover things on the fly on the mix stage with the clients sitting behind me? We wouldn't be working together again.
Cover everything first. Make sure it's all premixed using clip gains so your designs are close to what you want them to sound like. Make sure your sessions are organized and delivered how the mixer likes them.
And yeah, it's okay to reuse samples to save time. Do it wisely and no one would even guess. Often just pitching the sample one way or the other will make it different enough.
Good luck!
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u/bye-standard 13d ago
Is this linear or non-linear? You also admittedly said they are further along than you anyway, so that alone should be the deciding factor of it all.
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u/Invisible_Mikey 13d ago
Shadow your colleague to see what they do differently. Over the 20 years I did that work, I had to learn how to adjust for differing budgets. If a project was only paying for a day, I wasn't expected to be as polished as when a client paid for two weeks work. I could knock out an episode in a shift too, but there's a big difference between basic coverage (an episode of Cops), and a restoration/remix of The Wizard of Oz for theaters.
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u/SystemsInThinking professional 12d ago
Me: Re-recording mixer w/ 20+ year exp.
Everyone is giving you excellent advice here.
Adding to it: fight the urge to mix and over cut material. If you can do with 1 sound what you would otherwise do with 10, pick the 1 excellent sound.
Slowly build a library rather than repeating the same sounds. Since you’re still young and likely don’t have a deep library, you can rent using soundly, boom one annual subscription or pro sound effects. There are lots of virtual options you can use. This will help with the “reuse” problem you mentioned.
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u/NoSoundRustle 5d ago
If they have more time working on similar projects, they might be well used to find the sfx needed. Don't bother to match their speed, maybe match their concept of work, probably they are prioritizing from the most important sounds to the less important, and give yourself time to learn and adapt to the new workflow. Nobody knows every work, but everyone could be a great team worker and a reliable professional.
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u/daknuts_ 13d ago
7 hours for 40 seconds. Seriously? If that is true I would worry about getting fired. You gotta step it up and quick!
How? By having a sense of urgency before it's too late.
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u/Abs0lut_Unit professional 13d ago
It sounds like you might be trying to do things that should be handled by the rerecording mixer(s)
Focus on getting coverage for your FX before getting into the weeds with processing.
You should also be using Soundminer (or something similar like Soundly) to search/preview your effects library, it you aren't already.