Usually on the show we’re talking about mastering music for CD, download and streaming, but there’s another important final destination for the audio we work on - broadcast.
And the difference with broadcast audio is - there are standards. Having said that, there often isn’t a dedicated mastering stage !
In this episode we dig into the whole fascinating topic with our guest Dallas Taylor from Defacto Sound, and host of the superb Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast. Dallas has a wealth of experience in sound design and mixing for broadcast on trailers and ads for shows like Game Of Thrones and games like Fallout, amongst many others.
In a wide-ranging conversation we talk about:
- Why sound design is like being a conductor
- American versus British mixing style in drama
- What are “emotional FX” ?
- The loudness wars in broadcast
- Dialnorm - what and why ?
- How to make dragons talk
Links
TMS #49 - Great Audio Podcasts
Defacto Sound
Game Of Thrones (Promo)
Anomaly (Film)
Tesla Ghost (Ad)
Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast
The Booj
The THX Deep Note
Mother Of Dragons(ounds)
The Voice of Siri
Enjoyed podcast #63 with Dallas Taylor. Especially resonated with your comment about listening to the Apocalypse Now soundtrack, because that's the sort of think I would have done at that age, and I still have a love of creating the odd soundscapes with sound design elements and ambient elements, and even dialogue (usually humorous) These things bear little in comparison to the music projects I generally undertake, but they hark back to my youth when I would record whole films or programs from the TV onto my portable cassette recorder, and lose myself in them as I re-listened. I still like to include the occasional aspect of this into the music projects, but have secretly always hankered to create something that is less 'music' oriented and just sound design - Thanks
I work for broadcast advertising and I absolutely LOVE the -24LUFS specification, I have all the headroom I need. (I'd prefer -23LUFS as in EBU recommendation, so I wouldn't need to adjust plugin presets, but that's just nitpicking).
I never ever had the problem of my dialogues being too quiet. If you're hitting -18LUFS, then you're mixing it too loud, that would be #@*%^&g annoying in an ad reel, and aspecially as the first in the ad break, maybe just after a "crickets" secion of a documentary.
A great episode. First time I have stayed till the end. Lots of valuable insights. Enjoyed immensely! Thanks ..