Did you know that not all silence or room tones are made equal? While I would never advocate listening to things loudly, you do need to make sure you are listening loud enough to hear certain issues in your room tone. This was a mistake I made when I first started. Part of my first job archiving and restoring for the Metropolitan Opera with LongTail Audio (RIP) was to audition (listen to) the tapes as we transferred them. This had several motives. One– to make sure all the music was there (so that means we used a score), and Two– to document any noises or grave issues with the sound (heavy use of markers).
You may have heard the basic tips and tricks of podcast editing, or editing any kind of speech audio. Remove ‘ums’ and ‘ahhs’, breaths, mouth noises, pops and clicks, silences, etc. But sometimes we can take it too far and actually end up over-editing a podcast in pursuit of the perfect sound (tip number one: there’s no such thing as perfect). Here are three things I’ve learned which have helped me avoid doing just that.
The sound industry brings me such reward. There’s nothing else like it. I mean just a month ago I was hiking up to the highest waterfall in the world with 20kgs worth of gear and camping equipment on my back, doing location sound for a short film (we entered the Rode Reel competition for 2021), and the fact that I could call this “work” amazed me. Getting back to the city, I was pressed for time with a three-day deadline to deliver an original composition, post-production audio editing, sound design, and foley. The “rush” of the job had me pulling all-nighters and feeling like I had a purpose.
In a world occupied by sound, it can often be challenging to find a moment of silence in everyday life. In the realm of sound design, however, silence can be a very powerful tool.
