Now insert a new audio track to the Vegas
timeline on which the new audio will be recorded Create a
selection that offers the talent some pre-roll and post-roll so that
they can hear cues coming into the line(s) to be recorded. Without a
pre-roll, the talent may not know when to cue themselves to speak
their lines.
Before recording, enable the Looping mode in Vegas
by either selecting the looping button in the transport, or by
pressing the "Q" key. This will convert the selection indicator from
default grey to blue, indicating a looped selection. You may also
wish to select the "R" key with the area to be recorded set as a
selection. This allows the input of the script/dialog section,
providing a logged indicator for anyone who might be receiving the
project for later editing.
When the record button is engaged during
looping mode, Vegas will repeat the selection over and over,
recording a new "take" each time it loops. The last loop will show
up as the Active Take. However, all other takes are also accessible,
and may be placed on other tracks. We'll look at that in a
moment.
The biggest challenge of ADR is to keep the
talent in sync with the picture. The talent not only needs to see
the picture, but also will benefit from using some sort of cue tone.
Most common are three "beeps" in the Hollywood world, where the
talent hears a 3-beep cue prior to beginning their dialog. Vegas
doesn't have a beep generator, but it's easy enough to download
beeps or create your own. Put these beeps on their own track, placed
exactly one second apart to help talent count time. (one, two,
three, begin) Putting the beeps on their own track, and then
grouping them, allows editors to move the three beeps to any cue
point on the dialog track, and save time in not having to insert, or
set up, or time beeps for other cue points. Be sure to always
include the beeps in your pre-roll or looping selection.
It
generally is a good idea to allow the talent a few practice passes
before engaging the record button, but at the same time, hard drive
space is cheap and you can certainly delete any takes not wanted.
However, keeping takes is a good idea until the final audio for the
video/film is completed. When there are multiple takes to choose
from, it's possible and usually beneficial to cut together words
from various takes to form the perfect single take. Trimming
sections from a take and blending them with other takes of the same
dialog is known as "comping" or building a composite of all the
various takes. Imagine you've got a line of dialog that says " My
mother bakes chocolate chip cookies for my girlfriend on Sundays.
Having the talent recite that line in a variety of expressions and
elaborations might entirely change the meaning of the sentence
depending on how the director might want to deliver the emotion. The
editor could cut together the elaborated or underscored words in a
manner that might change the meaning of the sentence from innocence
to sarcasm or jocularity. Having at least four takes of a dialog
segment is a great thing to have access to as a sound editor.
Cutting "My" from one take and "mother" from another take sticks a
different attitude on the line, creating a "My mother bakes cookies, as opposed to "My mother bakes cookies" etc. Directors and editors alike very much enjoy having access to
these different takes in the even that the direction of a movie has
to change due to cuts in the film or changes in the storyline.
Often, this also allows them to not have to go back and record
pickups as they can force the dialog to fit a scene's requirements.
Additionally, it might be that the director isn't present during the
ADR session, and the talent isn't completely sure of how to
pronounce a word. Recording various takes of a word being pronounced
differently affords the director choices as to how he wants a word
spoken.
Once the several takes are recorded, it's a
simple matter of breaking them out from the primary recording. Even
though the several passes might appear to be just one track/event in
Vegas, all of the various loops exist on top of the single event. By
right clicking the event and choosing "Takes" from the submenu will
display the various takes. From here, each take can be dragged down
to its own track and used in the mix as an edit object. It might be
that a take is perfect as is, so you may want to delete active
takes. However, you'll want to be sure that you've got everything
you need prior to deleting, and since the files are so small
overall, it might be a good idea to keep them intact for any future
edit needs for trailers, changes in the show after an audience has
seen it, etc.
