Concerning dialogue recording, does anyone have any workflow tips for a long audio drama?

[Tryptonite]

Hello all!

I'm creating an approximately 5 hour long audio drama with several characters and lots of dialogue and I'm curious how to go about recording dialogue for one character throughout the whole AD without having to create a separate file for every single line of dialogue.  Is that possible? Basically, when I have someone come in to record I'd like to jump to the spot in the AD inside the multi track, record the line, then jump to the next spot in the AD where their line is needed and record there but not create another file for that line.  I'd like to have it all be one file so I don't have a million little bitty dialogue files at the end of it.  Does anyone have any idea if that's possible? Also, any other tips on creating an AD with lots of dialogue would be much appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance!

-Tripp

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

The usual method for doing this is certainly to have it in one file, yes - it really can become unwieldy otherwise. You record all of your single actor's lines sequentially in a single file, with suitable gaps (they don't need to be very long at all). The way you handle it is to open this file in Waveform view and put marker ranges around each line or phrase, and give the marker a name. You set a range simply by highlighting the section you want and then hitting F8 and naming it in the marker panel - anything you like, as long as you can identify it. When you've done this it's dead easy to insert just that marker range into a mutltrack session - you right-click on the marker in the list and it will give you an option to insert it. If it ends up in the wrong place, just pick it up and put it where you want it. Dead simple, and works a treat.

[Tryptonite]

Hi Steve G, and thank you so much for responding!  Whereas, this may be what I end up doing if I can't find another way, I still find it hard to believe there's not a way to record inside the multi track editor and jump around to certain spots in the track so that the actors can hear what they are about to respond to and so that the task of having to place each individual piece of dialogue in it's proper place is done while recording.  Whereas doing it the way you described is a good start you still have to go through, separate and log each piece of dialogue.  I wonder which would be easier, the method you described or recording straight into the multitrack editor under one track (which will automatically give each clip their stem heading labeling system) then once all the clips are recorded throughout the whole audio drama, merge every single clip on that track into one merged file that can then be processed as one file.  What are your thoughts? Again, thank you for responding!

Cheers,

Tripp

[SteveG_AudioMasters_ · Accepted solution]

Tryptonite  wrote

I wonder which would be easier, the method you described or recording straight into the multitrack editor under one track (which will automatically give each clip their stem heading labeling system) then once all the clips are recorded throughout the whole audio drama, merge every single clip on that track into one merged file that can then be processed as one file.  What are your thoughts?

You can do that - it's just that you will end up initially with a load of files saying Track1_001 Track1_002 etc and I thought you wanted to avoid loads of files. The process is simple enough; just position the pointer at the position you want to start recording at in the session, arm it for record and record a segment. When you've finished, highlight all the clips on the track and go to Clip>Merge Clips which will leave everything in place, with silence between each one. This produces yet another file called Track1_001_merged.

There is of course a downside to this. Once you've done that all the sound in that track is fixed in time, and if you want to alter anything at all, you've got to start splitting the track again, so you're back to generating even more files...

[ryclark]

Also, of course, there may be the problem that you need to do more than one take for each segment in order to get the best version of the particular line. You may find that you need to combine more than one take by editing together several to get the best overall final version. All of this means that you will end up with loads of separate audio files anyway. So good housekeeping, planning and logging is essential to keep track of everything. It is not easy and straight forward by any means.

[Tryptonite]

Hey Ryclark!

Thanks so much for your input!  I have come to realize that you're right I am going to end up with many takes anyway and that really proper labeling and logging is really the only way to go about it.  Although, I still wish there were something easier but alas!  Again, thanks for your response Ryclark!

Cheers,

Tripp

[Tryptonite]

Hey Steve!

And this is why I came to the forums!  You are totally right!  If I merged them at the end I most certainly would have to slice them and rearrange them.  I didn't even consider that.  So, really there is no way to do exactly what I'm trying to I am just going to have to put in the time and use proper labeling and such to make sure I stay organized.  Again, thank you for your input, Steve!

Cheers,

Tripp

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

Tryptonite  wrote

Hey Steve!

And this is why I came to the forums!  You are totally right!  If I merged them at the end I most certainly would have to slice them and rearrange them.  I didn't even consider that.  So, really there is no way to do exactly what I'm trying to I am just going to have to put in the time and use proper labeling and such to make sure I stay organized.

Yeah, it's a bummer - but as you've probably gathered, we've been here before....