Product Description

Producing Great Sound for Digital Video is a complete audio training guide as well as a quick problem-solving resource for the working pro. The author explains hundreds of real-world techniques to use from preproduction through the final mix. Readers get how-tos, tips, and time-savers, plus tutorials on key skills such as dialogue and music editing. This edition features deeper coverage of location techniques, including choosing the right mic, in-camera sound recording, getting sound into the camera cleanly, calibrating the camera to location sound equipment, working with mic booms, using separate recorders, and digital wireless. It also includes updates on working techniques, including new software categories for postproduction and new interchange standards.

Producing Great Sound for Digital Video is packed with hundreds of real-world techniques that range from pre-production through the final mix--including tutorials, tips, and tricks to make great tracks with any computer or software.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29950 in Books
• Published on: 2002-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 428 pages

Amazon.com
Producing Great Sound for Digital Video educates beginning and experienced filmmakers on the intricacies of creating an outstanding soundtrack, from preproduction planning through the final mix.

The entire book is fascinating: it's absolutely packed with useful information and tips. Most of us remember learning in high school physics that sound travels about 1,100 feet per second, but besides gauging the location of a lightning bolt from how long it takes for the thunder to reach our ears, we never found it useful. Imagine, however, shooting a scene from about 90 feet away with a camera-mounted microphone. In this scenario, the audio will lag behind the image by about three frames--not much, but it's certainly noticeable. The problem gets worse as the distance increases. The workaround is to put a microphone next to the subject or slide the audio track so that it syncs with the images.

The book presents other solutions to showstopping problems that, because of lack of experience, a filmmaker wouldn't realize until getting to the editing room. Other critical issues such as preproduction planning, the art of production and recording (including environmental factors and microphone setups), and post-production editing and effects are also discussed.

The advent of low-cost, high-quality video production equipment has ushered in the birth of AV producers and AV presenters who have grand intentions but negligible experience. Digital cameras, inexpensive computers capable of capturing and playing back high-quality digital video, and full-featured editing software offer all kinds of ways to create visual eye candy, but embryonic filmmakers don't always realize that the picture is only half the story. Producing Great Sound for Digital Video explains how the other half works, what to watch out for, and how to achieve professional results. --Mike Caputo

S.D. Katz, millimeter magazine, February 2003
"Digital artists are very much hands-on, and Rose is the right man to write audio books for this new generation."

John Hartney, Creativecow.net
...a treasure chest. Jay has written a delicious compilation of tips and tutorials that I can honestly recommend...

Customer Reviews

Great Book
for anyone that wants to have a professional approach to digital video this is a good book.

If you only buy one book on sound.. This is it
Where do I start? In a nutshell, this book *IS* the only book to have on sound if your only buying one. No lie. My background... 20 years ago I used to be the "The Amp Dr" fixing commercial PA systems, amps, etc. I have a much better background on sound than most, I was an electrical engineer after that, designing power supplies, and other analog interfaces to digital equipment. Most of that has been dormant for the last 20 years, but I recently decided to make documentaries, and as two of my first projects deal with music, sound seemed pretty important. I got several books on sound, I figure buy six, one has to be good. You can save your money, this book was the one in six.

Knowing audio but NOT audio for video, one of the most important things I discovered is that a professional quality product (video) can only be made with good sound.. If you think you $2 -$10K pro-sumer camera is going to deliver it with the standard mic turn on "auto level", you're really wrong. Half of good sound is the absence of sound, or at least the absence of unintended sound. Insuring good sound is more work than it sounds, but the quality and impact of what I am shooting now is significantly better than before. Otherwise, its' all like home videos, maybe pretty shots and cleverly edited, but still seems like home videos. It all becomes much clearer after reading this book.

When I picked up this book, it was a mental orgasm. Not only does this guy know his stuff, even more importantly, he knows how to communicate it. The way it was written, I was easily able to skip over the stuff I didn't want to review, and go straight for the meat. It is meaty. Almost EVERYTHING I wanted to know was here. I did end up going back just to see how he explained the basics.. great! One of the things I liked about his style, is some authors will tell you something is bad or wrong, with no explanation.. Jay give you good examples.. the CD recording with the book is worth it's weight in , he give examples of proper recording and bad recording (with explanations). You can actually hear it as oppose to read an explanation and take it on faith. Borrow money if you have too.. but buy it.

My message to Jay:
If you read this Jay, I have a few requests. (1) Don't let this book go out of date. Please do you SNR and distortion measurements on some of the new HD cameras. Given the bit resolution is now even less with HDV (12 bits (HDV) vs 16 bits (DV)), I think dual systems are even more important to cover in greater detail. (2) Update with some of the new digital recorders that are replacing DATs (3) Thanks for a great book!

A rare 'how to' book that delivers actual content!
I've often been taken in by large reference books that promise to be a comprehensive guide to a subject, but turn out to be a lot of filler (screen shots of PC applications, or an excuse for the author to give lots of less-than-useful anectodal stories, etc.)

Not so with Jay Rose's 'Producing Great Sound for Digital Video' book. This informative guide covers a lot of ground, including sound theory, equipment explanations and use, and techniques for sound production including NLE tips, audio mixing, mic use etc. The great thing about this book is it is written with the expectation that your sound production values should be professional, but it's still accessible to hobbyists and those on a budget.

While I think novices to the field of sound engineering (like myself) probably benefit most from this work, I think a lot of the material here is useful to the video production community as a whole. I learned a lot from this, great work.