What Does Audio Production For Linear Media Actually Consist Of?

There are many separate billable components in audio work for linear media such as video ads. It's not just "audio" - approach your next audio vendor in an informed manner, so you know what you're paying for, why it's valuable, and so on. I'll be covering some of the constituent aspects of Music, Voiceover, Sound Design, and Dubbing Mixing.

Music

- Composition

This is the “creative” aspect - where the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms etc are constructed in accordance with a creative brief, and an electronic mock-up is created with virtual instruments for client listening and approval.?

On lower budget productions (90% of projects), the mock-up is mixed by the composer and delivered as the final track. The quality can be great at this stage if the composer is skilled at creating electronic mockups.

- Production

Once the mock-up is about 60-80% approved, additional elements or live instruments are recorded and integrated into the mock-up (or they replace the mock-up entirely).?

If a significant amount of recording is required (like an orchestra), the mock-up usually has to be 90-100% approved, as any revisions at that stage will cost a lot of money.

Depending on the type of recording done, it can require a hundred additional personnel including but not limited to a conductor, engineers, musicians, contractors, an orchestrator, a copyist, and so on.

- Mix & Master

The recorded/mocked-up music is sent to a mix engineer where the individual instruments are balanced against each other in terms of volume, frequency distribution, and spatial organization etc using any number of mixing techniques (compression, equalization, reverb etc).

The music is then mastered - which involves a mastering engineer optimizing the track for the intended playback system while adhering to broadcast and streaming loudness standards.?

Usually, this last step is not as critical for an advertisement or production with voiceover and sound design components as there will be an additional dub stage (or re-recording) mix, which serves a similar purpose but for VO, SFX, and Music combined.

- Usage & Term

Where are you using the music (countries, tradeshows, etc), what platforms it will be on (streaming, TV, cinema etc), and how long you want to use it for (1 year term, 2 year term, perpetual etc.).

For example, the advertisement will run on TV in Indonesia for 2 years, or the client would like a 2 year buyout (they can put the video anywhere they like with the music synchronized for 2 years). A single-country deal would fetch a lower rate than a global deal, and in general here, common sense applies.

Voiceover

- Casting/Talent

Securing the appropriate voiceover talent typically requires a round of casting - actors are either paid demo fees to record selected snippets of text from the production and submit those as auditions, or existing portfolios/demos are sourced to allow decision makers to arrive at an informed hiring decision. If a casting director is involved, they are paid a deliverable or time-based fee.

- Agency/Union?

Many actors are represented by agencies or other management that handle negotiations on licensing terms and remuneration in exchange for anywhere between 10%-20% of the final actor fee. Independent actors do not have this fee factored into their quote, but may not necessarily be cheaper.?

If the actors are part of a union, such as SAG-AFTRA, their minimum rates and working conditions will be determined by their union’s standards. Failure to confirm to those standards and/or an acrimonious relationship with the union may result in work stoppage, negative PR and/or legal action.

- Recording

Today, many voice actors possess excellent broadcast quality home recording setups which are more than adequate for 80% of jobs.?

However, many agency executives prefer, for some reason, to be in the room to micromanage every syllable of a simple 30 second read, so sometimes renting a studio and hiring a recording engineer will be necessary - this all contributes to cost.

- Editing

Once the voice performance has been recorded, the raw audio needs to be edited - comping takes, editing pacing, noise reduction, click removal, compression, de-essing, compression and so on. This requires a voice editor, who is typically hired on a deliverable basis, but on larger jobs, variable time-based fees may be preferable.

Sound Design

Loosely speaking, there are different levels of sound design:

On a very minimal job, what is required is some level of Foley, such as footsteps, doors opening and so on. Sometimes, sounds taken from SFX libraries and edited to suit the picture specifically will be sufficient. This is fairly non-intensive (though important) and can be achieved without great cost, unless the sounds are highly specific (specific brand of car or gun or rare bird etc).

One step up from this is designed sounds - a force field, a death ray gun, a spell being cast, futuristic ambiences. This requires more creative, rather than literal, work from a sound designer to achieve the appropriate style and tone for the specific video and as such will incur more time and money expenditure.

At a very high level of sound design, one may be expected to formulate a robot language that motivates affection (R2-D2 in Star Wars) or use designed sounds to advance a narrative in a way that bridges the gap between music and sound effects (think horror movies). As this requires a fair amount of iteration, such work costs a great deal.

So your cost tends to scale up with the level of creative complexity and collaboration required - which shouldn't be surprising. You can help a sound designer to formulate an accurate quote for you by being specific about your needs based on the above-mentioned criteria.

Dubbing Mix (AKA Re-Recording Mix)

Once the VO/Dialogue has been recorded and edited, the sound effects created (SFX) and lined up with the onscreen action, and the Music finalized, it is time for the last step, the Dubbing mix. This is where the VO, SFX, and Music are combined and edited in such a way that they do not conflict with each other.

In an audio mix, there is a limited about of “space” available across the frequency spectrum.?For example - Voices occupy a great deal of space in the low-mid and midrange - so if the sound effects and/or music have too many of those frequencies in the spots where VO occur, it can cause the voices to sound muffled and unintelligible.?

In order to make sure that the VO is audible, the engineer will have to reduce the volume of the music and SFX in those spots or carve out some of their conflicting frequencies without compromising the overall experience.?

If an engineer is too heavy handed, the music can be ducked to the point where the emotional impact is lost. If they do not do enough, the voices will not be heard. It is a delicate balancing act that requires great ears and plenty of taste honed through experience.

In my experience, people tend to charge a per video rate that varies depending on the length of the video. This is generally not a prohibitively expensive service, and well worth the money.

I cannot overstate the importance of this step - even if you have brilliant VO, Music, and SFX, you can end up with a jumbled mess. So good dubbing mixers are well worth every penny if you want the audio experience to sound cohesive and impactful.?Unfortunately, this specific discipline is very often ignored and this can result in videos with flat-sounding VO, neutered music, and overly loud sound effects.?

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That’s all I have at the moment - I hope it was a little illuminating. Audio professionals please feel free to chime in in the comments if you have anything to add to what I’ve written.