How To Quickly Balance Audio Levels In Final Cut Pro - Audio Limiter Effect Tutorial

like this [Music] hey how's it going my name is sam and in this video i want to share a tool that i use in final cut pro to very quickly balance my audio levels so that they remain consistent throughout the entire video before we get into that though i feel like going on a little bit of an adventure the weather's pretty dope today and i think it would be a shame if we didn't take advantage of it so come on let's go [Music] so we're at a little spot called shack town it's a little waterfall river area out in yadkinville not too far away from where i live in downtown winston i've only been here a handful of times but you can really get a sense of peace here i think it's something that we could all really use a little more of in 2020. [Music] the tool we're going to be looking at today is the audio limiter effect an audio limiter prevents the volume from exceeding a predetermined range we can use this to raise the volume of the quieter parts of a clip without making the louder parts too loud it's super easy to use so let's jump into final cut so i can show you how to set it up and then at the end of the video i want to talk a little bit about why i use a limiter over something like a compressor here we are in final cut i've got a raw clip on the timeline let's take a listen to it so we're at a little spot called shack town it's a little waterfall river area out in yadkinville not too far away from where i live in downtown winston it's a little quiet take a look at the audio meter in the corner i like my dialogue audio to bounce between negative 6 and negative 12 db now i could raise the gain to get it closer to that ballpark range like this so we're at a little spot called shack town it's a little waterfall river area out in yadkinville not too far away from where i live in downtown winston that's not too bad but if you notice on the audio bar some of the louder parts of the clip are getting too loud for my taste let's reset our gain knob back to zero and try raising the volume with the limiter effect instead apply the limiter to the clip and open up the control panel you'll see a couple settings here let's start with the output level the output level determines the maximum output for our audio what we are telling the limiter is hey whenever the audio gets louder than this number reduce it so it doesn't get louder than this number like i said before i like my audio between negative 6 and negative 12 db i don't mind if it gets a little louder than this but i know i don't want it to get more than negative 3 db so i'll set the output level to negative 3 db now let's check out the look ahead this tells the limiter how far ahead to analyze the audio setting this higher will make the limiter apply the reduction before the maximum level is reached creating a smoother transition now that seems nice in theory but it's unnatural for dialogue we want the limiter to kick in only when our audio gets too loud not before i set mine to zero milliseconds but the default two milliseconds is fine too it's kind of up to you but i would keep it on the short side next up is the release knob this is used to set the time it takes for the limiter to stop processing after the volume falls below the output level the longer we set the time the longer the reduction stays applied if it's too high it'll create an unnatural pumping sound for dialogue i keep mine anywhere from 50 to 250 milliseconds you can set it to what sounds best for your ears but i'm going to go with 250 milliseconds the last control knob is the gain effect this increases the level of the input signal to get my gain right i like to play the audio and i actually watch the output signal i'll keep applying gain until the output signal is continuously hitting that output limit we set once i see my audio keeps hitting that limit i'll dial back the gain slowly until i'm bouncing comfortably between negative 6 and negative 12 db the human voice needs some level of dynamics to sound natural we don't want our audio output hitting that threshold all the time we just want that threshold to control the loudest parts the final setting on the limiter is the mode setting by default this will be set to precision mode for dialogue i think it's best to switch this to legacy mode legacy mode lets us use the soft knee effect this will make our reduction smoother and less abrupt when the limiter kicks in that's how i like to set up my limiter let's take a listen to the clip and see how it sounds so we're at a little spot called shack town it's a little waterfall river area out in yadkinville not too far away from where i live in downtown winston i think that sounds pretty good the quiet parts are much louder and the reduction on the loud parts sounds natural and that's how i use a limiter in final cut pro now i'd like to have a little conversation about why i use a limiter over something like say a compressor a compressor is sort of like a limiter except instead of stopping the audio at a designated threshold it reduces the volume proportionally this reduction is displayed as a ratio such as two to one that means for every two decibels the audio rises above the designated level the compressor will reduce the output so it only increases by one decibel two db above the threshold becomes one db above the threshold instead it's a little confusing to explain quickly i'll leave a link to apple's explanation page in case you're interested in learning more after doing a little research it seems like the compressor is the industry standard tool for dialogue so why use a limiter personally i like the limiter because it's simpler and to me the results are just as good for my purposes my voice isn't incredibly dynamic so i don't need any kind of detailed compression i just need to be able to control those peaks and make sure my threshold doesn't go above that negative 3 db range using the limiter with the soft knee effect does more than a good enough job for my purposes i encourage you to play with both and see which one works better for your sound i want these videos to inspire conversation so if you have a question or think there's something i could have done better like use a compressor feel free to leave a comment down below i try to respond to as many as possible if you enjoyed this video consider subscribing really appreciate you watching and i will see you again real soon

Channel: Sam Walter

Views: 20,284

Keywords: How To Quickly Balance Audio Levels In Final Cut Pro, Quickly Balance Audio Levels, Balance Audio Levels, Balance Microphone levels, final cut pro x tutorial, make your dialogue audio consistent, make your audio consistent, audio limiter effect, limiter filter, fcpx audio editing, fcpx 10.4, fcpx 10.4 tutorial, final cut audio levels, consistent audio in final cut pro, sam walter, consistent dialogue audio, Shore-Styers Mill Park, Shacktown, shacktown falls

Id: kSKKLn7N8w0

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020