Alloy and alley
My new favorite tool is iZotope Alloy which I use as my default channel strip plug-in. Alloy has low, low CPU usage so you can put it on tons of tracks and busses and go crazy. Its EQ and dual (serial or parallel) compressors are worth the price of admission. Throw in a decent de-esser and a limiter and it’s really well-thought desert island software. I also find the expander invaluable and use it a lot for dialogue tracks.
Speaking of dialogue tracks, I’m working on a film and it took me the better part of a day to edit the dialogue for a scene. There was nothing particularly wrong with the scene; two dudes in an alley walking/talking. Both wore wireless lavs so the audio was clean, but by being in close proximity they bleed, interfere, and phase with each other.
So, it’s chop-chop city. And a lot of mixing in room tone. And fades. And the result is it takes a long time to get it to sound smooth and natural and right. After the dialogue cleanup, there’s still Foley footsteps to sync, other sound effects to support the action, a few well-chosen city backgrounds (filtered to sound like the alley), and the next thing you know … the two-minute scene takes most of a day.
Welcome to my world.
