Well, well, Dave, you have opened a can of worms here!!Dave Watterson wrote:One German film maker who has a large output on DVD swears by Ulead and he has used most systems on the market!
Prompted by Ned's mention of his sound editing programs I want to mention the shareware program Goldwave which I use more often than Adobe's Audition because I am more familiar with it.
BUT having given a course recently where almost half the audience was wearing some form of hearing-aid I am becoming much more conscious of sound clarity. I wonder if there is anyone we know who might prepare a set of relatively simple tutorials for the website on using a cheap sound editor like Goldwave. We could have examples to play.
Ideally such a course would suggest common ways to improve the sound recorded by a typical low-to-mid priced camcorder with modest mics. I know you should get it right in the first place, but few of us do. As one well-known film maker said to me the other day: "We have an evening at the club once a year about how vital it is to do all your camcorder settings manually and always use separate mics or else you are not a real film-maker ... and everyone nods agreement. Then for the next 364 days they leave their kit on auto and depend on the built-in mics!"
Dave
I would suggest a professional sound program, which in fact does not cost that much (about £350 or maybe less now). It's 24 bits and very good. (It's called ProTools, and is video compatible. There are probably other contenders at about that price as well).
But of course, for serious sound editing, you need some good speakers, and these would set you back another £350 (Active speakers, with their own amps built in). Anything much less than this will hamper good results.
Of course, good mics and a better recording system (say DAT) than camcoders can offer is also important. Most camcorders have lousy sound, which is useless for music and not wonderful for voice either. So you do need to spend at least £1,000 on the sound side, to get good results.
I think the so called professionals who make feature films have a lot to learn about sound, particularly on the clarity of voice production and recording, as you have mentioned, Dave. In their case they have the equipment, but they use it badly. Often the mics are too far from the subject.