Sound Track: Makin' Tracks (page 2)

Audio Track Tips

When it comes to handling audio with consumer video formats (especially the older ones), we're not living in a perfect world. Here are some tips to make editing and dubbing audio a little less painful.

• If your DV camcorder gives you a choice between two- and four-channel modes, choose wisely before you start to record. There's no easy way to go from two channels back to four, and only the four-channel mode gives you hassle-free dubbing.
• VHS hi-fi tracks have lots of headroom, and you can safely light up the red LEDs when setting record levels manually. DV and 8mm-family digital audio are a different story altogether. When digital audio exceeds 0 decibels (full strength), it distorts in the most ungraceful way. Digital audio users: you're dealing with a very unforgiving system. Watch your record levels like hawks.
• If you're planning to mix any two audio tracks together from the same tape, make sure they don't contain the same audio. Using two different record methods (VHS hi-fi and linear, 8mm PCM and AFM) to play back the same audio causes severe interference and phase cancellation. If your music sounds hollow and your people sound like robots, you're probably doubling your audio on playback.
• Avoid silent hi-fi tracks on your final VHS tape. Hi-fi VCRs will mute the linear track if they sense the presence of hi-fi tracks, silent or not. If you're not sure what audio is going where, you may want to disable the hi-fi tracks altogether as you dub or edit your final tape. You can disable the auto-sensing feature on most VCRs, but it may require the remote.
• Planning to mix hi-fi and linear tracks on playback with a VHS-family hi-fi VCR? Remember that you can't control linear audio record level with most decks. Nor can you control the balance of linear to hi-fi audio. The only way to change the relative balance of these tracks is by raising or lowering the hi-fi record level controls manually. And the only way to get the correct setting is by trial and error. Do a few test edits and dubs to learn the proper hi-fi record level. On the same topic,
• Keep in mind that every hi-fi VCR sets a slightly different mix of hi-fi and linear tracks when playing back in mix mode. Your perfectly blended masterpiece may sound very wrong through a different playback deck. It's often better to go down one more generation so you can set the blend of the two tracks with your own VCR.

Good luck--and keep an eye on those record l…