Listening to Treasure Island on Audible. Sounds great. Does anyone on here work on similar productions? Are the actors all recorded together, then sfx added later (with spatial panning), or are some sfx recorded at the same time with the actors actually moving around, getting closer/farther away from the mic like the old BBC binaural recordings (the ring, the stone tape, etc.)?
I’m an audio producer and I’ve produced some German audio dramas like »Paul Temple und der Fall Valentine«. It depends on how the studio / director works, budget and availability of the voice actors.
In my case I recorded the both main characters mostly together, partly isolated. The sfx always come last. In some cases I asked the actor to move away or past the mic. But 99% of room fx and movements are post sound design.
Back in the day audio dramas were more seen as recorded theatre stages. So, in old audio dramas you have lots of movements in front of the mics, because the literally recorded on a stage and not in a smaller booth.
Anyway, it’s a lot of extremely fun work. Especially if you also compose the music ![]()
I do lots of’em. One of the latest was Spinal Tap with all of the guys. It’s a great example of how you do everything necessary under the circumstances. Recorded them as a group in a circle, separated enough for decent isolation, but due to the improvisational nature of that aspect, still had to use gating to avoid various issues. Worked great!
Other phases of production included solo narration in studio and various location recordings… not to mention bits sent in by iPhone by cameo personalities (thank you DX Revive!).
All in all the challenge was to create a unified-sounding production (the material spoke for itself). And with the built-in Nuendo tools and a couple of third-party additions, it was absolutely doable.
Other projects– have done stuff in the style of an old-time radio drama with fans for airplanes and live “Foley” footsteps and the whole shebang, with one main mic for various roles, just like they did it back then. Ton of fun. And… editorial challenges in post, but… ton of fun. ![]()
And then there’s the basic record and then add SFX later…
The moral of this story: whatever it takes, by any means necessary. Each project is different. Intrepid improvisation! Template/Shmemplate!!
Or whatever gets you through the gig…
Chewy
Thanks for the responses. As I was listening to some, I was thinking that it would be a lot more trouble to add SFX later and try to make it fit into the scene, rather than just recording it while the action was happening. But that would take more PRE production. That’s why we get the big bucks I guess…after all the budget has been spent.
Will definitely check out the Spinal Tap one!