How audio plugins can create the best sound for your wedding videography
Audio plugins are a topic rarely spoken about in the world of wedding videography. Wedding Videographers may have some great skill sets in the filming and the visual side, but may not know quite so much about the audio side. aside from strapping a mic on the camera for the wedding speeches. So let’s take a look at all the amazing benefits of using audio plugins to enhance our wedding videography audio and soundscapes….
Image: How audio plugins can create the best sound for your wedding videography
Benefits of having audio plugins used in wedding videography editing
First, some background. Most video editing software has some basic audio tools at their disposal which is great. They can do certain things of course but won’t be able to effectively give the possibilities that are available with modern audio plugins.
Today most video editing software such as Adobe Premier Pro enables third-party VST plugins to be accessed and used within their programs.
We also need to address the obvious question of well, ‘ what is an audio plugin?’ Well, the simplest way to explain this is, it is a digital tool that can help with the processing or synthesis of sound/ audio. It may be a digital recreation of a really old analogue piece of hardware, and sometimes it may be something brand new. With advances in technology, there are even A.I. based audio plugins furthering the options and possibilities of what we can do with sound.
Audio plugins will be used in the latest NETFLIX movies and on TV. The great thing is the world of weddings and wedding videography can now benefit from having the same quality of audio!
Audio plugins in wedding videography can help audio soundtracks in many ways.
Overall, they can make our audio sound better!
They can help remove unwanted background noises or issues from the original sound recordings
They can help make our wedding video audio sound more audible
They can help us clearly hear speech and words in parts like the wedding ceremony or wedding speeches! (pretty important stuff!)
They can help our captured wedding audio, glue with our wedding audio soundtrack/ music.
They can push/limit our volumes to be at the correct industry levels
They can create professional-sounding audio - just like our favourite pop song, music, TV Show or movie at the cinema or on Netflix!
AI plugin tool for removing background noise from wedding speeches, saying ‘i do’ and wedding registrars/celebrants
Clarity Vx by Waves is the highest-quality and the fastest way to clean your wedding audio from background noise and prepare them for the final mix of your wedding video. Just imagine your most amazing wedding ceremony recording ruined by hiss, hum, or even super-harsh noises. Clarity Vx will save the recording and remove the noise at the absolute highest fidelity, in no time.
Imagine a wedding guest’s baby starts bashing on of their cute toys against the floor or someone scrapes a chair right at an important part of the wedding ceremony. Trust me it happens…. every week! Ha! This can help…
Clarity Vx is optimized with a simple interface to guarantee the best of both worlds with zero learning curve: impeccably clean wedding audio – no artifacts, no damage to the performance and results in seconds. In the past, cleaning noisy wedding vocal recordings at the highest fidelity required serious engineering know-how, as well as the luxury of time. The solutions were not optimized for musicians or filmmakers on a budget, home producers on a schedule, and content creators who are not professional sound engineers.
using Waves Vocal Rider to automate THE volume of wedding video audio
A true timesaver, this plugin adjusts your wedding audio vocal levels automatically, saving you the need to draw each level change in your DAW or manually ride faders.
All you need to do is set the target range of the vocal level in relation to the rest of the mix. Then, Vocal Rider compensates for all deviations from the target, intelligently raising or lowering the vocal gain, instantly. And unlike compression, Vocal Rider adds absolutely no colouring to the vocal track. Vocal Rider also has a Live component with exclusive Spill control to differentiate the vocal from background instrumentation and noise, for better tracking and performance.
Keep steady wedding vocal & dialogue levels automatically
It saves time by automating the vocal riding part of the wedding audio mixing process
It writes the automatic riding to an automation track for fine-tuning
Compression on Wedding Videography Speeches & Wedding Ceremony Audio
Ok, more tech jargon, But compression even though is often not understood in the world of audio, its job is fairly simple. It smooths out audio/ sound and makes the quieter parts of the audio and the louder parts quieter! See, that wasn’t so bad was it!
Your Wedding Video audio can have the sound of silky-smooth Abbey Road RS124 compression – the legendary velvety tones heard on every Beatles recording made at Abbey Road. With two distinct flavours to choose from, this classic tube model is the only software emulation of the ultra-rare RS124s, approved by Abbey Road Studios. You may not be Paul McCartney or John Lennon but we can utilise this legendary technology of the past for use in our modern wedding films of today!
Few pieces of gear define music history as the RS124 does. The custom-built RS124 compressors were the secret weapon of Abbey Road engineers during the ‘60s – favoured by Geoff Emerick for punchy bass sounds; by Ken Scott for lush guitar treatment; by Norman Smith for lightly glueing the entire rhythm bus. RS124 was also a popular choice for mastering in Abbey Road’s cutting rooms.
The RS124 sound is especially famous for the thick, creamy bass tones it produced on Beatles classics such as “Rain” and “Come Together.” Abbey Road engineers would typically push the input of the RS124 deep into 15-20 dB of gain reduction, producing wonderfully lush results on numerous sources.
USING SATURATION TO BRIGHTEN AUDIO IN THE WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY SOUNDTRACK
So when Uncle Bob does his wedding speech and his low, bassy voice just isn’t cut through and sounds a bit dull and unclear - this thing can help. It can boost the harmonic frequencies of his embarrassing childhood story of when you were 3 years old - meaning when you listen back to your wedding speeches video - guess what… it’s super clear!
Musical analogue saturation from the legendary Abbey Road Studios: The sound of classic tubes and transistors, driven hard from subtle to extreme, and excited by the ultra-rare EMI TG12321—a secret weapon of Abbey Road engineers. Saturation is the heart and soul of analogue recording and mixing—from the subtle soft clipping of a tube preamp, which adds warmth and pleasing harmonics to vocals and speech. Modelled directly from time-proven saturation chains at Abbey Road Studios, Abbey Road Saturator provides inspiring saturation, unlike any other device.
Mastering Plugins to glue TOGETHER your wedding videography soundtrack with your wedding video audio
Mastering is generally seen as a dark art in the world of music mixing and mixing for TV and film but it’s fairly simple in some respects, although hard to master (no pun intended!)
Mastering is about polishing audio at the final stages of production. Whether it's for a Stock, Aitken, Waterman record, the latest Hollywood Film or a Norfolk or Suffolk Wedding Video. It makes the audio accessible and works on a range of audio listening options.
You might watch and listen to your wedding videography on a TV, your laptop, your phone, your wedding video book, your Nans TV from 40 years ago, a mono Amazon Alexa speaker, or your bridesmaid’s latest trendy Bluetooth speaker.
You may even be listening to and watching your wedding video at an Outdoor Wedding Video Cinema party with all your family and friends. Mastering as a process will make your audio sound great and work whatever the listening environment or speakers are. It will also remove any harsh or unwanted frequencies from the wedding audio mix.
GETTING THE CORRECT VOLUME FOR LISTENING TO YOUR WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY AUDIO
For mixing, mastering, and more, the Waves L2 plugin’s legendary combination of look-ahead brick wall peak limiting, level maximization, and ultra-high resolution gives you the power and extra gain you need with crystal-clear results every single time. The end result is this audio tool will ensure your audio will be at industry-standard levels and its peak limiting will ensure no nasty noises or distortion from clipping when you listen back to your wedding video!
Image: Benjamin from Race Wedding Videography. How audio plugins can create the best sound for your wedding videography
“…. Wedding Videographers WON’T ALWAYS HAVE EXTENSIVE AUDIO KNOWLEDGE OR KNOW HOW TO MIX AUDIO. MY SKILL SETS AND EXPERIENCE IN AUDIO MIXING AND AUDIO PLUGINS FROM MY BACKGROUND IN MUSIC, WITH TRAINING FROM PROFESSIONAL MIX ENGINEERS LIKE AUBREY WHITFIELD AND BOBBY OWSKINSKI, HELPS ME TO PROFESSIONALLY MIX WEDDING AUDIO. THERE IS NO REASON WHY A WEDDING VIDEO FILMED IN SUFFOLK CAN NOT SOUND AS GOOD AS A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE….. ”
benjamin - race wedding videography
Image: How audio plugins can create the best sound for your wedding videography
Race Wedding Videography’s Investment in creating amazing audio for your Wedding Videography WITH THE LATEST AUDIO PLUGINS FROM WAVES
This year I have invested in the region of £20,000 in a brand new wedding videography mixing and editing studio in Suffolk. Using the best industry video editing software is one thing, but it’s also important to have the best audio gear and audio plugins!
RACE WEDDING VIDEOGRAPHY’S STUDIO HAS BEEN FEATURED BY PUREMIX!
Image: Ben - Race Wedding Videography outside the world’s most iconic recording studio - Abbey Road, London. Home to the world of The Beatles, world-renowned music, film soundtracks, and now Dolby Atmos Mixing and Mastering. The Mix Stage: a Dolby Atmos® Premier accredited and IMAX audio-compatible studio, enabling state-of-the-art post-production in the world-famous surroundings that have inspired so many.
Race Wedding Videography certified in Mixing and Mastering Audio
Benjamin at Race Wedding Videography has also been certified for his successful participation in Award-winning music producer, and songwriter Aubrey Whitfield’s 7-Week Complete Mixing Course. Aubrey has worked with the likes of Little Mix and Kelly Clarkson plus has been a successful writer for TV & Film projects.
Image above: Bobby Owsinksi - Benjamin (Race Wedding Videography) also attended Bobby Owsinksi’s 2023 Mix Lab course looking in depth at audio mixing. Bobby is widely regarded as one of the best mixing teachers in the business. His books are found in college classrooms and at the workstations of world-renowned mixers… Image below: Benjamin recently completed the mixing accelerator course by Streaky, one of the UK’s best mixing engineers!
Note: I am not paid or endorsed by Waves. They are just great audio plugins and tools that I use on a daily basis. This blog just helps wedding couples understand a little bit more about wedding audio and its possibilities, plus how awesome it can be!
