DaVinci Resolve 17 Fairlight Training - Introduction to Audio

Mary introduces the Fairlight page in Davinci Resolve 17, highlighting the layout including meters, mixer, and timeline. She explains basic navigation, clip selection, and the importance of the playhead's position for editing. The session starts with a stereo mix from a short film 'Hyperlite' and includes basic playback and navigation tips.

Mary switches to a timeline demonstrating audio stems — dialogue, music, and sound effects. She explains the importance of separating these for deliverables and localization. The session shows how to solo tracks for selective playback and manage listening levels using the monitoring controls.

Mary demonstrates navigating between different timelines, emphasizing separation of the film's soundtrack into stems for dialogue, SFX, and music. She explains how to isolate tracks using solo/mute functions for focused editing, and she illustrates how to adjust track views and incorporate drones into a mix.

Explaining the mixing process further, Mary introduces the concept of working with production dialogue, including reviewing raw footage's sound. She shows how to use markers for navigating clips and how to handle individual vocal tracks, emphasizing the need for thorough review and organization.

Mary continues detailing dialogue editing and organization, stressing the importance of individual tracks for each character to maintain clarity and control. She demonstrates the process of cleaning up raw audio, removing unwanted effects, and shifting pieces requires meticulous attention to detail and proper use of markers for navigation.

Guidelines for track organization and clip selection are provided, emphasizing clarity by hiding unnecessary tracks. Mary shows how to work with indices for efficient editing, aligning clip arrangements, and extracting cleaner dialogue from existing production audio.

Using shortcut commands to navigate and manipulate clips, Mary highlights Fairlight's editing capabilities. She demonstrates blading techniques, efficient clip selection, and arrangement. The emphasis is on quick, keyboard-driven edits for smoother workflow.

Mary outlines how to handle mixed dialogue tracks, perform cuts, and create separate tracks for each character, ensuring dialogue is cleanly divided. She adds that mixing dialogue involves crucial decisions for future sound quality and provides efficient editing methods for quick and accurate results.

Mary emphasizes the importance of consistent audio levels across tracks. She demonstrates methods for balancing audio, focusing on range and loop playback tools for consistency. Equalization and normalization tools are pivotal in achieving balanced sound levels.

The session explores tools for refining audio levels and maintaining consistency across finished tracks, including Fairlight's built-in equalization and normalization processes. Mary highlights practical adjustments and plugins to refine dialogue tracks seamlessly.

Mary introduces the repair and replacement process for faulty audio clips, demonstrating layered audio editing. This process allows for precise waveform alignment and correction of errors with sophisticated layering techniques.

Mary tackles solving dialogue inconsistencies, showcasing auto-mode and manual learning plugins for noise reduction, and detailing the manual repair capabilities for clearer dialogue delivery.

Exploration of problem-solving common audio issues using Fairlight plugins, like dehummers for eliminating unwanted background hum and noise reduction tools. The aim is to achieve clean sound output in a dialogue mix.

Mary transitions to discussing audio repair techniques in real-world scenarios, illustrating precise audio editing to remove channel noise, unwanted background sounds, and to refine clarity using advanced Fairlight tools.

Through practical examples, Mary demonstrates identifying and removing audio hums and utilizing the noise reduction plugin for clearer sound quality. She emphasizes on quick troubleshooting and solutions for everyday audio difficulties.

Mary closes the session with advanced Fairlight audio correction capabilities, showing the sample level editing to remove specific sounds like clicks and pops without plugins, ensuring precise audio integrity.