[PROJECT HAS ENDED] The "Crowds" Library

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Would you like to contribute to the "Crowds" Library?

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argyllrb
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by argyllrb » August 19th, 2014, 3:04 am

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your help. That's all really helpful. I tend to edit recordings down to what's useful and try to keep processing to a minimum but I wanted to confirm whether there were any specific guidelines for this library.

Meant to ask this in the original post. What is the average audio level range I should be aiming for on the submitted files? Obviously it will vary depending on the environment recorded but I wondered if there was a ballpark you'd recommend metering to?

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers,
Richard

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axk
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by axk » August 19th, 2014, 8:23 am

argyllrb wrote:Hi Alex,

Thanks for your help. That's all really helpful. I tend to edit recordings down to what's useful and try to keep processing to a minimum but I wanted to confirm whether there were any specific guidelines for this library.

Meant to ask this in the original post. What is the average audio level range I should be aiming for on the submitted files? Obviously it will vary depending on the environment recorded but I wondered if there was a ballpark you'd recommend metering to?

Thanks again for your help.

Cheers,
Richard
Of course! Always happy to share whatever I can. The sounds I record/master/catalogue vary in loudness depending on what the sound source is. For ambiences, I usually try to keep average program level running around -40 to -30 dBFS in Pro Tools. Any one-shot effects (impacts, whooshes, doors, etc) get normalized to a -6 to -2 dBFS peak depending on what frequencies are most prevalent (high-end heavy files get -6, low-end heavy files get -2).

Since we're using Soundminer exclusively, we have to work within the constraints of the software in certain cases. The Waveform Overview display doesn't really show anything useful when previewing quiet sounds, so I try to master files at levels that allow for a good representation of what's happening in each one.

That being said, everyone has a completely different approach to this aspect of the mastering process and as your library grows, you'll find that there's no uniform level that anyone follows; it's more about what works best for them.

argyllrb
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by argyllrb » August 21st, 2014, 2:44 am

That's great. Thanks again.

Richard

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samueljustice
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by samueljustice » August 27th, 2014, 12:49 am

Hey Alex and guys,
I've been sorting through my stuff and adding metadata - is it worth being a little more comprehensive with our descriptions on the metadata? Purely for the reason that this is a crowd sourced library from all over the world, so being quite granular with description is not such a bad thing (as the whole point of this is to collect as many weird and wonderful crowds from all over the world).

For example my naming for the files is simple and follows the guidelines -
CROWD_Zoo_ENGLAND_UK_Penguin_Exhibit_EXT

Then for the metadata I have put the following -
Audible Worlds Crowd Walla - Top of Penguin Exhibit Hilltop. Facing down to crowd with children. Water fountain heard - Marwell Zoo UK England - Samuel Justice - SONY M10 - 20140731

Thoughts?

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joe_griffin
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by joe_griffin » August 27th, 2014, 11:02 pm

samueljustice wrote:Hey Alex and guys,
I've been sorting through my stuff and adding metadata - is it worth being a little more comprehensive with our descriptions on the metadata? Purely for the reason that this is a crowd sourced library from all over the world, so being quite granular with description is not such a bad thing (as the whole point of this is to collect as many weird and wonderful crowds from all over the world).

For example my naming for the files is simple and follows the guidelines -
CROWD_Zoo_ENGLAND_UK_Penguin_Exhibit_EXT

Then for the metadata I have put the following -
Audible Worlds Crowd Walla - Top of Penguin Exhibit Hilltop. Facing down to crowd with children. Water fountain heard - Marwell Zoo UK England - Samuel Justice - SONY M10 - 20140731

Thoughts?

I think that's great.

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axk
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by axk » September 3rd, 2014, 12:26 pm

samueljustice wrote: ...is it worth being a little more comprehensive with our descriptions on the metadata? Purely for the reason that this is a crowd sourced library from all over the world, so being quite granular with description is not such a bad thing (as the whole point of this is to collect as many weird and wonderful crowds from all over the world).
Absolutely! There's a balance to be had between not enough and too much info, of course. Every editor uses a different workflow, search terminology, and sound design process. For our own personal purposes, obviously you'd taylor things to your own style. For general libraries, however, there are certainly bits of info that are more useful to include than others.
samueljustice wrote: For example my naming for the files is simple and follows the guidelines -
CROWD_Zoo_ENGLAND_UK_Penguin_Exhibit_EXT
This is a great example. If I were to sort a bunch of files with this naming convention alphabetically, they'd line up according to:
  • Library
  • Specific Location
  • Broad Location
  • Short Description
  • Interior/Exterior
The only thing I'd say is that it might be worthwhile to put the "Penguin_Exhibit" tag before the "ENGLAND_UK" tag, since people will usually be concerned with the description first, then the broad location (in most instances, at least).
samueljustice wrote: Then for the metadata I have put the following -
Audible Worlds Crowd Walla - Top of Penguin Exhibit Hilltop. Facing down to crowd with children. Water fountain heard - Marwell Zoo UK England - Samuel Justice - SONY M10 - 20140731
One thing I've been trying to advocate more is the use of pipes instead of hyphens in metadata. Putting "||" between sections instead of "-" makes things a little more modern/clean-looking to me, translates fine in all the DAWs I've tried it in up to this point, and frees up hyphens to be used in other ways. Definitely a matter of personal taste, but I find myself replacing every hyphen with pipes in the Uni library here.

Soundminer has specific fields for library, mic, location, recordist, and date, so I'd only include those in the Description field if you didn't have access to that piece of software. Also, instead of "Water fountain heard", I might but "Gentle water fountain in background" or something along those lines. I assume I'll be hearing anything that makes it into the description, so no need to specify! :D

davimorales
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by davimorales » September 4th, 2014, 5:05 am

I'm in too. The ambient library was very helpfull and inspiring. Is really good to share some fx.

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samueljustice
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by samueljustice » September 7th, 2014, 4:34 am

axk wrote:
samueljustice wrote: ...is it worth being a little more comprehensive with our descriptions on the metadata? Purely for the reason that this is a crowd sourced library from all over the world, so being quite granular with description is not such a bad thing (as the whole point of this is to collect as many weird and wonderful crowds from all over the world).
Absolutely! There's a balance to be had between not enough and too much info, of course. Every editor uses a different workflow, search terminology, and sound design process. For our own personal purposes, obviously you'd taylor things to your own style. For general libraries, however, there are certainly bits of info that are more useful to include than others.
samueljustice wrote: For example my naming for the files is simple and follows the guidelines -
CROWD_Zoo_ENGLAND_UK_Penguin_Exhibit_EXT
This is a great example. If I were to sort a bunch of files with this naming convention alphabetically, they'd line up according to:
  • Library
  • Specific Location
  • Broad Location
  • Short Description
  • Interior/Exterior
The only thing I'd say is that it might be worthwhile to put the "Penguin_Exhibit" tag before the "ENGLAND_UK" tag, since people will usually be concerned with the description first, then the broad location (in most instances, at least).
samueljustice wrote: Then for the metadata I have put the following -
Audible Worlds Crowd Walla - Top of Penguin Exhibit Hilltop. Facing down to crowd with children. Water fountain heard - Marwell Zoo UK England - Samuel Justice - SONY M10 - 20140731
One thing I've been trying to advocate more is the use of pipes instead of hyphens in metadata. Putting "||" between sections instead of "-" makes things a little more modern/clean-looking to me, translates fine in all the DAWs I've tried it in up to this point, and frees up hyphens to be used in other ways. Definitely a matter of personal taste, but I find myself replacing every hyphen with pipes in the Uni library here.

Soundminer has specific fields for library, mic, location, recordist, and date, so I'd only include those in the Description field if you didn't have access to that piece of software. Also, instead of "Water fountain heard", I might but "Gentle water fountain in background" or something along those lines. I assume I'll be hearing anything that makes it into the description, so no need to specify! :D
Thanks again for all the great info Alex, the pipe solution actually makes a lot of sense. Hyphens can definitely only go so far!

djkrayz
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by djkrayz » September 8th, 2014, 2:56 pm

Sign me up please!

guileol
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Re: The "Crowds" Library

Post by guileol » September 10th, 2014, 10:43 am

Hi, guys. Just found about this project through Designing Sound blog. Great idea and great expectations towards it!

My 2c on the subject of file naming is to make sure that the file has an initial description (like crowd size, interior/exterior) in caps, followed by a more detailed info in lower case. This proves very helpful during a quick hunt for the right crowd. For example I'm naming one of mine as "CROWD_SMALL_INT_Fastfood_Restaurant_Busy_Noon_BRAZIL".

And a quick question: approximately how many people should we consider a Small/Medium/Large crowd? I know the crowd "performance" impacts on the way we perceive its size, so the headcount isn't an exact reference. But an approximation would be nice =].

Greetings from Brazil!

Guile Oliveira

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