How to Record Room Tone for Film Sound

[John Jaquish]

What's the best way to get room tone? Is it just as basic as recording a quiet room? Could I use a shotgun mic for this, or would it be better to use the in-camera mic? Or is there somewhere I can download some room tone if I can't get the type of sound I want?

 

[DAS19]

Depending on where the room is, i.e., the beach (ocean) or something like that. You get a different room tone. What I would suggest is whatever room tone you're looking for, record a quiet room but do it with a shotgun mic that's going into a mixer and then into whatever recording device you're using. I think that's the most effective way to do this. Can you explain to us what you're trying to accomplish so we can help you out better?

 

[John Jaquish]

Thanks for the response. I'm doing a short that is partly set in a city apartment. These scenes will have no sound except for the ambient room tone, so I want it to be pretty solid. So, I'd like the room tone along with some background street noises. Would it be best to just record the silent room tone, then add in additional street sound effects?

 

[Bryant Falk]

Room Tone

Normally when mixing a film or TV project you want the room tone of where the actors were so you can match it up and create a smooth audio track. If you're being creative with room tone like it seems in your posting, keep in mind what roomtone is. If for example I'm in a kitchen, room tone may consist of a refrigerator compressor kicking, a fan blowing in the background, a buzzing light overhead! Look at your video footage carefully and assess what is in the room to help build believable room tone. Good to have a master file of all the room tone elements separate so you can manipulate as your cuts change, (long shot versus close up etc).

 

[jondisla]

Add the effects later with a SFX library. Still you may want to retain SOME of the original sounds in case you like those too. Lemme know if you need further assistance finding and recording SFX or mixing them.

 

[Dan Selakovich]

I'd like to expand on Bryant's answer: The amount of bodies in a room affects the sound, so room tone should be collected at the time of the shoot with everybody being completely silent. I've worked on films where we had to loop some sound between the slate and "action" because the tone collected didn't match.

Dan

 

[Doee12]

LOL !

 

[Bryant Falk]

Room Tone

Since you are being very creative with room tone, i.e. you're not going to have dialogue from location, you have a lot of creative freedom. If I get what you wrote correctly I would start creating a palette of sounds to use for different room tones. Say your character is in the bathroom. Leaky pipes, water dripping, toilet tank filling up, radiator for heat turning on etc. Then collect as many as you can on location and beef up the rest in post.