The Peril of Background Music

I was up til 2 AM yesterday re-encoding and re-uploading our most recent episode of STBD because Ann pointed out something I hadn't noticed (but have been told before): the background music was too loud to hear the dialogue.

Very often, I don't notice that because, while I'm editing, I'm paying attention to the dialogue. I block out the music in my head. But to someone who's never heard that dialogue before, it might get trampled by the backing track. (I made that mistake a lot in our first two seasons.)

The other side of the coin is audio compression. I've noticed a LOT of background noise coming through in our final mixes that I don't pick up in Final Cut Pro. If the entire mix is going to be leveled up during compression, figure that your background music will get a bump as well, and might interfere with your dialogue.