Tag Archives: Antoine Rotondo

Quick Chat: AI-based audio mastering

Antoine Rotondo is an audio engineer by trade who has been in the business for the past 17 years. Throughout his career he’s worked in audio across music, film and broadcast, focusing on sound reproduction. After completing college studies in sound design, undergraduate studies in music and music technology, as well as graduate studies in sound recording at McGill University in Montreal, Rotondo went on to work in recording, mixing, producing and mastering.

He is currently an audio engineer at Landr.com, which has released Landr Audio Mastering for Video, which provides professional video editors with AI-based audio mastering capabilities in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

As an audio engineer how do you feel about AI tools to shortcut the mastering process?
Well first, there’s a myth about how AI and machines can’t possibly make valid decisions in the creative process in a consistent way. There’s actually a huge intersection between artistic intentions and technical solutions where we find many patterns, where people tend to agree and go about things very similarly, often unknowingly. We’ve been building technology around that.

Truth be told there are many tasks in audio mastering that are repetitive and that people don’t necessarily like spending a lot of time on, tasks such as leveling dialogue, music and background elements across multiple segments, or dealing with noise. Everyone’s job gets easier when those tasks become automated.

I see innovation in AI-driven audio mastering as a way to make creators more productive and efficient — not to replace them. It’s now more accessible than ever for amateur and aspiring producers and musicians to learn about mastering and have the resources to professionally polish their work. I think the same will apply to videographers.

What’s the key to making video content sound great?
Great sound quality is effortless and sounds as natural as possible. It’s about creating an experience that keeps the viewer engaged and entertained. It’s also about great communication — delivering a message to your audience and even conveying your artistic vision — all this to impact your audience in the way you intended.

More specifically, audio shouldn’t unintentionally sound muffled, distorted, noisy or erratic. Dialogue and music should shine through. Viewers should never need to change the volume or rewind the content to play something back during the program.

When are the times you’d want to hire an audio mastering engineer and when are the times that projects could solely use an AI-engine for audio mastering?
Mastering engineers are especially important for extremely intricate artistic projects that require direct communication with a producer or artist, including long-form narrative, feature films, television series and also TV commercials. Any project with conceptual sound design will almost always require an engineer to perfect the final master.

Users can truly benefit from AI-driven mastering in short form, non-fiction projects that require clean dialog, reduced background noise and overall leveling. Quick turnaround projects can also use AI mastering to elevate the audio to a more professional level even, when deadlines are tight. AI mastering can now insert itself in the offline creation process, where multiple revisions of a project are sent back and forth, making great sound accessible throughout the entire production cycle.

The other thing to consider is that AI mastering is a great option for video editors who don’t have technical audio expertise themselves, and where lower budgets translate into them having to work on their own. These editors could purchase purpose-built mastering plugins, but they don’t necessarily have the time to learn how to really take advantage of these tools. And even if they did have the time, some would prefer to focus more on all the other aspects of the work that they have to juggle.