How do you label audio tracks with the mic names from the sound recorder?
Most professional sound recorders let the sound mixer name each channel, such as “Boom” or “Radio mic, Sam”, and those names are saved with the recording. Some editing software shows those names on the tracks when you bring the file in. If yours does not, read the names from the sound report and rename the tracks by hand, keeping the same layout for every scene.
On a multi-mic shoot, the recorder writes one file with several channels, usually a boom plus a radio mic for each actor. In many editors those channels arrive as anonymous tracks. You end up soloing each one to find out whose voice it is, and doing it again in the next scene, where the order may have changed.
Labelling the tracks with mic names fixes that for you and for everyone after you.
Where the names come from
The sound mixer names each channel on the recorder at the start of the day, usually by character or by mic. Those names are saved with every file. They also appear on the sound report, the sheet the mixer sends with each day’s cards.
So the information almost always exists. The question is whether it reaches your timeline.
How to label tracks yourself
- Get the sound reports. Ask the production for them if they did not arrive with the cards.
- Check what your editor shows. Some software displays the channel names when you look at the clip’s details.
- Name the tracks in the timeline. Rename each audio track after the mic it carries, for example “Boom” or “Radio mic, Sam”.
- Keep one layout. Put the boom on the same track in every scene, and give each character’s radio mic its own track. When a mixer changed the order mid-shoot, move the clips to match your layout.
- Label the clips too, where you can. A track name helps in the timeline. A clip name helps when the clip turns up somewhere else.
It is worth doing even on a short job. The sound editor will thank you, and you will find the line you need faster.
Why it matters at turnover
When you hand off to sound, the sound editor needs to know which track is which. If the names travel with the AAF, they can start work straight away. If not, they spend the first hours soloing tracks to rebuild what the mixer already wrote down on set.
How B/side handles it
In B/side, on Creator and up, each channel of a multitrack sound file shows the name the sound mixer gave it, on the right track. You see “Boom” and “Radio mic, Sam” instead of A1 to A8, without typing anything. Those names travel to the mix and to the files you hand off, so the sound editor sees them too.
When something else is better
If you record one mic straight into the camera, there is nothing to label, and any editor will do. Mic names start to matter when there is a dedicated sound recorder with several channels, which covers most drama and documentary work as well as unscripted shows.
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