Audio post production

Audio post production is the general term for all stages of production happening between the actual recording in a studio and the completion of a master recording. It involves, sound design, sound editing, audio mixing, and the addition of effects.

Film

Audio Post Production usually refers to audio that is syncronized with video. This applies to TV, cinema, and commercials. One major aspect of audio post production is the use of ADR, or automatic dialogue replacement. Sometimes the original, or production audio, lacks in performance or quality, and the actor or actors are brought into a sound studio to record some or all of their dialogue from the project. Other elements such as foley, music, and voiceover are also added during post production.

Music

The post process in recording acoustic music is often referred to as mixing, as this process happens after recording the musicians. In electronic music the workflow is usually quite different, and in this context the term "post processing" would typically not refer to the actual mixing process but rather what is applied to the resulting mix-down.

With today's increasing amount of music software and musicians creating electronic music in their homes, post production is often done by the musicians themselves. The process typically involves equalization, audio level compression, multi-band audio compression, and limiting. This process somewhat overlaps but should not be mistaken for the term mastering, as post production is usually performed on a per-song basis, whereas mastering is aimed at preparing an entire list of songs for a specific media type.