The Kraken Dialogue Editors Toolkit has quickly become an essential tool for many Dialogue Editors. The Mac OS application works in step with Pro Tools, offering enhancements to workflows and solutions to problems that Dialogue Editors encounter regularly. In this article expert dialog editor, Chris Roberts will show you what Kraken Dialogue Editor’s Toolkit can do, and why this monster has become such a powerful ally…..

Intro

All of us, at some point in our lives, hit upon a Spiritual Quest. Mine was for the Perfect Dry Martini. And the whole point of a Spiritual Quest is that, like the search for the Holy Grail, one should never really fulfil it. The search is the thing. But I hit upon a problem with my Spiritual Quest. I found it. The Perfect Dry Martini and no, I’m not going to share where it can be found….

As a Dialogue Editor, I have embarked upon another Spiritual Quest, this time to find the perfect aid to assembling and cutting production sound. I have utilised, endorsed, hacked and bent other apps, databases and toolsets, but have never quite found ‘The One’. I always assumed that the search would be part of my journey through the darkness of audio post-production, with the light always being a distant flicker off in the distance as I battle through another conform. But it’s happened again. I think I’ve found the Holy Grail……and this one I would like to share with you.

What Is Kraken?

Kraken Dialogue Editors Toolkit is an application that has been developed over several years by sound editor Marc Specter. Like the elusive objects of many a quest, in the darkest corners of Soho, in London, England, there were whispers and rumours of the app Marc was developing, until he felt it was finally ready for public release back in February 2019.

Essentially, it performs two core functions: assembling production sound files from an EDL to create field recorder guide tracks in Pro Tools, from which the multitrack location recordings can be expanded (conforming); and searching for alternate takes for spotting into a Protools session. But once immersed in the app, Kraken offers so much more to Dialogue Editors.

Kraken Features

On opening, Kraken presents a scalable window containing five panels. The three main panels show the Waveform Tool, the Detail List Tool, and the Edit List Tool. These can be moved or removed to suit personal preference. Alongside are two side panels showing Sync tracks and Media. And, should it be necessary to take a deep dive into the metadata for a particular sound file, a floating, scalable window can be displayed showing all the metadata for the currently selected sound file, regardless of what has been chosen to display in the Detail List panel.

Beginning an assembly is a simple matter of dragging the folder containing the production sound files into the Media panel. Kraken then scans the metadata and waveforms, storing the waveform data in hidden folders alongside the sound files, while the metadata is loaded into memory on each application startup. Once the scan is complete, the Detail List is quickly populated with all the information relating to the production sound files.

The tracks of the currently selected audio file appear in the Waveform Tool, where they can be navigated and auditioned. Here Kraken utilises FMOD, (more widely recognised in game-audio circles) as the audio engine, to provide convenient and robust access to the CoreAudio drivers. The amount of information available to view in the Detail List is user-definable, via a context menu.

The appropriate EDL is similarly added to the Media panel and appears in the Edit List panel. Various EDL options are then available in another context menu.

Having used these options to clean the EDL satisfactorily, selecting ‘Find Matches’ from the EDL context menu sets Kraken’s custom algorithms to work searching through timecode addresses, reel names, clip names, file names... whatever is needed to find a match. 

If all is well with the metadata each EDL event is linked to the correct production sound file. These source files can be added to an empty Pro Tools session from the context menu, or by simply clicking, dragging and dropping into the Pro Tools clip list.

It is important to note that Kraken works by referencing the production sound files, so the session preferences must be set to not copy the files on import.

To conform the events to the correct positions, selecting ‘Spot to PT’ from the EDL context menu displays a clear set of instructions as to how to prepare the Pro Tools session.

Click ‘Start’, sit back and relax as Kraken populates timeline with the appropriate clips from the first track of each production sound file. Once complete, it is a simple matter of utilising the Pro Tools Field Recorder Guide Track workflow to create a complete sound conform by expanding all the production sound file channels to new Pro Tools tracks.

Kraken - Easy And Reliable

Wonderfully quick, easy, and in my experience very reliable - if all is well with the source material. More often than not, there are issues with the EDL or the production sound files’ metadata - and this is one of the areas where Kraken really comes into its own.

Troubleshooting Problems With Source Material

If some EDL events are initially linking to incorrect sound files, selecting the rogue events and choosing ‘Force Alternate Matches’ triggers a further set of Kraken’s search algorithms. These ignore the current match and work through the remaining possibilities until another is found, linking the EDL events to other candidate sound files that can then be conformed into Pro Tools if the match is determined to be correct.

If this approach is not successful, then Kraken’s comprehensive search function in the Detail List panel can be used to drill down and find other candidate sound files, which can then be quickly previewed in the Waveform tool panel. Once the correct file has been identified for a particular event, the options allow for other erroneous events from the same ‘reel’ to be quickly matched or even matched to individual sound files once located.

Having conformed the production sound files, one of the key processes for Dialogue Editors is finding suitable replacements for problem words or syllables by auditioning alternate takes (alts) and cutting them into the dialogue tracks.

Using Kraken, finding alts is quicker and easier, offering immediate access to all possible options of a particular line by following your moves wherever you are in the Pro Tools timeline.

After setting up Kraken to chase the Pro Tools session’s MTC, the ‘Sync Tracks’ window is used to select which tracks to follow in the Pro Tools session. When playing ProTools or positioning the cursor,  Kraken will track the session, showing the conformed clip name/s  at the current Pro Tools location in the ‘Sync Tracks’ window. Should there remain any real issues linking EDL information and source file metadata, Kraken can also read the information from clips imported from an AAF and link that to source file metadata. The Waveform Tool panel will show the currently selected clip’s source sound file, and its constituent tracks, with the currently selected Pro Tools clip and track clearly highlighted.

The source file will also be highlighted in the Detail List Panel. Simply clicking any of the alternate takes listed will audition them in the Waveform Tool.

Navigating the content of the file is a breeze: the waveform display is scalable, as is the waveform height, so it is possible to see as much or as little detail as required no matter how long the take is.

Once an area of a sound file has been chosen, hitting the ’S’ key spots the selection straight into Pro Tools on the currently selected track. Contextual menu options offer further finessing of the auditioning process.

For example, ‘Live Solo’ solos the selected track within a file with ‘Play On Click’ making it easy to quickly assess and choose between the lav and boom mic tracks available.

One of the most useful of these options is ‘Stacked Spotting’; where each subsequent ‘Spot to Pro Tools’ is placed on a track below the previous, so quite quickly a batch of potential fixes from alternate takes can be stacked up on Pro Tools edit tracks for more refined assessment and editing to picture.

Kraken - Support and Development

Kraken is effectively a continuously evolving project. In the relatively short time, it has been available to the wider post community, there have been a significant number of improvements and features added, often in direct response to users’ suggestions and requests.

Marc Specter’s engagement with and support of Kraken users is second to none, which obviously aids and informs his development of the toolset. Currently, a macOS only application, a Windows version is in the pipeline.

Marc is always improving the match algorithms, stating that there are also interesting possibilities in other areas including further assembly/conform workflow aids, AAF cleaning and filtering and Pro Tools file diagnosis. Marc is also considering Tools to aid ADR editors with the next big feature in development being a ‘Sync Fix’ function to tighten the sync of assemblies.

Addressing further, deeper issues that can confront and confound those of us dabbling in the dark art of Dialogue Editing is indeed exciting. I would suggest that Kraken’s main success so far has been to reveal solutions that make what could so often be a frustrating, time-sucking and laborious process quicker, easier and (dare I state it ) more enjoyable…..and not a killer rabbit in sight.