Clean Five-Stem Timeline Organization
Separate Dialogue, Ambience/Room Tone, Tactile Foley, Risers/SFX, and Music onto dedicated color-coded tracks so track-level processing stays controlled.
Editing, Color & Post
Program #084 · Editing & Color
✓ Free Online Intro Included
Short-Form Sound Design: Dialogue Stems, Foley & Loudness Mastering
Build restrained, dimensional short-form soundtracks: five-stem timeline organization, tactile foley timed to visual motion, vocal EQ carving, and -14 LUFS loudness mastering.
Sound carries half the pacing and physical weight of a short-form commercial or Reel, yet beginners routinely overload edits with loud meme sound effects and harsh 0 dBFS whooshes on every cut that drown out the speaker. In this course, we organize a clean five-stem timeline (Dialogue, Ambience, Foley, SFX, Music), place soft air transitions and real-world foley only where visual motion earns them, carve a 1–4 kHz pocket for vocal intelligibility, and master to -14 LUFS.
✓ Free Online Introductory Session
Start with a free online intro consultation for this course: we review the syllabus together, clarify how many sessions you need based on your goals and pace, and decide whether continuing Online ($69 CAD/hr) or In-Person ($99 CAD/hr) suits you best.
First Session
Free Online Intro
Session Rates
$69/hr Online · $99/hr In-Person
Course Structure
Tailored to Your Level & Pace
Instructor & Language
Iman Adlkhah · EN & Persian
Prefer done-for-you commercial filming, kinetic typography, and color grading for your brand? View our Video Production Studio, Client Portfolio, and recent edits on @tehranto.plus on Instagram.
Course Learning Pillars
Core Capabilities Developed in This Course
Every learner starts from a different background. These are the core capabilities this course develops, paced to your goals across the sessions we plan together.
Motivated Foley & Motion-Peak Whooshes
Ground silent high-frame-rate B-roll with subtle cloth, cup, and room textures tucked at felt-not-heard levels, timing soft air movement strictly to visual speed peaks.
1–4 kHz Vocal Presence EQ Carving
Shape a subtle midrange pocket in your music track so spoken Persian and English consonants stay clear without crushing the musical energy underneath.
-14 LUFS Loudness & Phone Speaker Translation
Finish your master bus with clean compression and a -1.0 dBTP true-peak limiter so vertical edits play back loud, balanced, and distortion-free on phones.
Course Syllabus
Core Concepts & Topics Covered
Below are the main concepts and topics covered in this course. In your Free Online Intro Session, we align the exact depth and number of sessions to your experience and goals.
Topic 01
Five-Stem Architecture, SFX Curation & Musical Structure Editing
Setting up reusable audio track layouts in Premiere Pro or DaVinci Fairlight, curating tasteful non-meme sound libraries, and tailoring music tracks to exact edit lengths.
- Structuring Dialogue, Ambience, Foley, SFX, and Music submixes with clear meter targets
- Beat-grid splicing to trim full-length music tracks cleanly while keeping their authentic ending cadence
- Using subtle tension risers and brief 3–4 frame musical micro-stops before a key spoken line
Topic 02
Tactile Foley Layering & Motivated Transition Sound
Replacing loud generic cartoon swooshes with understated physical textures, pitch-varied air transitions, and soft mechanical accents tied to on-screen action.
- Layering subtle room tone, footsteps, espresso pours, paper rustles, and keyboard taps under silent B-roll
- Aligning the peak waveform of soft air whooshes to the fastest frame of a whip-pan or speed ramp
- Pitch-shifting and high-cutting transition SFX so consecutive cuts never sound harsh or copy-pasted
Topic 03
Vocal Chain Clarity & 1–4 kHz Music Pocket Carving
Ensuring spoken dialogue sits comfortably in front of dense modern music productions through clean track-level vocal processing and surgical EQ separation.
- Building a clean Dialogue Track FX chain: high-pass rumble cut, corrective EQ, gentle leveling compression, and de-esser
- Attenuating a smooth 2–3 dB pocket in the 1–4 kHz vocal presence band on the music track
- Comparing keyframed volume ducking against subtle sidechain/auto-ducking curves between speech phrases
Topic 04
-14 LUFS Loudness Metering, Limiting & Mobile Translation
Reading Loudness Radar / LUFS meters accurately so your published Reels, Shorts, and TikTok ads neither clip on loud phones nor get buried under louder posts in the feed.
- Understanding Integrated LUFS (-14 LUFS target) vs Peak dBFS meters in Premiere Pro and Fairlight
- Setting a clean Master Bus True-Peak Limiter at -1.0 dBTP to guard against AAC social-encoding clipping
- Auditing mono fold-down compatibility and small smartphone speaker clarity before final export
Course Reference Overview
Five-Stem Short-Form Sound Mix Reference
Core practical benchmarks and standards covered as part of this course's curriculum.
| Audio Stem | Typical Amateur Mistake | Disciplined Mix Approach | Listener Experience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialogue Track | Uneven clip-by-clip volume swings and harsh sibilance | Track-level high-pass, gentle compression, and clean de-essing | Consistent, intimate spoken authority from start to finish |
| Ambience & Foley | Dead-silent slow-motion B-roll gaps that feel sterile | Subtle room tone and physical foley tucked around -26 to -22 dBFS | Tactile realism felt subconsciously without clutter |
| SFX & Risers | Unmotivated 0 dB cartoon whooshes on every jump cut | High-cut air transitions and risers timed strictly to motion peaks | Earned editorial momentum and crisp structural shifts |
| Music & Master Bus | Midrange-heavy music burying speech or clipping phone speakers | 1–4 kHz EQ pocket under speech mastered to -14 LUFS / -1 dBTP | Balanced commercial loudness across earbuds and phones |
Start With Your Free Intro Session
Book Program #084: Short-Form Sound Design: Dialogue Stems, Foley & Loudness Mastering
Choose a time for your Free Online Intro Session to map out your course path, or book an Online ($69/hr) or In-Person ($99/hr) session directly.
1. Choose Option & Preferred Time (ET)
Program FAQ
Common Questions
Where do I source clean, natural foley and transition sounds without running into copyright claims?
You don't need sprawling chaotic folders of ten thousand sound effects; a well-organized core kit of forty to sixty clean textures covers almost every commercial edit. Starting from your Free Online Intro Session, we review your editing software (Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, or Final Cut) and help you structure a clean royalty-free daily SFX folder.
How does the Free Online Intro Session work, and how many sessions will I need?
Every course begins with a Free Online Introductory Session where we review the core syllabus together, evaluate your current background and goals, and map out how many sessions you actually need and whether continuing Online ($69 CAD/hr) or In-Person ($99 CAD/hr) suits you best. Session count is never a rigid one-size-fits-all number; it adapts to your own level and pace.
Do I have to commit to a multi-session package upfront?
Never. There is zero upfront package commitment: once your free online intro session maps out your path, any coaching sessions you choose ($69 CAD/hr online or $99 CAD/hr in-person) are scheduled flexibly session-by-session at your own pace.
Are courses taught in English, Persian (Farsi), or bilingual?
Your choice: every session with Iman Adlkhah can be conducted 100% in English, 100% in Persian (Farsi), or naturally bilingual with industry terminology.
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