Smithers, you're quite good...at...turning, me...on! [Soundforge Help]

Vortigern

Hey everyone. I could use some advice on a project for school using Soundforge 10. I'm working on some recording arts courses, and the final project for my digital recording class is proving to be tougher than expected.

The project is to take 2 soundfiles (waves) and region/lable them (done), then to grab words out of both and make a new file (the third) with 15 seconds of dialogue created by me. So grabbing and pasting words together is easy enough, adding silence between them for cadence is also not a problem. Where I'm getting tripped up is how methods to adjust the words so they sound like cohesive conversation and not just pasted together. I know I'll be messing with RMS for each sample and probably adding some DSP and compression, but figuring out a method for what to do in what order if making my head ache.

Any advice from the aether? ADR or enthusiasts would be good. The end goal is to make it as realistic sounding a piece of dialogue as I can. It won't be perfect (my first kick at this can), but the better I can make it, the happier I'll be. I'm using Soundforge Pro v.10, the full version if that matters specifically.

ascannerlightly

avoid (when possible) using words at the beginning or end of sentences (especially questions) so you won't have jarring changes in inflection. also (again, where possible and again, for the same reason) try to use phrases instead of single words.

i've never used that program (the bits of audio editing/dubbing i've ever done were done with audacity) so i can't offer you any advice on it, unfortunately.

Vortigern

Good point about the beginning and ending words. The single word thing was stipulated as a part of the exercise. We're supposed to avoid using phrases as much as possible. The guy in the two clips mumbles a bit though and I can't isolate certain things at all, like "a". Writing dialogue without using "a" ever gets a bit more challenging unless I use the word before or after, depending on how he slurred it. The speaker also uses two different sounding voices between the clips, so I'll be playing with the RMS and such to try and blend them where needed.

Mostly I'm wondering if there's a standard method or a routine of processes that people follow for this sort of thing, or if I just need to play with it until I get something as close to perfect as I can manage.