Dubbing (re-recording and mixing) is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production, often in concert with sound design, in which additional or supplementary recordings (doubles) are lip-synced and "mixed" with original production sound to create the finished soundtrack.
The process usually takes place on a dub stage. After sound editors edit and prepare all the necessary tracks—dialogue, automated dialogue replacement (ADR), effects, Foley, and music—the dubbing mixers proceed to balance all of the elements and record the finished soundtrack. Dubbing is sometimes confused with ADR, also known as "additional dialogue replacement", "automated dialogue recording" and "looping", in which the original actors re-record and synchronize audio segments.
Outside the film industry, the term "dubbing" commonly refers to the replacement of the actor's voices with those of different performers speaking another language, which is called "revoicing" in the film industry. The term "dubbing" is only used when talking about replacing a previous voice, usually in another language. When a voice is created from scratch for animations, the term "original voice" is always used because, in some cases, this media is partially finished before the voice is implemented. The voice work would still be part of the creation process, thus being considered the official voice.
Films, videos, and sometimes video games are often dubbed into the local language of a foreign market. In foreign distribution, dubbing is common in theatrically released films, television films, television series, cartoons, and anime.
In many countries dubbing was adopted, at least in part, for political reasons. In authoritarian states such as Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain, dubbing could be used to enforce particular ideological agendas, excising negative references to the nation and its leaders and promoting standardised national languages at the expense of local dialects and minority languages.