Myths And Magic By Michael "Aussie" Holten

he biggest myth in the industry is usually heard when referring to audio. It's that famous phrase: "We'll fix it in post!" Why oh why is audio so often forgotten. After all, any "fix in post" involves a sacrifice, often in quality and always in time. Instead, we should take a few extras moments early on, to get it right. Let's "Fix it in Pre" (pre-production -- remember that item on the budget?)

For example, removing air conditioner noise with an equalizer sacrifices frequency response and often requires "unnatural" ramping of audio levels. Before you take the cameras, listen to the room, ideally with closed eyes, a microphone and headphones. Either fix the noise (turn it off, or cover with pillows) or pick a new location (not always possible). The bottom line: take the time to capture your sound correctly, both when shooting and when digitizing.

Enough preaching. I look forward to upcoming releases from NewTek, and the third party community, hopefully lifting our audio horizons to the max. With the video working so well (for most of us), we welcome the new focus on sound.

Cheers

Aussie

Alert, Audio: Always Record to both audio channels

There has been a lot of chat lately, along with suggestions from NewTek, that you should ALWAYS record an audio signal to both audio channels when digitizing (not just one channel).

Most of us probably do anyway. As to why you must, I have no idea. Under some circumstances, one might even need a "Y" cable to feed in a mono feed (haven't we all got mixers yet?)

Alert, Audio: Avoid level of zero ?????

Some users were suffering all types of audio sequencing errors. After checking many things, they reported that they had set some audio levels to zero before muting them (with ALT + a). So we un-muted, brought the levels back up, and re-muted... Bingo! the project worked again. We tested and any level from 1 up worked, but zero would not. Myth or Magic? Science or Art? Believe it, or not? Want to buy a bridge?

Audio: Pan or Balance? The Flyer's system

The Flyer has an interesting way of panning audio. In fact, it has two ways. One, if the clip is set to play stereo, and the other when it is not. If the video or audio clip is set to play either Channel 1 OR 2 only, then the pan control works as one would expect -- allowing you to place the mono track in the center, or anywhere between the left and right speakers.

With a stereo clip though, the pan control actually works like the "Balance" knob on a home amplifier -- it lowers the right or left channel, it does not pan the channels in-between. For example, some early Beatles recordings had the voices on the right and the music on the left. If you "panned" this you could lose the voices (karaoke!)

Why does this matter?

When shooting in the field, one often records with a remote microphone (maybe a wireless) as well as a camera mic (for backup or room ambience). If you digitize this to the Flyer in stereo (each to a separate channel) then you have the flexibility to select either one at any point while editing. The drawback it that you cannot playback both tracks at the same time except from the extreme right and left speakers (yet... pant! pant! pant!)

If instead you digitize this to the Flyer in mono (mixing the tracks together and recording to both Flyer channels) then you can combine the two tracks while digitizing. This lets you add the "crowd" sound or ambiance to certain shots. It keeps the two sounds together, however you are committed to your first mix. You must re-digitize to change it.

No big discovery here, though new things are coming. I thought if folks understood the two Flyer panning methods, they may be able to take advantage of it when digitizing certain shots.

Audio: Riding music levels with a "human feel"

Practically every production needs the music levels to raise and lower around narrations and selected audio bites. One method I used to use was to simply "pan" all of the music to the right channel, and pan all other audio to the left. Then, patch the audio "out" of the Flyer through an audio mixer (panned center), and you can "ride" the music up and down as needed with a real "human feel." You sacrifice stereo, but your project goes out the door quickly.

Two Notes: Co-Pilot Audio includes "Music Mix" which can automate all ramping of your music quickly, intelligently and artfully. It also includes "Foreign Translation" which can pan individual "sound types" (such as narrations, music, sound FX, etc.) to either audio channel.

Audio: "Audio Lock To" Choices

Some folks are unfamiliar with the "Lock To" methods available in the Flyer. These are "Lock to In Point" (the default setting), "Lock to Clip", and sometimes "Lock to Program Time." All three locking methods can cue an audio clip to the same starting point, the difference is what happens later as you edit and adjust other clips around it.

Let's take a brief look.

Audio clips (along with CG and overlay effects) are usually cued from the visual clip that precedes them. If you open the Audio clip's control window, you can enter a new start time such as 2 seconds. This is essentially a delay, but where it delays from is adjustable.

The default setting in the control window is "Lock to In Point" -- therefore we just cued the audio clip to start playing 2 seconds after the previous video's In Time. If you re-adjust that video's In time, then the audio clip would be cued at a different point in the video also, however the 2 second delay would have been maintained. Use this method when you want a narrator to begin talking 2 seconds after the shot begins -- you can adjust and change the video shot, but the delay (and therefore the editor's concept) will be maintained.

Why would you want any other locking method?

Let's say that instead of a narration, our audio clip here is a door slam. We want the door slam to be cued at an exact point in the video clip. Furthermore, we do not want that point to move if we re-adjust the In time of the video clip. So now we use "Lock to Clip" instead, cueing our audio clip to play at a specific frame always. Simply find the timecode number in the video shot and enter that in the audio start time.

Here's a second great use that combines the two. Let's say you want your narration or music to start 2 seconds BEFORE the video clip. Leave the audio clip after the video and simply enter a start time that is a couple of seconds before the Video clip's In time, then set "Lock to Clip". Even if you edit and rearrange the previous scene, this audio will be always be cued 2 seconds before the video In point starts to play.

"Lock to Program Time" no doubt has its uses for some, though I have never used it much myself. In our example, the audio clip would be cued 2 seconds from the top of the edit (program time), regardless of the audio clip's location in the project.

Note: Personally, I would like to see one more locking method -- one that locks one audio clip to another, allowing you to gang up an audio series, regardless of the video track.

Audio: Keeping a "Matching" Audio clip in sync

Sometimes, you need the audio from a video clip to play under a long series of visual "cut-aways". Usually we create an audio clip from the video clip. The challenge is to keep that audio clip in sync with the original video clip during the editing. Here's a way to make the mathematics easier, in fact you can edit back and forth by simply "cutting and pasting numbers".

The method is:

1. to have identical length audio & video files,
2. to place the matching audio clip after the identical video clip, and
3. to ALWAYS set the audio clip to "lock to CLIP time."

OZware
21230 Meadow Lake Rd.
Snohomish WA 98290
(360) 805-0148.
ozware@aol.com

Back To The Table Of Contents
Copyright © 1997 Visual Inspirations