-
A Lazy Editor’s Audio Workflow
-
[Charlie Austin] “Despite my flippant reply to David… probably because it’s easier to accurately cut on zero crossings.”
This would be easily solved if the software specifically marked zero crossings on the rectified waveform — just shift the baseline of the waveform up a touch and add a little mark at the zero crossing.
Double points for making zero crossings a snapping point for the playhead.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “How much useful information is there in the asymmetry? What can you know about the sound from seeing this asymmetry?”
I don’t know if it’s the asymmetry that’s most important as much as it is the gestalt of seeing the energy of the entire waveform. For example, with voice, I can look at a waveform and instantly get a sense of the pattern of speech. I can also instantly judge if levels are healthy. This comes across visually before even hearing the sound.
I think rectified waveforms make spotting this kind of info much more difficult at a glance, especially for sounds with low levels.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[David Lawrence] “For example, with voice, I can look at a waveform and instantly get a sense of the pattern of speech. I can also instantly judge if levels are healthy. This comes across visually before even hearing the sound. I think rectified waveforms make spotting this kind of info much more difficult at a glance, especially for sounds with low levels.”
Do you think this is due to greater familiarity with standard waveforms, an inappropriate scale with rectified waveforms, or is an inherent flaw in the design of the graph?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] “This would be easily solved if the software specifically marked zero crossings on the rectified waveform — just shift the baseline of the waveform up a touch and add a little mark at the zero crossing. “
Or maybe they could just add a preference option for regular waveforms!
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[David Lawrence] “Or maybe they could just add a preference option for regular waveforms!”
But then the clip display would turn into a hideous unreadable mess like FCP 7 or Pr. 😉 Anyway, As this video of a single audio frame illustrates, it’s pretty easy to spot zero crossings and other audio info using rectified waveforms as well. In X or really anything that uses ’em and lets you get in close.
But again, who’s got time for that? I needed a cut to the client now! That’s why audio editors/mixers have jobs? You trying to put people out of work?!? 😀
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[David Lawrence] “Ha! Well we’re definitely opposites in that regard. The videos I posted above are exaggerated for clarity, but my usual strategy (especially when cutting audio) is to make my audio tracks as large as I can get away with!
Different strokes…
“Yep. 🙂 Thus the never ending debate. With a few exceptions, it’s all really about how you, or I, or anyone likes to work. And one way isn’t necessarily “better” than another. Except maybe to the individual. 🙂
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[David Lawrence] “Or maybe they could just add a preference option for regular waveforms!”
Well sure, but then it wouldn’t be like editing in the future! 😉
And seriously, some kind of formal recognition of zero crossings would be cool. Audition makes it easy to adjust your edit points to zero crossings [link], or to snap to zero crossings. Your NLE should, too. It shouldn’t require this much effort to find the best place to cut audio. Computers are supposed to help us with stuff like this!
Put another way: if a primary use of the waveform is to find the right place to cut, why make us visually inspect for that point when the computer could do it?
And for gauging the overall level: is the waveform the best tool for this job? Wouldn’t some kind of loudness measure be better?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
[Walter Soyka] ” It shouldn’t require this much effort to find the best place to cut audio.”
And it doesn’t, ya just scrub to the cut point audibly, and cut. 🙂 if there’s a pop ya fix it with a fade and move on. The computer might move to the wrong zero crossing!!! Anyway, according to some people, the software should never do anything for you, it should all be done manually. 😉
[Walter Soyka] “Put another way: if a primary use of the waveform is to find the right place to cut,”
It isn’t, really. There’s a lot of other uses for waveforms when editing/cutting music etc. DAW’s let you draw/modify waveforms. change frequency, amplitude, phase etc. But in an NLE… why? I’m primarily cutting picture and the audio that goes with it. If I want to do crazy detailed audio work (I don’t, been there done that) I’ll move into a DAW. I want a scalpel, not a swiss army knife.. If I find I need a screwdriver I’ll grab a real one, not some little attachment that folds out. lol YMMV…
————————————————————-
~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Walter Soyka] “Do you think this is due to greater familiarity with standard waveforms, an inappropriate scale with rectified waveforms, or is an inherent flaw in the design of the graph?”
I think it’s an inherent flaw in the graph design. Sound waves have both positive and negative energy. Standard waveforms accurately display this energy visually as positive and negative values (above and below the centerline).
Rectified waveforms cut the display in half. The negative energy is moved into the positive visual space. This means even though you’re seeing a technically accurate representation of the concentration of sound energy, you’re losing important visual cues from negative space that would normally surround both sides of a standard waveform.
As a visual designer, I’m sure you appreciate the value of negative space in visual communication. Rectified waveforms remove half of the negative space visual information about the sound.
_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
I’ve got nothing to add really, I just wanted to get the microwave into the thread title.
https://i.imgur.com/574uWB1.jpg
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up