Mixing audio in CS5

[Andrew Devis]

Check out the tutorials in the Adobe audition and Soundbooth section, I did one on matching the volume of multiple clips. That should do what you want – I hope. Hope this helps, Andrew

[Joe Stas]

Hi Andrew
That was exactly what I was looking for – thanks very much for the help, the tutorial was great.

One questions still.. When I match the audio, what should I set the dB too? I used the -14 as you did in the tutorial. In what instances would I use a different value?

Thanks

[Andrew Devis]

Hi Joe

Great to hear that the tutorial’s helpful :o)

-14dB is the default in Soundbooth and that is great for background sounds as it gives you a good overall base level. The truth is, there is no absolutes for sound mixing, different people have different levels that they prefer to work with and there is little agreement as to what is best except that going above 0dB is bad!

What I would do is play with the level to get what works best for you, but bear in mind that once the levels are matched you can then raise the volume of the whole track with the audio mixer if it is too low.

The only time I may raise the level from -14 would be if I still couldn’t get a sensible volume level with the audio mixer or maybe if it was for a series of vocals which i wanted to raise and match above the level of other background or music tracks. However, as I say, there are no rules except NO DISTORTION (above 0dB).

Hope this helps
Andrew

[Joe Stas]

Thanks! You’re tutorial was genuinely very helpful as is your other advice.

I’m currently trying to balance my sound but still having a few issues.

First, once I’ve rendered and replaced audio files I’m having trouble applying crossfades to them. When I drag them to the audio on teh timeline it only seems to attach to the start or the end of one file – it won’t bridge the two.

One other question I wanted to ask you is do you have any wisdom for eliminating wind noise? I know it’s probably impossible to fix but I thought there might be some EQ tricks that might help.

Thanks again!

[Joe Stas]

In reply to my previous post – I assume it’s cos the clips don’t have handles. Which brings me to the question can I render and replace the whole audio file and not just the cut? Or should I just render and replace once I have a final edit and have all the fades in place?
Thanks again

[Andrew Devis]

Hi, I got both posts and I think I have some answers for you. Firstly, if you right click on your footage in your PROJECT PANEL you get the option to edit in Soundbooth>extract audio. Now, this will get the whole of the audio for the clip but you need to bear in mind that you will need to syncronise it to the video. This should be done with the whole clip on the timeline and then the audio is the exact same length and easy to syncronise. You then trim the two item to the same length and then select them both, right click on them and group them. They way they stay together … and you end up with handles to play with transitions.

As for noise reduction, Soundbooth does have a few things that can help. I intend to put a tutorial up at some point on that, but in short, go to the ‘Tasks’ Panel and choose ‘Clean up audio’. For now, the one you probably need to play with the the ‘rumble’ slider – click ‘rumble’ and preview while playing with the slider to see how much it helps. However, if that doesn’t do it, play with the others as well and see how it does. The problem with wind noise is that it changes a lot which makes it very hard to get rid of.

Now, there is one last option – again a tutorial would probably be best … but in the meantime, go to the ‘Spectral Frequency Display’ (first icon at the top) and then have a look for where the noise is. It will probably be low frequency (less than 2K) and then you need to use the rectangle marquee tool to highlight the area of noise and then use the wheel that appears above the bit you highlighted to reduce its gain – sometime you can reduce it all the way.

This approach is frequency specific, so it done with a little care it can have minimum effect on the rest of the frequency range and so save your audio.

Hope this helps and all the best with the project.
Andrew

… because it’s all about stories …

[Arlo Ihrig]

I just ran into the same problem in Premiere Pro CS5, about the cross-fades on the audio tracks after doing a render and replace into Soundbooth.

It seems that as you mentioned, when you do a render and replace, it ONLY brings in the adjusted clip on the timeline to Soundbooth, and not the whole original clip – SO… you lose your handles when you do this and thus cannot do a crossfade between the two replaced clips.

What I ended up doing was placing each original audio clip on a separate track and extending the in/out points of the clips where they would be crossfading, doing the render and replace, and when done with the audio editing go back to Premiere and put them back on the same track, readjust in/out points back to where they were before, and now I have the handles to work with again.

Its too bad this is not handled (pun intended =) better during the render and replace, like having an options to include xx seconds/frames of handles or something. CS5 update?

Hope that helps clarify for anyone running into the same problem.