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Public Showing of Documentary Tomorrow–Need Quick Audio Sweetening Tips
It’s a 50 minute mini-documentary with music, interviews, and narration. I’ve already set all the audio levels with keyframes and everything sounded good on my editing system (PPro 1.5) but:
1) Narration sounded a little too loud on my home theatre system.
2) Sound was slightly distorted when played through another 19-inch, cheap television. I’m concerned that when I make copies of the show for the audience that some will play it on similar televisions and the sound will be crappy.Questions:
1) Can I still adjust the audio for a whole track or individual clip with the audio mixer after adding keyframes? If so, how is it done? When I try to do this with the audio mixer, none of the changes are made permanent–PPro seems to defer to the keyframes and ignore changes made in the mixer. Going through the entire program, re-adjusting keyframes seems like a tedious an unnecessary solution.
2) Is the key to non-distortion of sound through small frequency-range TV speakers simply volume? If I lower the volume (amplitude) of my entire program am I likely to get distortion-free play through small speakers?
Thanks!
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4 Replies
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If it were me, I would probably put the entire sequencfe into a new sequence and attempt to use the audio mixer to get the volume just right.And make sure you do not exceed -6dB on the meters.
Steven
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.1 / After Effects 6.5 Pro https://www.stevengotz.com
Learning Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 https://www.lynda.com
Contributing Writer, PeachPit Press, Visual QuickPro Guide, Premiere Pro 1.5 -
Thank you for the info. Sounds like -6db is a sweet spot I should be shooting for.
Once keyframes are inserted into an audio track and (using the keyframes), levels are increased and decreased–is there a way to decrease or increase the level of the entire clip or track? In other words, if I have manipulated the audio using keyframes, so that parts are increased and other parts are decreased (say +2db, and -3db respectively)is there a way to “globally” decrease that entire clip or track, say, -4dbs, so that my original keyframes drop down -4dbs each making them -2db, and -7db (using my previous example).
Is it true or not true that after inserting keyframes, I cannot then adjust the volume “globally” using the audio mixer? Is there some other tool that can make a global adjustment, but retain the relative values of the keyframes?
Thanks.
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Are your keyframes track keyframes or clip keyframes? If clip, then adjust the track will do the job. No problem. If track, then you might want to use the nested sequences as I suggested. The keyframes on the original sequence work fine, but new ones can be created on the nested sequence without a problem.
Steven
Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5.1 / After Effects 6.5 Pro https://www.stevengotz.com
Learning Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 https://www.lynda.com
Contributing Writer, PeachPit Press, Visual QuickPro Guide, Premiere Pro 1.5 -
Thank you Steven. They were track keyframes. I answered my own question with a little research…so here’s the solution that was most helpful to me:
Because I had spent the time making track keyframes throughout my project, i.e., had decreased music amplitude when narration began and increased it again when narration ended, I wanted some way to move all the keyframes up or down db levels without having to do them individually. The way to do this is to simply use the pen tool and draw a “bounding box” around the all the keyframes that you’d like to move. When they are selected in this fashion they will appear slightly darker than the other keyframes. Then, simply click and drag on one keyframe and all the other will follow.
This technique allowed me to fine-tune my audio levels after I had gone to all the trouble of creating a lot of keyframes.
I’m sure that there are better workflow solutions to audio sweetening, but this one worked for me.
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