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Sync animations to sound -what is the fastest way ?
What is the fastest / easiest way to animate to a specific sound file or dialogue track in after effects?
I also am very frustrated with After Effects lack of Real-Time sound playback which awkwardly forces me to use dozens of ram previews (which take a while to render , together with (very choppy) scrubbing and layer makers, just to approximate where my keyframes should be…… It seems to take forever to get animation to synch up to sound, and not because I’m slow; the After Effects workflow (in regards to sound) is very rudimentary, unintuitive, and limited at best.
Do I not understand how to use AE properly, or is AE just not that good at handling sound files? How can Adobe be at version 9 (cs4) of a program and not have real time sound capabilities – thats just nuts!!!
Are there other workflows I should consider? (i.e. can I use Sounbooth CS4 to mark up the sound file, then import that into After Effects with the markers inttact?)
I know Apple Motion is good with sound, but I don’t want to learn a whole new software package…. though the more I learn about it, the better looks.
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2 Replies
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yep, working with audio is a pain in ae… it’s not so much that you can’t handle audio in realtime (you can do that by hitting the decimal on the numbers pad), but it has to render the video preview every time…
here’s how i usually work with audio — select the audio track, hit the decimal on the numbers pad and as it plays i hit the * on the numbers pad to add layer markers as the audio plays in realtime.
then twrill down the audio properties to get to the audio wave form (which is lousy too) and then use command-scrub (that’s mac, ctrl-scrub on pc maybe) and the weak wave form to fine tune the layer markers. sometimes i’ll label the markers too.
then i’ll base the animation timings on the layer markers, and when i preview i’ll preview at low resolution and magnification so i get feedback more quickly….
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
[Kevin Camp] “then twrill down the audio properties to get to the audio wave form (which is lousy too) and then use command-scrub (that’s mac, ctrl-scrub on pc maybe) and the weak wave form to fine tune the layer markers. sometimes i’ll label the markers too.”
The shortcut to view the waveform is ‘ll’ that’s two L’s quickly.
AE doesn’t offer the best workflow to work with audio, but once you learn the shortcuts it becomes a little easier.
Darby Edelen
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