Archive for the ‘Audio’ category

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Is the Suite Sweet?

June 16, 2008

One big question for the next phase of digital post production is whether developers ought to focus on building a suite, or whether an all-in-one application makes more sense. And the more I think about this subject, the less I understand it. Yes, there’s an obvious distinction between a big all-in-one program and a group of smaller, separate aps that do the same thing. But if you look at it more closely the edges blur.

Microsoft popularized the suite with Office, but even there it has rolled together functions that others deal with separately. Entourage integrates all the functionality of Apple’s separate Mail, Calendar and Address Book programs, and Word includes more and more desktop publishing functionality that used to be handled exclusively by Quark or Pagemaker. If you expand the definition enough, every application on your computer could be seen as part of a suite that is hosted by the operating system.

When it comes to digital media, Avid began life trying to roll as many functions as possible into a single app. Editing, visual effects and sound were all included. Final Cut started with that model, too. But now Apple offers Final Cut Suite, and Adobe offers CS3, with Audio, DVD and VFX tools. Avid now includes AvidFX, Sorenson Squeeze, SonicFire Pro and Avid DVD, though the last two only work on Windows. (For more about the Avid suite see Frank Capria’s recent post on the Source/Record blog.)

So is a suite better than a powerful all-in-one environment? The more I think about it the more this looks like the wrong question. The real issue is integration — how the different modules, whatever you call them, work together to produce a consistent, responsive environment that best supports the editor’s creativity.

Case in point: I just finished a show with Media Composer and did the titles with Apple Motion (details in this post). I enjoyed using Motion and loved all the things it let me do. But I had to do deal with two sets of media and two separate timelines, I had to do way too much importing and exporting, and I had to manage two different projects.

That’s a key issue — if the elements of your suite are working on the same data then they should all be accessible from the same timeline. Importing and exporting should be instantaneous and invisible.

Another key issue is look-and-feel. AvidFX looks like a much-improved way to do titles, and it works on MC data nicely. But it doesn’t look like the MC.

This points to one big advantage of a suite — not for editors but for software developers. It’s easier to create because you can buy the separate apps, put them in one box, and advertise a long list of capabilities. The key question for editors comes down not to what’s in the box, but how well the parts fit together.

However you package the tools, what I want in an editing environment is the same. I want a powerful editing application with great trimming tools (ie. MC) and great segment tools (ie. FCP), I want integrated titling and vfx in the main timeline with minimal rendering. I want professional 5.1 mixing and sound editing — again, in the same timeline. And I want the ability to make a basic DVD without creating a separate project to do so. I don’t want to have to conform sound elements to my own picture changes. And I don’t want to have to export and import to create titles or effects or simple DVDs.

Each of the three companies has succeeded with parts of this, but nobody does it all — yet.

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Categories: Adobe Premiere, Audio, Avid, Avid vs. Final Cut, Final Cut, User Interface, Workflow

Comments: 2 Comments

New Tutorials

February 28, 2008

Harry Miller, who runs the tech blog for the American Cinema Editors, has posted some very useful, detailed and slickly-produced video tutorials on the Media Composer. Check them out here. Two are up so far, one covers Audio Suite plugins, and the other, the audio mixer.

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Categories: Audio, Avid, Avid Technical Tips

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Soundtrack Pro Workflow

April 20, 2007

The more I look at the specs for Soundtrack Pro the more I like it. This application is really slick and does all kinds of things that I can’t do in my Avid. It offers non-destructive editing, a very nice looking tool for dealing with picture changes, simple speed adjustments, 5.1 panning and track nesting, easily applied and customizable audio dissolves, elaborate tools for repairing dialog, and nice analog-style scrubbing. It runs without extra hardware and integrates well with Final Cut.

There are a few obvious omissions: no ability to work in feet and frames, a limited track count (I was told that it maxes out at 32. Is this true?), and a clear dependence on the mouse for trimming and slipping (similar to Final Cut’s slip tool). Those certainly aren’t fatal, though, and putting all that power on the desktop for such a low price is wonderful.

The problem for me is that I don’t want this stuff in a separate application. Soundtrack seems like a worthy alternative for sound editors, but for a picture editor like me, the idea that I’m going to frequently switch back and forth from FCP to STP just isn’t efficient. What I really want are much better mixing and sound editing tools in the primary application.

I’ve mentioned some of this stuff before (Wish List #1 – Audio and Why Are Our Mixing Tools So Bad?) so I won’t go into all the gory detail here. But I badly need the ability to leave waveforms on all the time, to move automation around independent from the sound itself, and to easily make different kinds of crossfades. Final Cut offers several things that the Media Composer doesn’t, namely the ability to lay down sparse keyframes when mixing, and an onscreen mixer that isn’t limited to eight tracks. But neither program lets you move keyframes numerically, neither lets you move a group of keyframes at all, and neither lets you mix a group of tracks as if they were one thing — you can only make level adjustments within a clip.

Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me that I don’t want to be switching back and forth between two applications to do the kind of temp mixing that is now routine for picture editors. I don’t want to be conforming my own changes. I don’t want to wonder which application to use when working with a director. I don’t really need all the power of Soundtrack Pro or Pro Tools, but I do need some of it and I want it in the main application.

As a footnote, what’s with all this “Pro” stuff? Soundtrack Pro, Final Cut Pro, Pro Tools — it’s getting downright embarrassing. The word is so overused that it’s become meaningless. If I’m a professional and your program is for me, then putting “pro” in the name just makes me worry that you “protest too much,” as the bard would say. Yes, sir, I sure am professional! Heck it’s in my name! Every time I hear “pro” I think “amateur.”

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Categories: Audio, Avid, Avid vs. Final Cut, Avid Wish List & Bugs, Final Cut, Workflow

Comments: 4 Comments

Why Are Our Mixing Tools So Bad?

March 16, 2007

A couple of days ago I sat beside a friend while he did a one-day temp mix on a Pro Tools. We were shoulder to shoulder in a small room and that gave me a chance to learn a lot about how PT works.

Over the years I’ve been struck by how many feature and TV editors refuse to use Avid’s volume graphing features. Instead, they simply make add-edits in audio clips, set levels on the clips and connect them with a dissolve. I use keyframes and can’t see why others don’t. I recently debated this with a friend and she focused on how you change a volume graph. And she made some good points. In fact, it is easier to move a series of volume changes when you do them with add-edits and dissolves — you do it by slipping them.

I was thinking about all of this while watching my friend mix. It turns out that Pro Tools has a whole host of mixing features that I’d kill for in my Avid. There’s a reason that so many people use this program.

For example:

  • Waveforms are on all the time, they’re very detailed, and there’s no performance penalty for looking at them. Why have we waited so long for this?
  • Background saves. You can work all day and never see the system saving. But the saves are happening, and at any time interval you like. You get the PT equivalent of the attic, too. You just don’t have to wait while the save takes place.
  • As many tracks as you like. No artificial limitation.
  • The ability to easily mute a clip.
  • The ability to “nudge” a clip. Want to move something a frame to the right? Just select it and tap the arrow key. (Final Cut has this feature, and muting, and unlimited tracks, too.)
  • You can “spot” a clip into position by just typing a timecode onto it.
  • You can mix and handle a stereo pair (or a 5.1 mix) as a single object with one set of keyframes. You don’t have to laboriously create (and adjust) two separate volume graphs.
  • You can raise one or more keyframes, very precisely, by dragging them with the option key.
  • You can grab a whole series of keyframes and move them up or down by dragging, and when you do it you see a clear numerical display showing you what you’re doing in DBs.
  • You can move a group of keyframes in time (left or right).
  • Keyframes can be created automatically. In the Avid, to lower a section of music you have to create four keyframes and then move two of them. That’s a lot of clicks and drags. In Pro Tools you just mark two points and drag the line between them.
  • You get a separate graph for panning. So you can pan something just by dragging the graph and you can move a sound from one place to another easily.
  • You can route (bus) all your dialog into a single track and mix that track as a whole with a single volume graph. You don’t have to individually manipulate the volume of every single clip.
  • You can copy automation and filters — everything — from one clip to another. So if you carefully mix a piece of music against dialog and then need to replace it, you can keep your mix and just change the cue.
  • And — eureka! — the timeline is live. You can scroll it vertically or horizontally, change magnification, change views, all while your sequence continues to play.

Avid has focused much of their development effort in the last decade on visual effects, while the audio interface has largely remained untouched. Today, our sound tools just don’t reflect the kind of work we’re routinely asked to do, and they turn temp mixing into a real chore. Meanwhile, the upgrade rate in LA has been glacial. Bringing over only a few of the features listed above might just get the attention of a lot of editors.

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Categories: Audio, Avid, Avid vs. Final Cut, Avid Wish List & Bugs, User Interface

Comments: 3 Comments

Wish List #1 – Audio

October 17, 2006

I’m going to change the channel a bit with this post and talk not about what is already in the Media Composer, but what I wish was there. Much of the basic feature set has been with us for a decade or more. These functions typically work very well because they’ve been battle-tested over the years. But the editing world has evolved in that time, and there’s lot of capability that, it seems to me, is now missing.

I’ll start with audio and follow up with other subject areas in the future. I’m eager to hear your feedback. Please add comments.

  1. The ability to move, trim, slip and slide audio keyframes.
    How many times have you carefully mixed some music under dialog, only to learn that you need to trim that music or start it on a different phrase? What you want in that case is to trim or slip the music but leave the keyframes where they are. There’s no way to do that now. You must laboriously move every keyframe, one at a time. And since you can’t move them numerically, you have to guess at the distance. There are other times when you might want to do the reverse, namely trim the keyframes without trimming the automation. Current trim rollers trim a clip and its automation at the same time. What I’m proposing are special rollers that would trim one or the other, but not both.
  2. Better caching of waveforms.
    Avid’s waveforms are terrific. Very clear, lots of detail, and you can scale them vertically so you can always see what you need. They’re faster than they used to be, but they still take a long time to get on the screen and every time you move the timeline or resize it, you’re in danger of having the system go out to disk and resample everything, which means you’re going to wait. Worse yet, if you happen to have waveforms on and select “show entire sequence,” you’re in for a very long wait, and often, there’s nothing you can do during that period because you can’t stop the waveform draw.
  3. Redesign the audio mixer.
    We can play 16 tracks. But we can’t see them in the mixer. In fact, the thing always comes up with only four tracks showing. Moreover, the mixer insists on trying to “help” me see the tracks I want by turning faders off and on when they are activated/deactivated in the timeline. This produces an endless amount of confusion. Isn’t it time that this piece of the UI get a refresh? The mixer ought to show 16 tracks all the time, and if we ever get the ability to play more then it should show those, too.
  4. Volume automation should record fewer keyframes.
    When you’re doing realtime mixing in the MC, you generate hundreds of keyframes. That’s fine if your never plan to recut your show, but who works that way? Every picture change means moving keyframes, and since the MC can’t move multiple keyframes at once, all those keyframes is just going to create chaos. Final Cut lets you lay down what I’d call “sparse” keyframes: either just a few, or only at inflection points (the top and bottom of a curve). The MC ought to have the same capability.
  5. Track level mixing.
    How many times have you wanted to change the level of an entire scene? This might happen because the scene was recorded low, for example, or because you’re now laying music over it and need it louder so it doesn’t fight the music. Or you might want to add reverb to a dialog track only to find that the reverb starts and stops at every cut. There’s no good way to deal with these kinds of problems other than to change the level of every clip (a lot of trouble) or to make an audio mixdown (and thus lose track of your source clips). It ought to be possible to treat a track as a track and apply audio effects and level changes to the track itself, not just the clips within it.
  6. Nested stereo pairs.
    Every time I cut a piece of stereo music I wonder why I have to look at both tracks. I inevitably put the same keyframes on them at the same levels. If you’re mixing multiple pieces of music each of those stereo pairs represent another track that you have to trim when you make changes, or that can get out of sync. It ought to be possible to deal with a stereo pair as one clip.
  7. Allow for movement of stereo pairs from odd to even tracks.
    Have you ever noticed that if you grab a stereo pair in segment mode, the system won’t let you drag it vertically to the next adjacent track? Due to a feature that’s been with us since the early daays, the system insists that if a cue is in track 3 and 4, you must want it to stay in an odd/even track pair and it won’t let you drag it to 4 and 5 — you have to go to 5 and 6. I’m sure that some people want to see their tracks laid out this way, but I’m not one of them. This “feature” ought to be a preference.
  8. Drag and drop from iTunes.
    Until Avid makes it possible to play two clips “asynchronously” (that is, play the timeline, and then play the source without stopping the timeline) we’re going to need a way to audition music. iTunes is it. But to import material from iTunes we have to drag clips to the desktop first. It ought to be easier than that.
  9. Import audio at standard levels.
    Anything imported from CD, AIFF, or MP3 comes in way too loud and has to be turned down.
  10. Imported clips should come in with full clipnames.
    If I import a sound effects clip with a long, descriptive file name, the MC creates a clip with that name — but with the name truncated and typically has to be re-entered. There’s no need for this. Unlike filenames, clipnames can be as long as we need them to be.

Categories: Audio, Avid, Avid Wish List & Bugs

Comments: 3 Comments

Tip #7 – iTunes for Music and Effects

October 7, 2006

iTunes_soundtrack

If you work with temp music and effects and you haven’t started using iTunes as an adjunct to the Media Composer, you owe it to yourself to try it. Once you get used to the way it works, I think you’ll wonder how you got along without it. It’s great for two reasons.

First, iTunes makes it very easy to organize your sound effects and music. Most of the commercial sound effects libraries are now part of the Gracenote database, so when you load those CDs into iTunes the tracks get labeled and organized automatically. Once your effects are loaded, you can easily do a keyword search and find everything with the word “splash” or “gunshot” or “wind” in the description and listen to them with a simple double click. (Unlike the MC, iTunes keeps playing even as you move around in a clip, which makes it great for browsing.)

Second, iTunes can play things simultaneously with the Media Composer. This makes it a terrific tool for experimenting with temp music. You park the MC at the beginning of a sequence where you need music and press play. Then switch to iTunes and press play there. You are now playing music against picture, and you can move your cursor around in iTunes or the MC and try different synch positions easily. This is much quicker and easier than trying things out using CDs or, worse yet, within the MC itself.

Here are some tips that will make this process easier:

You don’t want to have to listen to iTunes through the tiny speakers on your computer. So make sure that the audio output of your Mac or PC is routed through your mixer. Then you’ll be able to adjust the level of iTunes just as you would a CD player.

Even though the Gracenote database now gets most CD tracks labeled correctly, it does make mistakes. Be sure to check the labeling, including the “genre.” You want scores labeled “Soundtrack” and sound effects labeled as “Sound Effects.” That’ll make it a lot easier to find things later.

Be sure you load your material into iTunes in an Avid-friendly way. The Media Composer won’t import “variable bit rate” MP3s, nor will it accept AAC-encoded files. So you must load iTunes using the MP3 encoder, preferably at a high bit rate, like 192 kbps. Better yet, load your audio as AIF files, which aren’t compressed at all. This takes up the most space but yields the highest quality. You’ll find these settings in the iTunes Preferences under Advanced > Importing.

Most important, the MC won’t import from iTunes directly. You can’t drag and drop from iTunes into an Avid bin. This is frustrating, and I hope Avid engineering will do something about it, but there’s a fairly simple workaround. Just drag from iTunes into folder on your desktop first. This creates a copy of the sound file and leaves the original in iTunes. Then drag that copy into a bin.

Once the file has been successfully imported into the MC you can delete the copy from the finder. You also probably want to adjust the level of the source file in the MC. For some reason, things that play properly in iTunes will come into the MC much too loud.

Finally, I suggest that you tell the MC to sample rate convert your audio during input. Though the system will now play any sample rate in the timeline, it will insist on rendering these files when you attempt to make a digital cut. That’s awkward and messy. It’s easier to let the MC do all of that during input. You’ll find these settings in Import Settings > Audio.

Once you start using iTunes for work, you may find yourself wanting to create more than one iTunes music library. Check out the program Libra. It does a good and simple job of helping you switch from one library to another. You’ll find it here: http://homepage.mac.com/sroy/libra/

Categories: Audio, Avid Technical Tips

Comments: 7 Comments

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