Is there a way to automatically adjust an audiotrack when there's voice-over? at DVinfo.net

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 03:32 PM

hey folks,

i've been searching for a plugin or a neat trick for this problem for quite a while - perhaps someone here knows what to do:

most of my projects contain backgroundmusic with voice-overs. so everytime there's no talking i'd raise the audio level of the bg music via keyframes in premiere (which is a pain in the butt). so when i'd like to edit something in the middle of the clip, cut something out for example, i have to adjust EVERY bloody keyframe in the bg musics' track afterwards as they are not in the right place anymore.

isnt there a plugin or something that i can set to lower the volume of audio track X for y about of db everytime theres audio in track Z?

Thanks folks!!
:)

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 04:31 PM

I could use such a plugin right now myself!

I don't know if Premiere has an ability to 'bus' signals to various places, but the way to do this would be a compressor plugin with a 'ducking' or 'sidechain' input.

The idea is, whenever a signal comes into this sidechain input, it lowers the level of the main signal running through it (the music).. The dialogue would be routed to the master output and at the same time into the sidechain of the plugin. This could be done with an aux send. I'm sure there are VST plugins available with a sidechain somewhere. I'll look for one tonight, I think it'll help me out with this project I'm doing too. :)

Eric

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 04:42 PM

Thant would be AWESOME!! it nearly doubles my production time cause evertime there's a minor change somewhere i have to re-edit the ENTIRE project :(

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 05:02 PM

I just found this one and I'm trying it out at the moment. The trial version inserts a static sound every so often (white noise) and it's a bit expensive, but it seems to work quite well.
http://www.db-audioware.com/sidechaincompressor.htm

You insert the plugin on your dialogue track and and on your music track.

On the dialogue track, set the.....

Okay scratch all that.. I tried to do a save and switched back to this window, and Premiere Pro 2 encountered a serious error and needs to be shutdown..

The idea behind the plugin is great. It has several buses built in, and you set one copy of the plugin as a sending plugin, and the other as a receiver. So when the send (dialogue) goes into the music side, it lowers the level based on you settings.. Worked great until I hit save..

Thankfully I picked Save As and gave it a new name.. Ugg, PPro2 corrupts files so quickly. No other program I've worked with in recent years has so many file weaknesses.

Eric

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 06:31 PM

ok this software seems to be exactly what we are looking for - unfortuneately ive experienced the same problems you have. when i activate the external trig i get a extreemly strange beeping sound on my speakers and after i close the project premiere crashes :(

Colin Willsher · August 6th, 2007, 06:37 PM

For interested parties, from the Mac/FCP perspective it's interesting to note that although Soundtrack Pro shares most of the same plugins as Logic, the compressor only features a side-chain input within Logic. I can't see any way to duck audio without exporting the multitrack mix to Logic.

It's always intrigued me as to why Soundtrack Pro isn't completely integrated with FCP anyway - why do we have to have this nonsense of sending audio files to another application for professional processing? And why are the audio plugins in FCP so poor in comparison?

Sorry, If I've gone a bit OT.

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 06:37 PM

Yup, the random noises are part of the free trial, so you're 'encouraged' to purchase the plugin. :)

I don't understand the crashing though.

Try searching for 'free vst compressor sidechain' on google and you'll prolly find some others.

It needs to have its own bus setup like the send/receive one in this one, for it to work properly, I believe. It may work on an aux send in Premiere, but I'm not sure on that.

I remember using another one a few years ago, but I don't remember what it was called :(

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 06:44 PM

no its not the 'usual' noise from the trial, its a sound like the pc crashes^^

i don't quite understand the concept of this 'sidechaining' actually - never heard of it before.

the tut tells me to set the voice track to send, the music to recieve and both with 'external trig' to on but nothing happens^^

Brooks Harrington · August 6th, 2007, 07:07 PM

Actually, you need to cut and lock the picture before working on the audio.

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 07:09 PM

Colin, sorry I didn't see your post at first. :)

I believe Adobe Audition has the same 'feature' of making you bounce audio back and forth between apps. I don't know why they can't just combine them.

The best candidate for combining a suite into one app would be all the Sony apps. They all look nearly identical and all are strong audio and video apps.

We'll see what the future brings I guess. :)

Daniel,
The idea is that one plugin sends signal to another (voice track to music). They both to be turned on and then one set as send, one as receive.

The reason you saw no change is the threshold needs to be lowered on the receiving end, so that the compression is triggered. Right now, it's set at full volume, so nothing can cross it and become compressed. :)

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 07:29 PM

ok i figured it out - it actually was working every time i've got this annoying sound from my soundcard. tried it on two different pcs, one with another X-FI card, same result (extrem loud noise), my laptop with crappy on board soundcard works fine. this plugin performs AMAZING! the only option i miss is a sort of prefetch thingy that reads the audio from the voiceover track and lowers a few ms *before* the voice starts talking.

a shame it doesnt seem to work with creative x-fi cards :(

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 07:34 PM

Hmm, that's interesting it's not working with the X-fi. Is it set to a different bit depth or bit rate by chance?

Are you able to save without it crashing?

I agree, a read-ahead would be nice, but that's not really how this works. You *could* fake the effect by inserting a Delay after the Compressor send. Set it to 100% wet/effect, so you ONLY hear the delayed sound and no original. 1 tap/repeat, at 100% volume. Then delayed it by 3-5ms or something. You'd probably be happier with 100ms or more of delay, but the idea is you'd make the music drop before you heard the voice. It's fine for a voiceover, but not if you're going to see lips moving onscreen. :)

Glenn Baren · August 6th, 2007, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Colin Willsher

For interested parties, from the Mac/FCP perspective it's interesting to note that although Soundtrack Pro shares most of the same plugins as Logic, the compressor only features a side-chain input within Logic. I can't see any way to duck audio without exporting the multitrack mix to Logic.

It's always intrigued me as to why Soundtrack Pro isn't completely integrated with FCP anyway - why do we have to have this nonsense of sending audio files to another application for professional processing? And why are the audio plugins in FCP so poor in comparison?

Sorry, If I've gone a bit OT.

Or for that matter just some usable plugins in FCP without having to open soundtrack or Logic.
I asked our editor why he couldnt just apply some compression/limiting to raise & even out a dialog and he let me know it was too time consuming to open the track in Soundtrack etc etc.
As audio is such an intregral part of any project,those tools SHOULD be built into the program... or at LEAST some third party solution!

Daniel Raebiger · August 6th, 2007, 08:20 PM

ok the info with the x-fi was wrong, just had the same problems on my laptop. seems to be generally buggy. tried it with three pcs under XP with Premiere CS2/3 :(

i thought about creating the delay effect by simply putting a mutet audio track in the nle where i insert the voice-over audio a little bit to early to be in sync and then add a second effect to the music track with a different input bank setting. but as the effect itself seems to be broken... :(

i've already mailed the guy for help.

Eric Shepherd · August 6th, 2007, 08:23 PM

Glenn, you're saying there's no way to compress audio levels in FCP without switching apps?!

Daniel, so really, you got lucky with 1 out of 3 computers working properly with it? :)

August 6th, 2007, 03:32 PM	#1
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	Is there a way to automatically adjust an audiotrack when there's voice-over? hey folks, i've been searching for a plugin or a neat trick for this problem for quite a while - perhaps someone here knows what to do: most of my projects contain backgroundmusic with voice-overs. so everytime there's no talking i'd raise the audio level of the bg music via keyframes in premiere (which is a pain in the butt). so when i'd like to edit something in the middle of the clip, cut something out for example, i have to adjust EVERY bloody keyframe in the bg musics' track afterwards as they are not in the right place anymore. isnt there a plugin or something that i can set to lower the volume of audio track X for y about of db everytime theres audio in track Z? Thanks folks!! :) __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 04:42 PM	#3
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	Thant would be AWESOME!! it nearly doubles my production time cause evertime there's a minor change somewhere i have to re-edit the ENTIRE project :( __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 06:31 PM	#5
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	ok this software seems to be exactly what we are looking for - unfortuneately ive experienced the same problems you have. when i activate the external trig i get a extreemly strange beeping sound on my speakers and after i close the project premiere crashes :( __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 06:37 PM	#6
Colin Willsher Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Southampton, England, UK Posts: 70	For interested parties, from the Mac/FCP perspective it's interesting to note that although Soundtrack Pro shares most of the same plugins as Logic, the compressor only features a side-chain input within Logic. I can't see any way to duck audio without exporting the multitrack mix to Logic. It's always intrigued me as to why Soundtrack Pro isn't completely integrated with FCP anyway - why do we have to have this nonsense of sending audio files to another application for professional processing? And why are the audio plugins in FCP so poor in comparison? Sorry, If I've gone a bit OT. __________________ 2b Media Services

August 6th, 2007, 06:44 PM	#8
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	no its not the 'usual' noise from the trial, its a sound like the pc crashes^^ i don't quite understand the concept of this 'sidechaining' actually - never heard of it before. the tut tells me to set the voice track to send, the music to recieve and both with 'external trig' to on but nothing happens^^ __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 04:31 PM	#2
Eric Shepherd Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 404	I could use such a plugin right now myself! I don't know if Premiere has an ability to 'bus' signals to various places, but the way to do this would be a compressor plugin with a 'ducking' or 'sidechain' input. The idea is, whenever a signal comes into this sidechain input, it lowers the level of the main signal running through it (the music).. The dialogue would be routed to the master output and at the same time into the sidechain of the plugin. This could be done with an aux send. I'm sure there are VST plugins available with a sidechain somewhere. I'll look for one tonight, I think it'll help me out with this project I'm doing too. :) Eric

August 6th, 2007, 05:02 PM	#4
Eric Shepherd Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 404	I just found this one and I'm trying it out at the moment. The trial version inserts a static sound every so often (white noise) and it's a bit expensive, but it seems to work quite well. http://www.db-audioware.com/sidechaincompressor.htm You insert the plugin on your dialogue track and and on your music track. On the dialogue track, set the..... Okay scratch all that.. I tried to do a save and switched back to this window, and Premiere Pro 2 encountered a serious error and needs to be shutdown.. The idea behind the plugin is great. It has several buses built in, and you set one copy of the plugin as a sending plugin, and the other as a receiver. So when the send (dialogue) goes into the music side, it lowers the level based on you settings.. Worked great until I hit save.. Thankfully I picked Save As and gave it a new name.. Ugg, PPro2 corrupts files so quickly. No other program I've worked with in recent years has so many file weaknesses. Eric

August 6th, 2007, 07:07 PM	#9
Brooks Harrington Regular Crew Join Date: May 2007 Location: Pasadena, CA Posts: 152	Actually, you need to cut and lock the picture before working on the audio.

August 6th, 2007, 07:09 PM	#10
Eric Shepherd Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 404	Colin, sorry I didn't see your post at first. :) I believe Adobe Audition has the same 'feature' of making you bounce audio back and forth between apps. I don't know why they can't just combine them. The best candidate for combining a suite into one app would be all the Sony apps. They all look nearly identical and all are strong audio and video apps. We'll see what the future brings I guess. :) Daniel, The idea is that one plugin sends signal to another (voice track to music). They both to be turned on and then one set as send, one as receive. The reason you saw no change is the threshold needs to be lowered on the receiving end, so that the compression is triggered. Right now, it's set at full volume, so nothing can cross it and become compressed. :)

August 6th, 2007, 07:29 PM	#11
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	ok i figured it out - it actually was working every time i've got this annoying sound from my soundcard. tried it on two different pcs, one with another X-FI card, same result (extrem loud noise), my laptop with crappy on board soundcard works fine. this plugin performs AMAZING! the only option i miss is a sort of prefetch thingy that reads the audio from the voiceover track and lowers a few ms before the voice starts talking. a shame it doesnt seem to work with creative x-fi cards :( __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 07:34 PM	#12
Eric Shepherd Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 404	Hmm, that's interesting it's not working with the X-fi. Is it set to a different bit depth or bit rate by chance? Are you able to save without it crashing? I agree, a read-ahead would be nice, but that's not really how this works. You could fake the effect by inserting a Delay after the Compressor send. Set it to 100% wet/effect, so you ONLY hear the delayed sound and no original. 1 tap/repeat, at 100% volume. Then delayed it by 3-5ms or something. You'd probably be happier with 100ms or more of delay, but the idea is you'd make the music drop before you heard the voice. It's fine for a voiceover, but not if you're going to see lips moving onscreen. :)

August 6th, 2007, 08:20 PM	#14
Daniel Raebiger Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Landshut, Germany Posts: 143	ok the info with the x-fi was wrong, just had the same problems on my laptop. seems to be generally buggy. tried it with three pcs under XP with Premiere CS2/3 :( i thought about creating the delay effect by simply putting a mutet audio track in the nle where i insert the voice-over audio a little bit to early to be in sync and then add a second effect to the music track with a different input bank setting. but as the effect itself seems to be broken... :( i've already mailed the guy for help. __________________ Important notice: There's still soup left!

August 6th, 2007, 08:23 PM	#15
Eric Shepherd Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 404	Glenn, you're saying there's no way to compress audio levels in FCP without switching apps?! Daniel, so really, you got lucky with 1 out of 3 computers working properly with it? :)