But still.... Why would they have a function that lowers volume on one track to emphasize another lower audio track if the adjustment will not move with the clips during editing?

Hi,

You can keyframe the volume of audio objects and tracks.

Select an audio track. Click on the Effects tab, Audio effects, General. You will have the volume on the first line and the kf window at the bottom.

Right-click the audio file and look at the menu. There are two possibilities:

1. Display track curves (Alt+K)
2. Volume curve (Ctrl+Shift+V) - select this one. You will now see a green line near the top of the audio file.
3. To work with this better, make the audio object higher and use the width by clicking on the Zoom current object button (Shift+F) at the bottom of the screen. Click on the green line somewhere to put a keyframe or use the keyframe area - both work together. As you hover over the green line, the cursor will change to an arrow so you know that you are on the line. Place another couple of kf's. Drag one downwards.
4. Scroll across the audio object and watch the Volume slider at the top of the Effects window. It will move to correspond to the kf's.
5. You can use the drag method or the slider to set the volume.

"Why would they have a function that lowers volume on one track to emphasize another lower audio track if the adjustment will not move with the clips during editing?"

This is ducking or damping. The idea is to lower the volume of a music track when you want to hear someone speaking, then bring the music back up afterwards. This is important if you do dubbing or even if you have someone talking on the video that you want to hear above the music.

I mentioned track keyframing. Both methods are known as "automation." If you want to raise and lower the volume of a track while you are listening to it, then open the Mixer (M), and turn on the A button (automation) at the top of the track that has the audio that you want to play with. Set the playback marker where you want to start. Press play. While the video/audio is playing, you can raise and lower the volume using the slider. This will create keyframes for the audio track as points on the line, not for the audio object. If you have Display track curves on or the A button pressed in the mixer for a track, you will see the green line and the points. You can edit these points with the mouse once playback is stopped. It is difficult to grab the points but I found that the end of the thumb over a point is what grabs it. The easy way to move the points is to just play over again and move and hold the volume slider in the mixer.

All of this is explained in the manual if you know where to look and which terms to look for. Search for Automation. Should be pages 204-206 for track automation.

You can also automate the pan (balance) using the pan (balance) knob of the corresponding track in the mixer.

"Why would they have a function that lowers volume on one track to emphasize another lower audio track if the adjustment will not move with the clips during editing?"

Does seem very odd but that is how it is. I have even seen evidence of the mess you can create by the track curves not moving, in one of Magix's own promotional videos while they were demonstrating another feature....!!

Maybe they think all the picture editing should be done by the stage you start modifying the soundtrack??

@browj2

The problem with automation is that it lays down about a million key frames which all need to be modified or deleted if you want to tweak the curve subsequently. Actually i in passing noticed a feature in Vegas Pro that lets you clean out some of the intermediate nodes after you have "drawn" the curve, to get around the shortcoming. Could be a feature they could include in VPX?

Peter

Hi,

I'm sure that Magix assumes that about the last thing to be done, after editing everything, would be the finishing touches to the audio, including ducking. I would leave this to the very end.

Automation works the same way in Samplitude, if I am not mistaken. There was some discussion about this a while back when someone wanted to have smooth curves. The reality is that sound is not like visual perception. Since the sound waves are all over the place and that most people can't tell that the level has dropped until it drops by about 6db, the method works, smooth Bézier curves add nothing perceptible. But, as you pointed out, many nodes are drawn when the slider is moved and it would be nice to have a better feature to clean them up. At least that is my understanding. Most of it is magic to me as the science is not taking hold in my old brain.

The draw curves mode does not draw in track automation, only object, and even that creates a lot of nodes, but it would be helpful to use it at the track level.

John

Hi

@ John CB

. . . . most people can't tell that the level has dropped until it drops by about 6db . . . .

The problem hear is that 'Loudness or volume' is not a directly measurable quantity, it is a 'Psychoacoustical' term that depends heavily on perception.

In 'psychoacoustical' terms, a -6 dB change for example, is the equivalent of reducing the volume to approx 66% of the previous level, a 10 dB is a doubling or halving of the volume level.

The generally quoted minimum change level that is perceptible is 1 to 3 dB, however this is very dependant on factors such as frequency, bandwidth, spectral characteristics and the time of exposure of the sound signal.

HTH

John EB

Maybe they think all the picture editing should be done by the stage you start modifying the soundtrack??

Depending on the project... I might rough it in and go back and tune... but other projects, I do it all as I go. This would include getting the audio where I want it. I mean... didn't any of you ever watch the final cut and go back and make some changes? NOT having the track audio follow edits before it, is stupid.... really. Why even have this feature if it is so lame? This is... 2017?

Hi

. . . . didn't any of you ever watch the final cut and go back and make some changes? NOT having the track audio follow edits before it, . . .

Many times, however it is necessary to understand the relationship of the ducking volume curve to objects on the timeline.

When recording audio eg narration with Automatic ducking turned on the ducking made to other audio on different tracks is a track level effect and is 'attached' to the track time.

It is independent of any other objects on the timeline. This means that when you recut any other object(s), eg video, afterwards nothing changes at track level - the track time has not changed.

You have to edit the ducking curve for the track(s) manually.

HTH

John EB

Hi,

Even if you do manual ducking to the music object at the location of the narration which is on another track, if you move the narration but not the music, the automation curve or the ducking on the music is not going to follow. You will have to adjust it manually. The automation curve is linked to the music object, not the narration object.

What you are asking is that the automation curve itself that is on one object, be linked to another object, the narration object. Most likely, the music object is not going to be the same length as the narration object. I doubt that you will find any nle that will do this. Think about it. If you move the narration to a location where there is another song, if the automation ducking curve followed along, then it would have to over-ride the automation curve of the second song. And what happens to any other objects that remained over the song that also had ducking?How would that work? It wouldn't. And if you had 4 video objects of, say 30 seconds each, with 10 seconds of narration but at different locations within the 30 second, with ducking on the music object which is 3 minutes long, and then you exchange or rather switched one for the other, how would a programmer ever be able to figure that one out? It is next to impossible to do what you want.