Sound Advice

allen_entertainment schreef op 18.05.2012 om 03:14 uur

Hello everyone - I have a been having a sound issue for quite sometime. Seems that when I export the video the sound play back quality on some DVD players, is not the same prior to the video rendering. Some of the sound is louder and in other areas its softer. But when screening on a DVD/video projector the sound play back quality is horrible. I don't know if its a program settings issue or if something is lost when the video is exported. Below is YouTube video I editied with Magix Pro 14 but it seems not to matter which program I use. The film is a short spoof movie trailer on the popular feature film "The Windtalkers". But please watch the movie for the purpose of listening to the sound quality so you may give me some idea or advice on maybe what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!

Below is the same film but two different sound qualities please watch both.

Reacties

johnebaker schreef op 18.05.2012 om 19:04 uur

When you have finished editting the project - open the mixer (M key) and set the master volume level to -6db - this should eliminate the 'over loud' audio. If this is too low set the master level to -3db.

HTH

John

gandjcarr schreef op 23.05.2012 om 14:59 uur

Hi, To add to what John said, I downloaded both videos from YouTube, put them in to my audio editor, and the first thing I noticed was serious clipping on the audio tracks of both videos. I tried to normalize them but even at a lower level while they sounded better, the wave forms were still clipped which tells me the original source audio was probably recorded at too high a level. I have put the edited sound track into your video and posted it on YouTube. The audio is slightly out of synch and needs further editing at the milli-second level. MEP's audio editor is not capably of that but can be done in Audacity. I did not do it because of the time factor involved. You can see it at I will leave it there for a week then take it down.

George

allen_entertainment schreef op 24.05.2012 om 02:59 uur

Hi, To add to what John said, I downloaded both videos from YouTube, put them in to my audio editor, and the first thing I noticed was serious clipping on the audio tracks of both videos. I tried to normalize them but even at a lower level while they sounded better, the wave forms were still clipped which tells me the original source audio was probably recorded at too high a level. I have put the edited sound track into your video and posted it on YouTube. The audio is slightly out of synch and needs further editing at the milli-second level. MEP's audio editor is not capably of that but can be done in Audacity. I did not do it because of the time factor involved. You can see it at I will leave it there for a week then take it down.

George

I have a Soncy DCR-VX2100 what sound level would you recommend I recard the sound at?

gandjcarr schreef op 24.05.2012 om 11:05 uur

Hi, Many people try to get their audio tracks to peak at -2 dbfs, some even try to peak at 0 dbfs because they want to have a “loud” sounding audio track and try to minimize “noise”. This may work sometimes but more often it creates an audio track that has a significant amount of clipping which is almost impossible to fix in post-production. Since you are fortunate enough to have a camera where you can actually set the audio level (many are stuck with auto gain), I would suggest that you try using a setting between -20 and -12 dbfs. Those two settings are already marked on your camera’s audio level meter so it should be pretty straight forward.
If you need the track to sound louder after you have captured the original audio at the right level, do that during the mixing and mastering phase. If you are worried about camera or ambient noise from your shoot, record about 10 seconds of video and audio while your set is relatively quiet so that you have a sample of the noise which can later be used to remove it from your tracks during editing (noise removal is another whole topic).
I am also including a screen shot of your audio track with all the clipping points highlighted in red to give you an idea as to why you are not happy with the sound you are getting.
Good luck and let us know when you have finished the project to your satisfaction I would love to see it.
George