Hi

Many broadcasters use uncompressed WAV files - beware though they can be very large files.

HTH

John

Thanks, John. If WAV files are unmanagablly large for my system, what would be the next best alternative with minimal loss in fidelity?

Hi

Try 'standard' WAV files which are compressed less than for example mp3 files.

John

Hi,

Another thought is why not export your video as something like .avi, import the video file into Audio and Music Lab using "Load Video Sound" make your adjustments, then export it in the same format using the original export audio settings only export it under a different name in case you want to go back.  That way you won't have to worry about synch because the video will now contain the altered audio track.

I cannot be 100% certain that this functionality is available in Audio and Music Lab 2014 but I would be surprised if it is not. 

George

Hi all,

This is a subject that should probably be moved to the Discussions area as I find that it is important and will not be lost in the pile of minor Q&A's. Ralph, thanks for bringing this up.

Below are some issues and the way I see doing what you want to do.

1. Possible bug in AML

I recently raised a ticket with Magix about some problems with AML2014 Premium. Here is the text:

"I did another test with AML and MEP2014Plus. I opened a video clip in AML (with MEP closed), modified the sound (cleaning and mastering tools) and exported the file to an mp3. Then I clicked on Share, MEP2014Plus. The resulting file was placed on Track 5 as is normal. I then opened the same video clip in MEP and placed it on Track 1 with audio on 2. As you can see in the attached image from MEP, the file exported from AML is slightly longer than the original."

This has not yet been resolved.

Thus, if you export from MEP, import into AML, export or share to get back to MEP, check to see whether or not the resulting file is slightly longer. I have not investigated as to whether or not something, like a fraction of a second is added or if the file is slightly stretched (off-tempo). Remember, you want an audio file to come back, not an AV file.

2. Using AML as Audio Editor in MEP

I raised this issue with Magix as well. AML basically does everything and more than Video Sound Cleaning Lab 2014. Normally, one should be able to replace the Audio editor in MEP with AML or VSCL and use the built-in command "Edit wave externally." However, neither of them works properly with MEP. VSCL version 1 works fine, but the other two have problems. Magix said that AML was not supposed to be used this way. I contested this and reminded them of MX and that the program should work seamlessly. And, I demonstrated to them that VSCL2014 does not work either. Thus both require fixing.

3. Techniques - this is how I do it, you may find a different workflow

 AML is a sound cleaning program and it should be understood what it can and cannot do.

In MEP, as in your case, you have audio with video files, vocal recordings, music and maybe some sound effects.

The audio (from video) files and the vocal recordings may require some cleaning, but not the same cleaning. If you export all of your audio from MEP to a file, everything is mixed down into 1 file. You no longer can control the individual parts, including any effects on certain parts, volume, and mixing.

For example, let's say that 1 video clip for which you want to keep the audio, has some background hum, or a click or popping. You will want to send that part out for cleaning by itself and use spectral cleaning remove a click or unwanted spectral noise and maybe reduce background hum. You may also want to apply one of the filters or effects available only in AML, but you want to apply it only to this part of the audio and not, say a background music track that has no problems and that will play simultaneously. You need to do this cleaning before mixing it with the other tracks. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to take care of specific problems.

Another example, you record vocals to overly some parts, but the vocal recordings have some defects that cannot be fixed by the MEP tools. Maybe you want to use eFX Gate to deaden background sound where there is no audio. Then you would export from MEP and clean the vocals in AML and reimport the cleaned file into MEP. You do not want the effects applied to other simultaneous audio.

Once you have taken care of all of the cleaning and effects problems, then you want to make sure that everything gets mixed together properly. This is done in MEP. You may want to make adjustments to the volume of the mix, which has to be in MEP.

Then you can Master in MEP. If there are still some overall cleaning and effects for which you want to use AML on the entire mixed track, then you can export the audio to an audio file, preferably a WAV file, import it into AML, clean and master it, export to WAV, import into MEP on a separate track, check the length and sync. Turn off all other audio tracks (I should have mentioned that you should not mix audio with other types of objects on the same track) and leave your cleaned file on. This way, you can always go back.

4. AV into AML

The only reasons I can see for bringing video along with audio into AML are to be able to dub in vocals. This can be done in MEP just as well, but at least you are in the right place to clean the vocal track. But I do not suggest mixing the 2 audio tracks together for export. Best to mix in MEP. For anyone who does not have AML, it has 2 tracks, with 2 channels (left and right) each. Recording is done on the empty track.

The other reason is to modify the audio, meaning certain effects or cleaning, to correspond to the video and you need to see the video to do this. Then you export only the audio to a file or to MEP. 

To answer George's question, the video does not come with it. You can only export audio from AML.

Hope this makes sense.

There are probably other reasons, but I can't think of any off-hand. Anyone else?

Many thanks browj2 for the time you spent on this helpful answer. It is really too bad that there is not a better integration between MEP and AML!

I certainly can see the wisdom of editing the sound from only the sections of the tracks that have problems one section at a time. I am new to trying to edit the audio from MEP with an external audio editor, and was not aware that one can export the audio from only a segment of one of the tracks. This would be very useful, but I will need to explore how to do this. Any hints?

Hi,

Good catch John C.B I guess I was not really thinking because I know that most external audio editors add usually silence at the beginning of the audio clip.  I mostly use audacity, and know the duration of that silence so I just zoom in and remove it before I export.  My experience with editing audio using one of the Magix external audio products created the same no noticeable change because I ususally only use them for sound tracks, and not voice so it is pretty simple to do frame based editing and the wave form to sync the music with the video.  Not so much with voice if there is on camera narration or vocals happening.  My test used ACL with a person playing guitar, and I could not notice a difference between the notes that were being played and the audio sync in that example.  Unfortunately looking at how audio is synchronized from a person playing an instument versus someone speaking or singing is very different.

For more complex work, I usually just use products that record time code, and use that to sync up all of the tracks.  Not something that is usually found on consumer type products.  Time code is another whole topic, so I will just leave it at that.

George

ps. your MP3 file will be much more compressed than a WAV file, so you could be loosing some sync due to the compression.

Correction to my last posting, you can export to video; I just never thought to use it or even look.

You can export to MPEG2, DV-AVI, MOV, MXV, MPEG4, WMV.

I wouldn't use them unless this is all I wanted to do and would be satisfied with slightly less quality than the original.

In AML, there is no indication of the parameters used for the export on the Export screen. The manual states that there is an Advanced settings for video formats but I can't find it. If someone finds it, please tell me how. Clicking on Settings only gives the file management window.

I ran some tests on an NTSC, mts 1920x1080 (16:9), 29.97fps, 44s 16f file, file size 127 MB (133,828,608 bytes), that I dragged into VPX6, not MEP, also dragged it into AML, modified the sound, exported and dragged the result into VPX6 below the original, for comparison.

Video Results:

MXV, which is a Magix format, outputs at 720x576 (4:3) and 25fps, and produced a 44s 14f file, file size: 59.6 MB, thus 2 frames shorter and a smaller file size. This video format is useless for me, but the audio may be ok, I don't know, but the length is out by a fraction, which could build up over a longer period.

WMV output at 640x480 (4:3), 30 fps, and produced a 44s 18f file, file size: 4.90MB, thus 2 frames longer and very small file size. Same length problem.

MP4 did it right at 1920x1080 (16:9), 29.97fps, 44s 16f, file size: 110.0MB, thus a slightly smaller file size. I noticed an ever so slight offset and then looking at the video RGB parade instrument, there is a slight loss of dynamic range in the MP4.

Thus I would go with exporting the video as an MP4, if I needed the video to help line up the tracks visually, before discarding it, and keeping only the audio if the quality was acceptable.

Audio Results:

WAV made a 8.353MB, 44s 544ms file, exported at 48000 Hz, 16 Bit Stereo. In checking length against original video, this was perfect.

MP3 made a 1.045MB, 44s 617ms file, slightly longer than the WAV file, exported at 192 kBits/s. The MP3 file was just over 2 frames longer than the original video clip. Thus this should be avoided.

Another possibility that I did not try is FLAC for which the full sound quality is kept intact but it can be used to compress your audio data to 50% of its original size. I don't have the CODEC.

For one final test, I used Share in AML to send the file to the playback marker location in VPX6. The file created and sent was the MP3, which is not what I want, as the file length was longer than the original and the quality slightly less. There is no way to change this in AML unfortunately.

I don't have the tools to judge the audio other than good untrained ear, but I would go with WAV files in all cases since as the manual states: "These files are not compressed and retain their full sound quality." And to my untrained ear, I think that the WAV sounded slightly better.

As far as I can know, each generation loses some quality, so it would be best to avoid this where possible. Workflow should be thought out to produce the best results. Thus I think that the best would be to bring the original video track (or audio file) into AML for cleaning rather than exporting it from MEP, and then exporting from AML to WAV (or FLAC if file size is a problem). I would not use the video exported from AML and I would suspect that the MP4 would lose some sound quality.

I still prefer to just bring back the audio as wav and line it up in MEP, and finally do the final export from MEP or VPX6 and burn a DVD or BD with menus, something which AML doesn't do.

Hope I haven't confused things too much.

I see that Ralph and George replied while I was making up my last long diatribe and excusing myself for not having seen that one could export video from AML.

Ralph,

As I indicate in my last posting, the best is to bring the original video clip into AML. However, there is probably not much loss in exporting audio from MEP for use in AML. Use WAV. This may be convenient if the original video clips are very long and you are only using a small portion in MEP.

There are a few ways to export sound from MEP.

1. Set a range above Track 1 for the range to export
2. If the range start or finish is not at a cut, then put one at this location on both audio and video to help with lining up the returned file
3. Mute any audio tracks that you do not want to export
4. Go to File, Export audio as WAV (or Ctrl+Alt+W)
5. Indicate a good filename and destination for your file
6. Check the box under Options for "Export selected range only"

When finished in AML, drag and drop your file above or below the original. If you have left the playback marker at the beginning of the range, then it is easy to insert the audio there. I suggest moving the original to a track further down that will contain all muted audio, and then place the new file where the old one was. Remember that you can separate audio from video to do this if necessary.

Don't forget to mute the track with the old file and unmute any other tracks that you muted.

George,

As far as I can tell after my tests, I don't think that AML leaves any blank space at the beginning that needs to be trimmed, especially since the WAV file fit perfectly.

I looked closely at my test video and it looked like the audio was slightly out of sync with the video, on the original file, but it was hard to tell. I could probably get the output from AML to sync up better than the original. Maybe.

As you noted, using time coding requires the equipment for both cameras and recorders. I am not at that level. And just for fun, I did take a look at trying to sync VPX6 with Samplitude Music Studio. I got as far as "Since synchronization occurs via MTC (MIDI time code), a virtual MIDI driver must be installed. Examples are "MIDI Yoke" or "Hubi's MIDI Loopback Device." Too much for me. Maybe later.

I did some transfers between MEP and Music Maker and started a tutorial on it. Never finished it. It was about the same effort as going from MEP to AML using Share. Still a slight loss of quality, but fun. It's a good way to dub in effects and music (midi) that can only be made in MMM.

Hi

@john CB - you are not the only one who missed something obvious

In MEP 2015 (and previous versions of MEP) you can set which external programs are used for editting audio and images as shown in the image below.

I use this ability for the Image editor as you can see below.

NOTE this only works for software which supports Media eXchange (MX)

Try changing the audio editor to AML. Noting the original path if you need to revert it back.

What should happen is - when you right click an audio track/section in MEP and select Audio functions, Audio Cleaning - AML should be launched and the audio be available for editting, when you save or close AML it should transfer the audio back to MEP .

HTH

John

Hi all,

@John EB,

Actually, using AML as the default Audio editor was my point

2. Using AML as Audio Editor in MEP

in my first posting below. I just didn't give a screen shot as to how to do it.

I indicated that AML and VSCL2014 don't work properly with MEP2014 (or VPX6) and I have raised this with Magix twice now.

Replacing the default Music Editor by AML or VSCL in the Folders as you have shown is the way that one should be able to use them from within MEP but they don't work. However, Music Editor and VSCL version 1 work fine.

I would like someone who has MEP2015 and AML2014Premium to test out AML by replacing Music Editor in the Program settings, Folders, Audio editor, with AML to see if it works.

I tried using Music Maker 2015 Premium and it opens fine, I can clean ok, but it does not bring back the modified file upon closing. I have to export to a WAV file and import it into the Arranger. At least this reduces the effort by one or two steps. It would be nice to be able to do this from MEP and VPX6.

Also, maybe someone, like Ralph, should try this with AML2014 Premium and MEP2014 (any version) to see if it works and that it is not just me that has this problem.

When you do a right-click on the audio file part and select Edit WAVE externally, which opens the default Audio editor, with AML set as default, nothing happens. If you try a second time you get the following message:

And you can't get out of it. Changing back to Music Editor still blocks access to this audio file.

If you try VSCL2014, here is the sequence of events:

Quitting VSCL closes it and returns focus to MEP, but does not bring the revised file into MEP. However, VSCL version 1 does this correctly, so VSCL2014 should also do it correctly, but it does not. I exported to a WAV file whilst in VSCL2014, even though it should not be necessary.

I then imported the WAV that I exported from VSCL2014 and placed it on the timeline on track 3 as shown below.

In some previous testing, I managed to get AML to work from MEP or VPX6 after causing a mix down by using Music Editor as the default editor, then changing it to AML, but I haven't been able to repeat this.

As far as I am concerned, these products do not work as advertised. Magix is too busy working on solving CODEC, encoding and burning problems to devote time to fixing these types of errors in the programs. They said that if there is a workaround, to use it.

Thus, I have given the workaround - export from MEP or use the original source file, import into AML, clean, export to WAV, import into MEP.

OK, I have tried what John suggested, but I cannot even get to 1st base. I am using MEP 2015 Plus v14 and AML 2014 Premium v20. In the MEP Program settings I changed the Audio Editor to "C:\Program Files (x86)\MAGIX\Audio & Music Lab 2014 Premium\AMLab.exe" as indicated in the 1st screen shot. Then I closed MEP, reopened, loaded a movie, right clicked on a video segment that I wanted to edit the sound from, selected "Audio Cleaning", and got the sound editing interface indicated by the 2nd screen shot. This seems to be the same interface that I normally get from MEP before changeing the editor.(?)  Did I do something wrong, our is this another "issue"?

--Ralph

Ralph,

I just noticed your message.

Read my last message carefully, it says to select "Edit WAVE externally." You selected "Audio cleaning."

John,

After changing the Audio Editor to AML, and right clicking on the audio track, these are the only options that I have:

I do not see ""Edit WAVE externally."  Nor do I see that option by going to the Effects, Audio, tab.(?)

--Ralph

Hi Ralph,

As I suspected, AML probably does not work with MEP2015 either.

Try Alt+Z to see what happens. Probably nothing. Try it twice.

When the Audio Editor is MusicEditor do you see "Edit WAVE externally?" I just noticed that in MEP2014, it no longer shows up with Music Editor as the Audio Editor, but it does if I change it to VSCL (version 1). Very strange.

And when I switch to AML, the "Edit wave externally" disappears.

Here is what you are supposed to see:

Alt Z results in the following error:

Does anyone from Magix Tech Support monitor this forum? Do we need to report this separately through the tech support portal?

--Ralph

Hi Ralph,

See my previous answers below where I showed the same thing and indicated that I had reported this to Magix, erc.

They likely do not monitor this forum; they have enough to do to keep up with the support messages that they receive. You should open a ticket with Magix Technical Support on this stating the problems as I did. AML should work with MEP2015 (as should VSCL2014) but doesn't. Remember MX. And you can file a separate ticket about the mp3 file length being different from the source.

If enough people complain, maybe they'll fix something.

OK, this is the answer that I received from Magix Tech Support about using AML as the audio editor within MEP.

A couple points:
When a video file is imported into Movie Edit Pro with audio tracks it is not possible to edit it externally. There is no simple method for this to happen.

Second part,
It is best to use cleaning products separately. The problem is even if you some how manage to open a file from inside Movie Edit Pro with an external program, the file would still need to be exported from Cleaning Lab into a new file for importing again. Simply saving does not render any files in our Audio Cleaning Products.

--Ralph

Hi. How can I record sounds from Magix Own Intrument. For example if we play flutes on the keebord funktion