I am using Movie Studio 2023. I have purchased a Rode ME microphone set (2). I record each on a separate channel. Within Magix, I wish to edit each channel independently. I have explored the Equalizer and made progress. However, I would appreciate learning from someone a recommended workflow for these situations. Look forward to learning from someone.
Tony
Hi Tony.
I appreciate you are new to all of this but please understand your workflow needs may be unique to you and that what may seem obvious as to what you are doing may not be obvious to anyone reading your request for information.
First lets start with Rode ME. Which one? There are three versions.
Are they being used directly into the program and if so how? If using two at once how are you splitting them to channel 1 and channel 2? Your statement "I wish to edit each channel independently" seems to indicate you have one microphone on each channel of a two channel audio track or am I wrong?
Are you still trying to sync to video content?
Why two microphones? Is there a second contributor / voice-over?
Ray.
Hi Tony,
This is another case where it's much easier in VPX.
In VPX, simply right-click on the audio part, Split stereo objects into mono objects.
In MMS, duplicate the audio part onto a second track. Double-click on the first audio part to open Audio cleaning, Stereo FX, open presets dropdown, Left channel only. Right-click on the second audio part...Right channel only.
John CB
Ray - the Rode ME model I have is - Wireless ME | Compact Wireless Microphone System | RØDE (rode.com) - this has two microphones - one on the camera and one wireless remote. There's an option to split the sound - in Sterio - one microphone on the left track and one on the right track.
John - thanks for your info - I have been on the right track, so to speak. Next question, once edited, and the sound is exported, how to you ensure that there is mono sound copied onto each sterio track, in other words the mono track is produced on each speaker? Am I over thinking this?
John and Ray - the pointers you have given me, patiently in earlier posts have proved very helpful in "kick starting me"!
Tony
Am I over thinking this?
Possibly.
I prefer to say that normally there are an amount of channels to an audio stream rather than saying stereo or left or right as there are times when a video file may have a single channel of audio or more than two. Also channel one could end up on the right hand side and channel two could end up on the left hand side (Say you got the left channel mic pinned to the person on the right of the screen). Although there is normally a convention that would put a video file with a single channel into the centre, a two channel file with channel one to the left and channel two the right and so forth right up to 7.1 surround sound placing each channel into its conventional position according to the specifications of the codecs involved so you would have to take care that the correct mic was in the correct position or be able to pan it to a new position in post editing.
So if you tried to make the audio from channel one to also be present on channel two you would effectively route it to both speakers and the sound would be heard in the centre of the image. You would then have to position that sound using the pan control. The same would be true of channel two. That can be beneficial if you plan to pan the audio to match movement of individuals on screen but could equally be a distraction if done badly.
As @browj2 has pointed out, this is simpler in Video Pro X than Magix Movie Studio simply because you can split audio files up into individual mono / single channels whereas you can't in MMS. But it can be done in MMS using another method that I personally find a bit more flexible but I will have to make some files up (I don't currently have a two channel conversation file to load so will have to make one) and set up a demo to demonstrate my method and I'm about to go to bed. I will get it sorted tomorrow and put the video up here, possibly mid afternoon GMT.
John's method should work on all systems. My solution may not, I'm not sure. I think it should though.
Ray.
Hi Tony,
Panning can be done at the track level in the Mixer or object level under Effects, Audio Effects, General.
Try the latter.
Both of the objects should play back equally as loud on both channels - left and right using the method that I described. Under effects, play with the pan slider to see the effects on the levels in the Mixer.
The final output of each channel goes to the Master strip and you will see the result there.
Off to bed.
John CB
Ray and John
Firstly - please don't lose sleep over me 😀- but thank you.
I have edited each channel okay. Have tried the Panarama to bring both channels together and failed using Effects/Audio Effects/Panarama - I am missing a step somewhere.
My end goal - to be able to make short movies including stills of up to say six minutes. The current one has an audience of four on a good day - grandson, mother, father and father's mother who lives out of town.
If I need to move to other software - so be it - however I feel the weak link is not the software or hardware!
Hi Tony,
I'm not sure what you are trying to do.
First, did you get each channel on separate tracks? If so, when you solo a track and play it back, then solo the other one, are they different - meaning that they should sound different because you have two different mics?
Second, if you did what I said, then you have one mic on one track and the second mic on the other track and each one will play back equally on both channels, left and right. That means that your remote mic now plays back equally on both left and right speakers, and your camera mic now plays back equally on both left and right speakers.
Third, the panning is done only if you want to get less volume to come out of the left or right speaker. For example, your remote mic was to the screen left so you want the listener the hear more, not all, of that mic coming out of the left speaker, then you would pan to the left - a bit.
If you want the volume of one of the mics to be louder than the other, then adjust the volume, not the pan. Panning is for each mic separately.
In the image below, I have a wave file on track 1 and I copied it to track 2. The wave file was recorded in stereo but with the left mic being used by the singer and the right mic by the guitar player. I made the one on track 1 to use Both channels = left. Now the left mic, the singer, plays back out of both speakers equally.
I made the one on track 2 to use Both channels = right. Now the right mic plays back the guitar out of both speakers equally.
Now I hear both mics equally on both speakers.
Because the left mic was with the singer sitting to the screen left of the guitar player, I gave the object on track 1 a little bit of pan to the left.
Then I panned the object on track 2 the same amount but to the right.
All panning does is reduce the volume of the object on one of the speakers. Thus panning to the left reduces the volume sent to the right speaker, and vice versa. It does not increase the volume of the left speaker. This gives the impression to the listener that the sound is more to the left, that is all.
That is my example. However, your actual problem is not the same. So what is it that you are trying to accomplish by having the 2 mics?
EDIT: Consider that you have a remote mic - is the user centred, a bit left or right? What is the purpose of the mic on the camera? Do you need its audio? If so, then remember that it is centred, but any visible source may not be.
John CB
Hi Tony.
Sorry for the late reply.
My solution was to use the 5.1 mixer to pan each isolated side of the stereo track to the centre which worked within the project until I exported the result and then like you trying the @browj2 method found both audio tracks panned hard left and hard right on the exported file.
Unfortunately I can't use ME3 to confirm your findings but suspect the same thing is happening with John's method. That it sounds ok in the project but doesn't export with the audio centralised.
However. With one extra step it can be done.
Once you have the surround sound mixer sorted (See video below), export the result as a mono wav file and then delete or mute your project audio tracks and import the exported mono audio file. Then the video export works.
If you make the audio track the complete length of the project you only have to place the file right at the start on an empty track to be in sync.
I assume you could do the same export with John's method as long as you export to a mono wav file for re-importing.
I have used an audio file I produced myself to test with but it could equally be an audio track from a video.
In the video you may see me export the audio file twice. I forgot what the file was called so did a second export.
Also there was a pop-up box which opened the Windows sound settings which I just closed off screen on the second monitor.
While I can often figure out a workaround to a problem fairly quickly I'm not very patient when trying to explain it so it's why I don't ever attempt making tutorials. 😅
I like a new challenge but get bored once I find a working solution.
I hope this is what you need.
Ray.
Ray - I have tested this morning as per both yours and John's instructions.
1) Ray - when you exported the sound, I notice that you have the selected objects only checked but hadn't highlighted both tracks? During my test - I highlighted both tracks?
2) Referring to the screen shot above, these were the settings I chose - The Pan L/R could have been on Sterio 1? Reading the book, in my particular application it doesn't matter?
3) -0.1 seemed to be the lowest "centre" value I could get
4) This overall process seemed to work very well and is a relatively simple work around. Bottom line, I need to be clear on why I am using two microphones in some situations!
Many thanks to both of you, Ray and John for putting the time in to sort me out. Ray, your comment re the delay in reply - worked a treat - with our time difference - Montreal vs Auckland? You are 16 hours behind which means that I'm asleep while you are busy working!
Tony
Hi Tony.
You certainly know how to complicate things without trying 🤣👍.
All I did was copy and paste the same audio track (Track 2) to the track underneath (Track 4)at exactly the same spot in the timeline, and then pan the top track hard left and the bottom track hard right. Then activated the mixer and changed it to use the 5.1 configuration. Then placed the track 2 audio position to the centre position and did the same with track 4. I did select to use stereo 1 in both boxes. My sound chip is a 7.1 configuration but the programs are only capable of doing a 5.1 mix. Which output you end up choosing may depend on your systems audio interface.
Of that I have no idea but assume a little experimentation may be needed if my solution doesn't work straight away.
(Stereo 1 represents line input 1 of my sound chip which is a stereo pair of which I have four. Yours may be different)
It does not matter what is highlighted as the 5.1 mixer panels are independent of object selection. They control the audio track position within the sound field at any one time and can be animated if need be. Not applicable in this instance. You are placing the tracks sound where you want it at any one time. That would mean all your edited files on that track will play in that position.
Apart from what you saw in the video I touched nothing it was all with the mixers default settings in place.
If you can hear a difference of position at 0.2 over 0.1 or even 0 then you have better ears than me 🤣 (It's not critical unless you need it to be).
Glad this is working for you. It's only a couple of extra steps that take little time to complete and far cheaper than having to get a higher end version of the program.
Ray.
Hi,
Tony, I am assuming that the video only has 1 channel with left and right, correct?
Note that the use of the word channel gets confusing depending on the context.
Ray, in this case, the file has one channel with left and right - the left has one mic, the right has the other, just like in my example with the singer on the left (input on my interface card) and the guitar player on the right (input on my interface card). I have no idea why you would pan when all you want is to get each side to come out of both speakers equally. Just do what I showed.
Without panning, I hear both the singer and the guitar, thus both mics, now coming equally out of the left and the right speakers. Check this by soloing each track.
There is no centre in stereo, only left and right.
I exported to wave, imported and the wave file has exactly what I did - the left channel now comes equally out of both speakers, as does the right channel - because under Stereo FX I selected to have both channels left for the singer, and both channels right for the guitar. I don't know why you say that the exported file doesn't get the audio correct. It does for me.
There is no need whatsoever to use SurroundSound.
As I said, the only reason I would pan slightly in my case is because the singer is physically positioned to the image left, so a slight pan takes care of this. Same with the guitar.
Tony, left and right might be reversed when you are looking at this from downunder.
John CB
Ray - re-reading your script - makes sense - the exporting step was only to prove that the process worked. I have been making family movies for some years now - with not understanding of the various sound options. Now that I am retired, I am making the effort to lift my game! I have dialed back the editing process thanks to your inputs. Keen to stick to the programs I have rather than venture into new learning on others when I cannot use the ones I have properly!
Again - thank you.
Tony
Hi John.
Try exporting the result and see what happens.
Both Tony and myself ended up with the voices panned hard left and right despite what was heard while running the project. If you get a different result please share as I am curious.
Regarding the term channel. I refer to it as any single audio stream. If I only have a single sound source to the left half of a track and try to pan that to the right hand side all that would happen is it would fade away to nothing. If you use such a file in VPX and split it, does it not go to individual tracks? Do those tracks then contain two individual sound streams? No.
This could be another difference of the English language from one side of the Atlantic to the other or a change of terms as the technology progressed. It is how my hardware is labelled. I have no intention of changing my descriptions as I feel I had made myself clear for the purpose of what I was putting across in this instance. Either way I have no objection to your terminology but do not tell me I am wrong.
Ray.
John & Ray - I have just retried your (John) method - easier still. You have both taken me to areas of the program which has been a positive exploration to better my understanding. Now confident that I will be able to achieve what I have set out to do. Thank you to you both. I will leave the naming "mental gymnastics" to the Northern Hemisphere. 😆 - Tony
Hi Tony,
More later, but instead of doing what I indicated, another way is to just open the audio part in Audio Cleaning, Stereo Fx and selecting Mono under presets. Of course, you won't be able to adjust the volume of each mic.
Hi Ray,
My method works just fine. I think that you are selecting Left Channel only and Right Channel only in Stereo Fx. You have to select Both channels = left and Both channels = right for each copy of the audio, respectively. When you do that, then export and the result will be both mics equally on both L and R speakers.
John CB
Hi
Late to the party on this one, one question which you have touched on ie Bottom line, I need to be clear on why I am using two microphones in some situations! is, IMHO, a critical factor in how to use the Rode system.
As I see it there are 3 scenarios for using the Rode system:
Getting the audio to both channels (left/right) where you record one mic only has been covered by @browj2 and @CubeAce
I hope this gives a general idea of usage of the Rode ME system.
John EB
Forum Moderator
Hi Ray,
Try exporting the result and see what happens.
Both Tony and myself ended up with the voices panned hard left and right despite what was heard while running the project. If you get a different result please share as I am curious.
You must not be following my instructions. Watch the video and try it. The export will give what is heard - each mic will be equally on the left and right speakers, unless panning is done (at the end of the video).
Ignore the video as it is added just to illustrate the process and is not in sync with the actual audio.
You can hear the guitar a bit in the background of the singer's mic and vice versa. This is normal bleed-through as they were recorded at the same time. Also, the audio recording was poorly done and there is a lot of clipping - they didn't give me any time to adjust the recording level.
Hi Tony,
Another way to do this is to do a mixdown of the audio, then open it in ME3. Turn on Stereo and you can see the waveforms of the left and right mics.
To get the sound of each on both left and right, under Effects, open Stereo FX. In the middle window of the image below, drag the slider to Mono and you'll have both mics on both L & R speakers although perhaps not perfectly equally. You can play with the parameters. ME3 is limited in its options.
SFACL4 would do it much better as it can split the stereo channels and put one on each track then put them on both L & R by using the Stereo Enhancer. Then, you are free to do what you want - like adjusting the volume of each side, panning, cleaning, mastering.
John CB
John - very good explanation which I will try tonight. You have put huge time into this - thank you for sharing. In theory this looks a lot simpler than the other methods. The movie makes it very clear. Up until now, I have been doing a far more complicated method of achieving the same result.
Tony
Hi Tony,
You missed a step. In my video, the left channel, meaning the left microphone, was put on both left and right channels on the same track. Since they are now of equal volume out of both speakers, assuming that both of your ears work properly (mine do not), then, with your eyes closed, you would think that the singer was directly in front of you.
When you hear sound, you hear it with both ears. They detect direction of sound by how how loud the sound is that reaches each ear.
If you now pan to the left, this reduces the volume coming from the right speaker, the left remains as it was. Now with your eyes closed, your ears would detect that the singer was to the left because the sound from the left was louder than that from the right, or, rather, the sound from the right is less than that from the left. That is how we hear.
If you only have audio on the left channel and none on the right, panning is useless - nothing happens. All sound is coming from the left speaker.
Try this out yourself. Watch the volume meter in the Mixer. Depending on which way you pan sound that is equally on both left and right channels of the track, the volume of the opposite direction will decrease. The more you pan left, the lower the volume from the right channel.
In the image below, the left mic is now on both channels. I panned to the left and you can see in the mixer that the right channel is lower than the left one. Panning did not affect the left side.
Use headphones.
John CB
Many thanks for all of your inputs - out of it has come a workable solution having explored many areas of MME that I not ventured before. I am very conscious of the amount of time each of you have contributed - showing great patience. Again - thank you.
Tony
I have just received a very clear explanation which I have taken the liberty of sharing - this has been received via the Magix Technical department in Germany. It cleared up my final questions very well. I have been rather slow picking up on this detail.
Left signal- Only plays output recorded by the "left" microphone
Right signal- Only plays output recorded by the "right" microphone
Both channels = left- Combines both inputs but only plays on the left side
Both channels = right- Combines both inputs but only plays on the right side
Left channel only- only plays sound recorded with the "left" microphone on the left side
Right channel only- only plays sound recorded with the "right" microphone on the right side
This will be all detail you will already know - but I was struggling to find a clear reference to it. It was my first time being exposed to it. Now, coupled with the data you have all supplied - a great result. It all seems obvious now!
Tony
@Tony-Haack @johnebaker @CubeAce
Hi Tony,
Excellent explanation and I was worried as this is not what I said. However, what Magix indicates is not what happens, so either the explanation is wrong or the program has it wrong. Left and Right Signals and Both Channels are the inverse of what Magix says. I have put in italics my changes and additions. Rather than "side" I used "speaker" except for the last two cases.
Left signal- Plays output recorded by the both microphones (combines both mics) through the left speaker and nothing out the right speaker
Right signal- Plays output recorded by the both microphones (combines both mics) through the right speaker and nothing out the left speaker
Both channels = left- Plays the left mic on both left and right speakers
Both channels = right- Plays the right mic on both left and right speakers
Left channel only- only plays sound recorded with the "left" microphone on the left side and nothing on the right side
Right channel only- only plays sound recorded with the "right" microphone on the right side and nothing on the right side
Watch the video and use headphones.
Try each case yourself. You will need a recording that has distinct audio from each mic to properly see and hear the differences.
John CB