Quick Guide to Audio Editing & Mixing Quick Guide to Audio Editing & Mixing Site: Community Media Training Organisation Course: Features & Documentary Production Book: Quick Guide to Audio Editing & Mixing Printed by: Giordana Caputo Date: Monday, 21 July 2014, 1:37 PM Table of contents 1 Audio Editing & Mixing 2 File Formats & Other Tech 3 Listen and Log 4 Use an Edit Plan 5 Back it up 6 Mix Well 7 Keep it real 1 Audio Editing & Mixing Seamless audio editing and mixing is a skill that comes with practice and time. There are so many editing programs out there, some of which are free like Audacity and others which are used by the pros, like the appropriately named Pro-Tools. As the saying goes, 'a poor worker blames his tools', which kinda contradicts the other saying of a 'worker is only as good as his tools' but whatever, down with gender-specific cliches, what really matters is geting your head around the basic principles of editing: File formats & techy stuff Listen & log Use an edit plan Make back-up copies (Crtl Z/Undo) Mix well Keep it real 2 File Formats & Other Tech You don't have to be a sound engineer to edit audio, but some basic theory can help you get the most out of your recordings. If you haven't downloaded and played with Audacity yet, do it now- it's freeware and its fun! They also have a great tutorial that can be applied to almost any editing software as it covers the basic theory: Digital Audio Theory And if you are a real rookie, it takes you through the basics here: Editing for Beginners- Audacity 1. Introduction to Editing... 2. Cut, Copy & Paste 3. Silence, Duplicate and Split 4. Splitting and Submixes Check out all their tutorials here And if you want a little bit more in-depth info on sound theory, this resource from JISC Digital Media includes definitions and a glossary of terms: An Introduction to Digital Audio Tips from the pros: An audio file format is a special container for storing audio data on a computer system. There are 3 kinds of formats: Raw or uncompressed audio formats, such as WAV, AIFF and AU Lossless compression formats. These use data compression algorithms that allow the exact original data to be reconstructed from the compressed data. Formats include Apple Lossless (ALAC) and lossless Windows Media Audio (WMA) Lossy compression formats. This method compresses data and then decompressing it retrieves data that may well be different from the original, but is close enough to be useful in some way. Formats include MP3, Vorbis, lossy Windows Media Audio (WMA) and AAC. The MP3 has become the ubiquitous file format. A team of European engineers invented it and it became an ISO/IEC standard in 1992. Since then, it has become the pre-eminent format because its codec (compression – decompression) provides a final output at least one fifteenth the size of the original with little audible quality loss. There are many different file formats for storing audio data, and they are described in the file name by their extension: FORMAT EXPLANATION EXTENSION WAV Microsoft wave audio file .wav AAC A newer MPEG sound format .aac OGG Ogg Vorbis .ogg MP3 MPEG-1 Layer III .mp3 WMA Microsoft wave audio file .wma AIFF Audio Interchange File (Mac) .aiff 3 Listen and Log Logging notes are a comprehensive set of notes describing your audio material. It's a great ideal to listen back to your audio straight after you record it, firstly to make sure it worked and secondly to note down the times when something really jumps out at you as a good quote. Detailed and accurate notes will make writing your production script much easier. Steps for logging tape: • Listen to the material straight through a first time jotting down as much as you can without stopping the tape. Leave lots of blank space that you can go back and on a second listening fill in more information. • On the second listening make a note of the time of where interesting points are made and add extra detail. • The third time you listen to the tape, go to sections that were particularly interesting. Fill in the specifics of what was said. Stop, play and rewind the recording to write down the first and last words of what you want to keep noting where they occur in the recording. • When listening to your longer interviews, use your list of interview questions to assist you in structuring your logging notes. Tips from the pros NPR & BBC Producer Scott Gurian explains the difference between logging and transcribing tape, "...The way I log tape is to note any significant conversations, quotations or segments of ambience with just a few, descriptive words or parts of a quote that will help me remember that segment later on. I often use abbreviations and my own style of shorthand to avoid writing out whole sentences." Read his other tips on logging and why transcribing can be really useful here. 4 Use an Edit Plan An editing plan helps make the editing process faster. Have a complete editing plan written out before you begin. You may change it but it's better to start out with a basic direction in mind. It will save a lot of time in the long run. Your plan is based on the original audio file. Don’t cut this one up. Keep it and copy the segments that you decide to use and paste them into a new file. Edit plan step-by-step Complete a comprehensive logging of the recording Note on your Edit Plan, the start point of the various parts that you wish to cut out. Listen for any noticeable variations in the background noise Consider how the segment will fit into your overall piece Edit Plan Sample Filename: Banana.wav Title: Interview with the Dusty Bananas Date: 30/5/2014 Speaker/Performer(s): Barney from the Dusty Bananas and Jon Brown Producer: April Turner Segment Counter Time (start) First and Last Words Duration Number and comments Starts:// “Welcome to the program, when did you start recording 1’12 – cut my first 1. the first album?”// “It was a process that.. 40 secs question, brilliant Ends: and we just knew that we’d hit the bigtime..” response. 2. Starts:“here is a song// (Cough) Excuse me //called…” 0.10 secs 2’02 – cut cough Ends: “..it was called “Peel” from the album Unzip the Yellow”// Starts: “We can’t wait to get to Queensland..” Ends “…it is seriously, the best record we have ever made. Thanks 2’30 – add track in under 3. 58 secs //James..er.//Jon” this section Download the Edit Plan Template here 5 Back it up Digital audio editing is based on the concept of non-linear editing, meaning we can access any part of the recording at any time and manipulate it without having to listen from beginning to end, it's a total time-saver! But it can also mean we can screw-up and cut and delete things we didn't mean to. Hence the importance of good file management and back-ups and the amazing power of CRTL Z or UNDO! Good file management When working with programs like Audacity & Pro-Tools we can use non-destructive editing, which means the audio edits that you perform will not alter the original audio file that is stored on your hard drive. Most audio-editing programs use session files, these are files which 'reference' audio files and the changes we make to them without actually altering the original file. So you have to 'mix-down' in order to actually make the changes to the audio file. Nondestructive Editing means that as you are working on your sessions, you: Use less disk space Can create multiple arrangements and edits without copying audio files Edit without concern for altering the original recording This is really handy, but can take some getting used to, just remember you need to save the session file AND the audio files to your back-up, so that when you open it again all the bits and pieces are there for the session file to access. It's important to make sure you name and save your files in a manner that will make sense to you and anyone else who might want to access them. Using words like FINAL aren't always helpful, it's better to number versions sequentially and keep all files in the one folder. Get into the habit of backing this folder up, either to a thumb-drive or the cloud. If you do decide to work on the acutal sound file rather than a session file, start out by making a copy of it and naming it RAW AUDIO, that way if you do make mistakes, need to copy sections or re-edit you will always have the original file. And use CRTL-Z or UNDO to your heart's content, they really help when you nip something just that bit too tight, or cut the quote instead of trim it! 6 Mix Well Mixing skills take time to master and training your ear to hear what works well. Mixing, like edting, should be smooth, seamless and completely invisible to our audience. We don't want anything to distract from our content! There are few tricks to a smooth mix: 1. Record plenty of 'atmos' or 'room noise' You can use atmos to blend sections of interviews together, match up sections and segue into narration 2.