audio order of operations

Greetings all,

Let me set the scene: I teach a Vid Prod class at a boarding school. I have one decent (FC Studio, PPC, though) bay and prosumer DV equipment. As a year-end project, and for a number of reasons, I have the students RE-Filming "Casablanca" (most of it, modifying the plot to be a sort of "seniors project" [the B&W allows for easier costuming, among other reasons].

Everything is going well, even ahead of schedule. Therefore, I am thinking of bringing in STP to help with audio. I am still VERY green with this app, however, and with a large (@ 40-50 mins) I have a general question:

Is there / What is the preferred order of operations for mixing audio? I have showed them how to key-frame audio to mix with music; and how to "double-up" tracks to boost audio (not very good mic equipment). But STP allows for a lot of options.

I wondering specifically about raising dialogue levels, room-noise reduction, and music/dialogue mixing/compression. Is it okay to mix FCP sound techniques with STP processes? Is it good or bad to boost audio before or after deNoising? Can I boost audio in FCP on a track that has been "touched" by STP, or just rely on amplitude adjustment in STP?

Again, I've only used STP on one file at a time, and I just don't want to get lost (or get the students lost) in multi-track with two weeks to showtime.

Thanks in advance,

BM

I generally do a rough mix while I'm working, ie: getting levels of audio with vo's, interviews, natural sound, music to a fair balance. Generally, any sound sweetening is left to the very end when the project timing is locked.

It took a good tutorial (and a few family video projects!) to get me familiar with STP, it can be a pretty overwhelming application.

Since you have a fairly long video, 40 to 50 minutes, it may make things less stressful for you to stay within FCP, and do the repair work only in STP. Let the multi-trak project be another project exploration for your students.

However, if you are doing a lot of fixing, or sending clips to STP, you might as well do it all in multi-track, one stop shopping if you will. When you're done with fixing, click on the mixer and do a simple mix.

STP will take any keyframing you do in FCP, including cross-dissolves. The only thing that doesn't transfer is fading up/down by audio dissolves.

<<Can I boost audio in FCP on a track that has been "touched" by STP>>

Yes, just do more keyframing in FCP, however, why do that when you can easily send it back to STP for any adjustments. You'll just have to re-import the new mix.

If you have broken up your project into acts or segments, it may make things easier.

That's my two cents!

Cameron Young

Thanks for your input. STP is overwhelming. I suppose because to even have it open means committing to a level of detail that FCP allows you to not notice.

<<However, if you are doing a lot of fixing, or sending clips to STP, you might as well do it all in multi-track, one stop shopping if you will. When you're done with fixing, click on the mixer and do a simple mix. >>

I finally did find a good tutorial that explained how STP exports a single mix which you then put on, say, A8,A9 and mute out your pre-existing audio. That is something I wasn't understanding from just the manual.

I will probably stick to FCP for most sweetening. I'll de-noise where I have to. I will definitely try to do a multitrack with one or two sequences.

Just to make sure I understand what I have read here and elsewhere: A multitrack project does not alter the audio on my original media files. It creates a new (aiff, I suppose) audio stream that is itself a MIX of all the audio. Correct?

Thanks again

<<I finally did find a good tutorial that explained how STP exports a single mix which you then put on, say, A8,A9 and mute out your pre-existing audio>>

That's one way, another is to duplicate the sequence, replace the audio with the aiff file, rename as "sequence name-fullmix".

<<A multitrack project does not alter the audio on my original media files. It creates a new (aiff, I suppose) audio stream that is itself a MIX of all the audio. Correct?>>

Correct.

Cameron Young

<<<multi-track with two weeks to showtime. >>>

That occured to me. If you're in the "taking out room noise" phase, you have a long, difficult row to hoe before the finished show. I would personally forbid the use of noise reduction tools. It's intensively time consuming and the rewards are the exception.

The up side is finding a student that takes to the tools. We can't all be television visualle artistes

Koz