Opening in Audio Editor

mudsmith wrote on 5/23/2012, 5:39 PM
At the risk of seeming extremely stupid, I have to say that the whole process of opening audio tracks/files in the designated Audio Editor and doing destructive processing seems very confusing to me. I will spend some time with the manual tonight, but could use serious input from folks out there who have spent more time with Vegas than the month or so I now have under my belt.

If folks have been following my flurry of posts as I get ready to dive headlong into a fairly large documentary, you will note that I have been dealing with some fairly serious apparent plugin conflicts. I have a very large V9 Waves bundle installed, apparently properly, and the Izotope RX2 package, also apparently properly.

I have been experiencing some real time playback issues and even occasional crashes and conflicts between the Waves and Izotope stuff, but have been running under the assumption that some of the issues have to do with CPU issues and other problems with real time usage, and that offline editing in my audio editor of choice should solve a fair amount of this.

So, I got Wavelab 7 set up and authorized on my Vegas computer today and started using various "open in Audio Editor" functions to test applying the plugs off line, especially the noise reduction plugs and spectral editing tools.....from both Waves and Izotope.

Immediately, I am finding that the only thing that opens in Wavelab will be the actual clip itself (?), not the whole file from which the clip is drawn necessarily......and when dragging larger clips/takes from the Media bin into trimmer, then selecting "open in Audio Editor", the audio will not open.

Even when I have access to the clip, however, it is not at all clear to me how to render the effect and get it back on the timeline in Vegas. Do I open a copy and then make a new file? Is there a simple mechanism for replacing the clip with the new file?

None of this is obvious, and the Help file seems to think that the process is nearly automatic.

Help. Anybody able to give me the rules of the road here?

Most of the material I am working on is HDV.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/23/2012, 5:51 PM
If you "open copy" in audio editor then a new .WAV file is created to contain the audio from the event you're working on. Save it when you're done editing, and close. When you return to Vegas your newly edited version is automatically added to the event as a Take, replacing the original audio. You can switch between the original and the new version by pressing T. If you have "active take information" visible then the label in the event will show you which version is being used.

If you merely "open" then you will be editing the actual audio/video file itself rather than a copy. The changes will be written into the original file and when you switch back to Vegas the changes will already be there in that file.
mudsmith wrote on 5/23/2012, 5:56 PM
Thank you. I will check that out.

If, however, I were to want to do noise reduction, for instance, on a large section of recorded audio (on video) so as to have it all fixed prior to editing, is there a way of doing that?

The problem with the "alternate take" way of operating is that it seems to require a complete picture.....and sound.....lock. Unless, of course, there is a way of extending the clip copy file when it is brought into the Audio Editor.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 5/23/2012, 8:02 PM
In Sound Forge yes - the batch processing script.

To do a batch though, the nature of the noise problem would need to be the same, as a 'noiseprint' is taken as a reference as to what needs removing.

geoff
mudsmith wrote on 5/23/2012, 8:56 PM
I guess I was not making myself clear there.

The idea I am promoting is that, for some processes, it would be better to be working on more of the file than the edited clip if you are doing it off line. If you are only recreating a pre-edited clip, then, when you want to change the edit, you will have to do the whole thing all over again.

As I was saying, the process is only efficient for working on an edited clip if you already have an absolute lock on the video and audio edit......which is never the case, in my opinion, with Vegas.

So, is there any way built into Vegas to work on larger portions....of the original file....short of always working on them in extinded versions prior to bring the tops and tails into a real edited position.....?
rraud wrote on 5/24/2012, 9:58 AM
"is there any way built into Vegas to work on larger portions....of the original file....short of always working on them in extended versions prior to bring the tops and tails into a real edited position.....?"
Within Vegas you could use "Tools> Render to new track" which creates a new 'processed' track on the timeline leaving the original intact.
Otherwise, as was previously stated by Chein and Geoff, you could open the entire file in your audio editor by right-clicking the 'event' and selecting 'Open' ( opposed to "Open Copy) However upon saving, it could not be undone, so a back-up or the original should be available if something's not quite right.
Gary James wrote on 5/24/2012, 10:23 AM
If all you're looking to do is open your entire Event Audio file in an external Audio editor, my Vegas Add-in will do this. You can configure several different external editors for both Audio and Video file types. Simply right click on the Event in the tools main display grid, and select the editor of choice.

Note: if your Event audio is in a container file like MPEG or WMV, etc, your external sound editor must be capable of working with the Audio Type and container file holding the Event Audio. For example, Sony Sound Forge can open a WMV file and let you edit the audio track.
mudsmith wrote on 5/24/2012, 1:55 PM
You have, I think, hit the nail of the problem on the head: I can open a Copy of the audio clip in Wavelab, but not the whole audio portion of the whole file associated with the clip. When I right click and choose "Open in Audio Editor" (rather than "Open Copy......", I get nothing in Wavelab. When I open Copy, I get a copy of the clip.

Do I really have to get Soundforge to get around this? Is there no other way to separate the audio and video in the parent file?

Should I be thinking about converting all the HDV files to something else before starting down the long road of editing the full documentary?

I certainly don't want to do all my fixes permanently off line, but some of them do make sense to be done that way......and some probably make more sense to be performed on a real PCM file than an encoded audio file.

Again, I don't want to change the world, just want to understand the rules of the road and what is possible.
mudsmith wrote on 5/24/2012, 2:18 PM
I guess the real underlying question is this: Can't Vegas itself open up the "audio-video package" in a way that would make it more comprehensible for Wavelab or other editors? It clearly does this when it provides a "Copy" of the clip, so there must be some other way to pull this off within Vegas.

It would seem, from other threads, that there would be an editing advantage to converting the audio track of HDV to some sort of straight PCM.......and this would take a bit of load off the audio engine in Vegas, plus allow easier file access outside of Vegas.

Izotope RX2, by the way, can operate as the designated Audio Editor as a standalone for RX2 plugs for Vegas. I have just tested this and it works, and is pretty easy to switch to when needed.....It only operates with the 32bit versions of the plugs, but will work within a 64bit Version of Vegas. For some of the plugs, specifically the "magic bullet", unique Spectral Repair plug, this may be the only real way to use it in Vegas.

Like Wavelab, however, it is only able to open a "Copy".......so.....

The question still stands: Is there any other way to break the encoded audio off from HDV so that one can access the whole file?
Gary James wrote on 5/24/2012, 2:33 PM
I have "Sound Forge Audio Studio" and it doesn't recognize the .AC3 sound files inside an MTS file container. I'm not sure if the full blown version of Sound Forge supports it or not.

One thing you could do is render your audio soundtrack to .WAV. Then un-group the Video and Audio tracks. Replace the AC3 audio track with your PCM file. Then regroup the video and audio together.

After this you can do both internal and external sound edits; with the external edits being done by almost any sound editor.
mudsmith wrote on 5/24/2012, 4:01 PM
Rendering the "track" to .wav only, of course, renders the edited clip, not the full audio track the clip came from........It just keeps looking like I am going to be stuck most of the time with using the "Copy" function and going back and redoing when I find I really did not have an audio and/or picture lock.

I know folks here do pre-converting to other formats (MXF seems popular), which would accomplish this.......any recommendations?
Chienworks wrote on 5/24/2012, 5:48 PM
Absolutely none of them, because they all still result in the fact that "open copy" only gets a copy of the event as trimmed on the timeline, no matter what format the source is.

If you think this is going to be a problem more often than not, you could "open copy" on every clip *BEFORE* trimming and end up with the full audio of the file as the active take. After that, "open" will operate on the take which is still the full audio and it will still remain in sync with the video.
mudsmith wrote on 5/24/2012, 8:47 PM
I think "Open (not open copy) in Audio Editor" will actually open the full file if the file is an audio format that the audio editor can read, separate from its entanglement with the video.......as a straight PCM, for instance.

That is different from the "Open Copy" action, and is what I am referring to.

I had thought of bringing every piece of video on the timeline in its entirety, as you suggest, but this is incredibly cumbersome compared to working with the original intent of "Open in Editor".

The problem is simply the editor not being able to read the file in its original format, unless it sees the file as a clip and Vegas has converted it to straight PCM....which is a bit strange, i.e., that Vegas only makes the conversion in this instance alone. All the editors could read them as straight PCM, however, without Vegas having to consider it a clip to make the conversion.

All I am trying to figure out here is what is possible ........before I dive into 25 hours of footage and a one to two hour project.
farss wrote on 5/25/2012, 4:56 PM
If you "Open in editor" then Vegas will pass the camera original to the audio editor.
That is a problematic as the audio editor has to be able to read the audio from the HDV file. Having done that and whatever you have asked the audio editor to do the audio editor has to put it back into the original HDV file. That is even more problematic.
Both vision and sound in HDV is compressed and lossy and sticking with the original video and audio codecs means that the loss from one generation to the next exists and adds up. In theory at least just the audio component could be extracted from the multiplexed stream, altered, re-encoded / compressed and put back into the vision stream however I doubt any company writing an audio application is going to tackle that task. The problem is further compunded by HDV's use of a long GOP.


"All I am trying to figure out here is what is possible ........before I dive into 25 hours of footage and a one to two hour project. "

What is possible and what you should do are oftenly two different things in any endeavour. My advice from what you've revealed about the nature of your project is to edit vision first. Do a cuts only edit of the vision. Make 101% certain you and any other stakeholder is commited to it. Declare Vision Locked, done, dusted and never ever to be changed, not one frame of it. Then tackle the audio side.
If you don't follow such a workflow as the project develops it can simply spiral downhill into a major mess that will drive you insane trying to manage. I'm not saying you absolutely cannot and probably will not decide to go back and change your vision edit even after you have declared it locked but think of that as something to be seriously avoided if at all possible and not to be done on a whim.


Bob.
mudsmith wrote on 5/25/2012, 5:50 PM
In general, audio post has more or less always been done after picture lock, but the much more powerful audio tools in Vegas make this somewhat less necessary than in earlier years.

If I have to do it that way in Vegas, it is not such a horrible thing in that I can undo the "Copy" takes in the few instances where this will matter and redo audio......that is most likely the workflow I will follow with HDV on this project for now.

HOWEVER, it does seem entirely clear to me that other video file formats will allow easy transfer of full audio files to the audio editor.....MXF, for instance, has full PCM for the audio track, which would jump over just fine.

IN ADDITION, the whole process for creating the "Copy" does exactly that....i.e., turns the MPEG muxed audio into a PCM file.....so, I just want to be as sure as I can about what is possible before jumping in.

In the old days, when I would recieve an EDL formatted set of audio files from an AVID editor (various delivery methods), I would have them undo any fade-ins or fade outs or level changes, and extend the top and tail of all clips, even after picture lock......so even that was a bit more flexible in some ways, but certainly less in others since I can go back and revisit the original file underneath the takes at any time in Vegas.

This situation is certainly workable. I just want to be sure that I am not missing something.......especially as there seem to be a number of folks here who always convert to MXF or Cineform, etc. before starting.

Thanks.
farss wrote on 5/25/2012, 6:16 PM
"In general, audio post has more or less always been done after picture lock, but the much more powerful audio tools in Vegas make this somewhat less necessary than in earlier years."

On a technical sense yes, in a trying to keep your sanity sense I'm not so certain.
I've only attempted one feature length audio project in Vegas. The audio event count can easily exceed 10,000.

"HOWEVER, it does seem entirely clear to me that other video file formats will allow easy transfer of full audio files to the audio editor.....MXF, for instance, has full PCM for the audio track, which would jump over just fine."

True however if you're going to try to use "Open In" then the audio editor still has to be able to read the codec and remux the audio. One advantage of MXF is it supports more than one stereo track and rendering to MXF 4:2:2 with all the channels I've recorded both from the camera and my location recorder does make life much easier in Vegas as Vegas will treat the sound and vision as something that must be kept together way, way more reliably than using Grouping.

"This situation is certainly workable. I just want to be sure that I am not missing something.......especially as there seem to be a number of folks here who always convert to MXF or Cineform, etc. before starting."

That will potentially help with the vision side only.

Bob.
mudsmith wrote on 5/26/2012, 6:38 PM
I started right off in the mid-90s with "feature length" (90 minutes anyway) documentaries for cable TV......I was always working alongside an Avid editor in those days, but was certainly the best DAW technology available........but that is dwarfed by today's technology, which makes one participate in massively more decisions and break things into massively larger numbers of segments...

So, your point about sanity is well taken. I will stay sane, but only if I know what I can and cannot get away with in the process.

In reality, I am discovering that the biggest bottleneck is really the video's drain on the CPU for this dual video/audio solution that Vegas presents. Even at that, however, I would much rather have the greater flexibility for audio and more intimate connection between video and audio that Vegas provides, as opposed to the old, messy, bad communication era of OMF and such between different platforms.

Thanks for all the input......I am going to start a couple of new threads to let folks see what I am figuring out on other fronts about plugins and such.

Izotope had passed along a couple of tips about using their RX2 package in the designated audio editor, and I will include these as I test them out.

Thanks again.