Editing with the Help of Audio Waveform Display

A common method of editing is to cut to the beats of the music or when a person says a new sentence. You can sit there and play the audio in real time with your trigger finger on the stop button or mark in key, ready to tag the position where you want to edit. An easier way to find your marks might be to just "look" at the audio. I know you think I've been typing too long when I start saying things like "seeing audio." Actually, when you click the triangle next to each audio track to expand it, Premiere displays the waveform for the audio clips in that track (see Figure 8.19). Even with the track expanded, you can click the Show/Hide Audio Waveform button to view or turn off the audio waveform in the timeline.

Figure 8.19. Click the triangle next to any audio track to view a waveform display of the audio in that track.

graphics/08fig19.gif

The stronger the audio signal, the larger the vertical, graphical display. The weaker the signal, the flatter the line appears. You can visually follow when a person is speaking or when the downbeats of a piece of music occur. This comes in handy for many editing situations:

  • You can easily find where musical sections occur. If you need to remove a portion of a piece of music, you can find the beats accurately, remove the desired section, and create a shorter version seamlessly.

  • You can find where people begin and end their words, so you'll never cut off part of a person's sentence again.

  • If your audio contains an undesirable sound (such as an audio pop or a person coughing during someone's speech), you can find it very quickly and remove it (as long as it doesn't occur at the same time as the person's words).

  • If you are laying in a narration under some visuals, you can tighten (mark and cut) any pauses between words or sentences that occurred during the recording session.

  • You can easily identify the audio beats when cutting a music video (if you're cutting to the beats of the music) and mark the starting frame for your visuals.

There are many times when viewing the audio waveform is a necessary tool. I think that as soon as you become comfortable with how the waveform looks and understand what it represents, you will find it very valuable.



Premiere 6. 5 Fundamentals
Premiere 6.5 Fundamentals
ISBN: B000H2MVO4
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 219

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net