Vidiversary post #1: audio editing
May 2019 will mark the 10th anniversary of posting my first vid online, and I thought it would be fun to do some write-ups about the journey, the process, some of the vids I've made and some that didn't make it or haven't yet.
Masterlist on the AO3
Let's start with something that feels contained: audio editing.
A rough count reveals that of 55 vids I've posted to date, 38 of them, or 69%, contain edited audio. Why?
1.
Most often, I edit to shorten a song. I knew early on that I belonged to the cohort of vidders who prefer to do that rather than stretch material to fit. It's the "make your point and get out" philosophy, especially in comedy vids, because what's worse than a joke that goes on too long? I try to figure out a vid's natural/ideal length and trim any excess music after that.
Sometimes it's easiest to fade out before the end of a song, or to cut verses, choruses or instrumentals toward the end and keep the conclusion, especially if the song ends with a bang. Other times, I cut verses or choruses from elsewhere. In Hey Ya, I tried something weird and spliced together different bits of the first verse to get rid of lyrics that didn't make sense for the vid. You may have noticed there is no rhyme there!
My baby don't mess around
Because she loves me so, and this I know for sure
But does she really wanna
But can't stand to see me walk out the door?
Don't try to fight the feeling
'Cause the thought alone is killing me right now
Thank God for Mom and Dad
For sticking to together 'cause we don't know how
Hey ya, hey ya
2.
Once, for Snake Song, in addition to excising a verse, I moved an instrumental section to an earlier spot, because I needed the room there to tell a part of the story that didn't match the lyrics. (Compare to the original ~0:42 & 1:05.) That was cool.
3.
Then, contrary to what I just said about trimming vids, there have been times when I've edited songs to make them longer, or longer in some places and shorter in others. The opening guitar music in Home doubles to make space for introducing Henry, Big Eden and the townspeople; the instrumentals in the middle of Storm Warnings and I Like the Way You Move similarly repeat to make room for plot and action. (If memory serves, I cut the latter song elsewhere.) The piano at the end of Don't Let It Bring You Down repeats because the story needed more space to conclude. I chopped out 1:19-2:43 of the piano piece in Awakenings and then repeated the next-to-last chord progression like four times.
The trickiest lengthening project so far was adding a segment to The Greatest. The final vid contains the full version of the song that features the Kendrick Lamar verse (3:01-3:31, where everyone is angry) plus an alternate take of that verse without Kendrick (2:01-2:31, the dreamy sequence with space and floating things), which I found in one of many instances of "The Greatest" on YouTube. When I first started that vid, I was afraid I wouldn't have enough clips to fill the space effectively; little did I expect I would need to put an extension on that house, so to speak!
4.
Another reason I edit audio is to adjust the speed of the music, with or without changing the pitch. I've done this once for pace, because the original cover of Don't Let It Bring You Down was even slower and would have killed the vid; once to circumvent copyright blocks, for Two is the loneliest number; and once, in my favorite instance, for character development and humor, at the end of Behind Blue Eyes, when the song slows down by increments to mimic what happened to HAL as it sang "Daisy, Daisy."
Let us not discuss how many tries it took to get that effect to work, since my version of Premiere, at least, doesn't offer a "time remapping" feature for audio like the one that's available for video clips. Short version: If the audio goes blank when you change the speed but preserve the pitch, try switching the sequence settings from 44,100 to 48,000 Hz or vice versa.
5.
I am proud of the time I mixed my own audio, for Drink Me. I mean, not that I recorded my own audio, but I pieced together multiple sounds to create a track instead of using a song wholesale. "Drink Me" contains an overlapping combination of spoken lines, background noises and music from both True Blood and The Queen of the Damned as well as a royalty-free heartbeat sound effect I found on YouTube. One day I'll re-export the audio track so the bass comes through properly. It sounds tinny now because of outdated codecs.
A simpler version of this can be found in the Ancillary Justice book trailer, which starts with the opening of the DakhaBrakha song, crossfades into a segment of royalty-free drum music, then fades back into the end of the first verse of "Nad Dunaem."
And for the SGA tentacles vidlet, like the heartbeat in "Drink Me" or the end of "Awakenings," I downloaded some breath sounds and placed them on the timeline in an order and rhythm that felt right. Were I to do that one again today, I'd space out the deeper breaths even more. Insert "needs more room to breathe" pun here.
*
Additional notes:
- I edit audio in Premiere using cuts and various kinds of crossfades. I found Audacity non-intuitive and I'm not doing such complicated work that it requires a specialized audio editing program.
- I want audio edits to be invisible, or rather inaudible. If that's not possible, the rhythm at least must remain steady. In Trouble, you can tell that the second "Oh!" chorus (~1:18) came in from later on, but I'm okay with that. In Best of Enemies, I tried to work with the obvious music transition by adding a clock wipe to the visuals. Maybe it's easier to accept audible edits in a comedy vid.
- You can't always cut where you want. It's hard if the song changes key or tempo or something.
- I would love to try constructing a Garage Band-style track that builds rhythms from sound effects and dialogue. Like, instead of a drumbeat, you have John saying "Rodney" at regular intervals. I wish this amazing A&E promo for "The Shining" 5+ years ago were available online; it's what I want to emulate. It could also be fun to play around with something like AutoTune, if I ever have the time and patience to learn such a program.
- Thank you to Vividcon attendees and other vidders who've talked over the years about when and how to edit audio.
Hope this is interesting to people! More to come. Still taking suggestions for topics.
Originally posted at https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/379887.html, where there are
comments.
Masterlist on the AO3
Let's start with something that feels contained: audio editing.
A rough count reveals that of 55 vids I've posted to date, 38 of them, or 69%, contain edited audio. Why?
1.
Most often, I edit to shorten a song. I knew early on that I belonged to the cohort of vidders who prefer to do that rather than stretch material to fit. It's the "make your point and get out" philosophy, especially in comedy vids, because what's worse than a joke that goes on too long? I try to figure out a vid's natural/ideal length and trim any excess music after that.
Sometimes it's easiest to fade out before the end of a song, or to cut verses, choruses or instrumentals toward the end and keep the conclusion, especially if the song ends with a bang. Other times, I cut verses or choruses from elsewhere. In Hey Ya, I tried something weird and spliced together different bits of the first verse to get rid of lyrics that didn't make sense for the vid. You may have noticed there is no rhyme there!
My baby don't mess around
Because she loves me so, and this I know for sure
But does she really wanna
But can't stand to see me walk out the door?
Don't try to fight the feeling
'Cause the thought alone is killing me right now
Thank God for Mom and Dad
For sticking to together 'cause we don't know how
Hey ya, hey ya
2.
Once, for Snake Song, in addition to excising a verse, I moved an instrumental section to an earlier spot, because I needed the room there to tell a part of the story that didn't match the lyrics. (Compare to the original ~0:42 & 1:05.) That was cool.
3.
Then, contrary to what I just said about trimming vids, there have been times when I've edited songs to make them longer, or longer in some places and shorter in others. The opening guitar music in Home doubles to make space for introducing Henry, Big Eden and the townspeople; the instrumentals in the middle of Storm Warnings and I Like the Way You Move similarly repeat to make room for plot and action. (If memory serves, I cut the latter song elsewhere.) The piano at the end of Don't Let It Bring You Down repeats because the story needed more space to conclude. I chopped out 1:19-2:43 of the piano piece in Awakenings and then repeated the next-to-last chord progression like four times.
The trickiest lengthening project so far was adding a segment to The Greatest. The final vid contains the full version of the song that features the Kendrick Lamar verse (3:01-3:31, where everyone is angry) plus an alternate take of that verse without Kendrick (2:01-2:31, the dreamy sequence with space and floating things), which I found in one of many instances of "The Greatest" on YouTube. When I first started that vid, I was afraid I wouldn't have enough clips to fill the space effectively; little did I expect I would need to put an extension on that house, so to speak!
4.
Another reason I edit audio is to adjust the speed of the music, with or without changing the pitch. I've done this once for pace, because the original cover of Don't Let It Bring You Down was even slower and would have killed the vid; once to circumvent copyright blocks, for Two is the loneliest number; and once, in my favorite instance, for character development and humor, at the end of Behind Blue Eyes, when the song slows down by increments to mimic what happened to HAL as it sang "Daisy, Daisy."
Let us not discuss how many tries it took to get that effect to work, since my version of Premiere, at least, doesn't offer a "time remapping" feature for audio like the one that's available for video clips. Short version: If the audio goes blank when you change the speed but preserve the pitch, try switching the sequence settings from 44,100 to 48,000 Hz or vice versa.
5.
I am proud of the time I mixed my own audio, for Drink Me. I mean, not that I recorded my own audio, but I pieced together multiple sounds to create a track instead of using a song wholesale. "Drink Me" contains an overlapping combination of spoken lines, background noises and music from both True Blood and The Queen of the Damned as well as a royalty-free heartbeat sound effect I found on YouTube. One day I'll re-export the audio track so the bass comes through properly. It sounds tinny now because of outdated codecs.
A simpler version of this can be found in the Ancillary Justice book trailer, which starts with the opening of the DakhaBrakha song, crossfades into a segment of royalty-free drum music, then fades back into the end of the first verse of "Nad Dunaem."
And for the SGA tentacles vidlet, like the heartbeat in "Drink Me" or the end of "Awakenings," I downloaded some breath sounds and placed them on the timeline in an order and rhythm that felt right. Were I to do that one again today, I'd space out the deeper breaths even more. Insert "needs more room to breathe" pun here.
*
Additional notes:
- I edit audio in Premiere using cuts and various kinds of crossfades. I found Audacity non-intuitive and I'm not doing such complicated work that it requires a specialized audio editing program.
- I want audio edits to be invisible, or rather inaudible. If that's not possible, the rhythm at least must remain steady. In Trouble, you can tell that the second "Oh!" chorus (~1:18) came in from later on, but I'm okay with that. In Best of Enemies, I tried to work with the obvious music transition by adding a clock wipe to the visuals. Maybe it's easier to accept audible edits in a comedy vid.
- You can't always cut where you want. It's hard if the song changes key or tempo or something.
- I would love to try constructing a Garage Band-style track that builds rhythms from sound effects and dialogue. Like, instead of a drumbeat, you have John saying "Rodney" at regular intervals. I wish this amazing A&E promo for "The Shining" 5+ years ago were available online; it's what I want to emulate. It could also be fun to play around with something like AutoTune, if I ever have the time and patience to learn such a program.
- Thank you to Vividcon attendees and other vidders who've talked over the years about when and how to edit audio.
Hope this is interesting to people! More to come. Still taking suggestions for topics.
Originally posted at https://bironic.dreamwidth.org/379887.html, where there are
comments.