@database @master @node "Main" "ProMix Tools" @toc "Table-of-contents" ProWave, Inc. _________________________________________________________________ Audio Editing for the Flyer @{" ProMix Tools " link "table-of-contents" 0} Version 1.0 © 1996 ProWave, Inc. 7950 Highway 72 West * Unit G 102 Madison, AL 35758 U.S.A. ProWave@aol.com Phone 205.830.2767 (autofax) @endnode @node "Table-of-contents" "Table of Contents" @toc "Table-of-contents" ProMix Tools Version 1.0 Table of Contents @{" Chapter 1 " link "intro" 0} Introduction @{" Chapter 2 " link "basics" 0} Down to the Basics @{" Chapter 3 " link "tut-QS" 0} Tutorial Quick Start - Mixing Audio Clips @{" Chapter 4 " link "add-Audio" 0} Adding Audio to Video @{" Chapter 5 " link "ins-Audio" 0} Inserting Audio @{" Chapter 6 " link "mo-tricks" 0} A few more tricks with InsertAudio and AddAudio. @{" Chapter 7 " link "join-clips" 0} Joining Clips @{" Chapter 8 " link "last-min-com" 0} Last Minute Comments @{" Chapter 9 " link "tech-sup" 0} Tech Support @{" Chapter 10 " link "authors" 0} About the Authors @{" Chapter 11 " link "thanks" 0} Special Thanks © 1996 ProWave, Inc. @endnode @node "intro" "intro" @toc "Table-of-contents" Introduction Welcome to ProMix Tools, the complete audio mixdown program for the Video Toaster Flyer. With this software you can add audio to your video clips, perform infinite audio mixdowns, replace audio on a video clip with audio from a second audio/video clip, join audio or video clips, and scale audio on any clip by a percentage. ProMix Tools were developed to provide more flexibility when using the Flyer to edit complex audio and background tracks. Whether you are just adding music backgrounds or you are editing complex sound effects and narration, ProMix Tools will make your audio soar. These tools arose out of requirements for editing the ProWave tutorial series, LightWave 3D in.focus and Flyer Flight Notes, and are now offered to the entire Flyer community. We hope you enjoy these tools and will contact us with any additional features you may need. By the way, if you are the first to suggest a feature for ProMix Tools, and we use it, your next upgrade is free. @endnode @node "basics" "basics" @toc "Table-of-contents" Down to the Basics You should follow the instructions in the Readme file for detailed installation instructions. Once installed, you will see Five new programs added to your Tools pulldown menu: MixAudio, InsertAudio, AddAudio, JoinClips, and AudioBlackBox. Each has a little different function and you can use one routine then another for really complex mixes. ProMix Tools is a collection of utilities designed to simplify complex projects and increase the audio capability of your Flyer. You can select multiple audio clips and combine them into a single clip, allowing you to add more layers of audio. You can also add audio to video or animation. For example, if you have a two camera shoot and one camera has better audio, you can use the good audio to replace the audio on the other video clip using AddAudio. Better still, you can actually mix the two audio tracks together and replace the existing audio with audio mixed from both clips using a combination of MixAudio and AddAudio. Joinclips allows you to join multiple video or audio clips together-basically the opposite of the cutting room. This is really handy if you have a bunch of quick cuts followed by an effect. Normally there isn't enough time to load the effect after the last cut. If they are all combined into one clip, it's a snap. You might even want to perform a slow dissolve over several cuts. Maybe you want to make that audio just a little bit louder. How about adding two clips together? The list goes on and our users have found some uses that are absolutely amazing. ProMix is flexible-LetÕs discuss its operation. If you know how to sequence audio and video on the Flyer, you already know how to use ProMix Tools! We have attempted to keep the User Interface as simple as possible. In fact it's so simple, we don't have one! Just sequence your audio, set appropriate fades, levels, pans, and balance, and select MixAudio from the programs menu. Presto, all of your audio is mixed into one stereo clip. OK, so there are a few more things you need to know, but you will very quickly master ProMix Tools. There are a few things you should know about the Flyer before starting. Basically the Flyer is a self-contained computer inside your Amiga. It has its own CPU, Ram, OS, DSPs, SCSI controllers and serial ports. When the Flyer is initialized, the OS is loaded onto the Flyer and it takes care of itself from then on. When you are running a sequence the Flyer takes over the processing and the Amiga operates the Video Toaster. ProMix Tools are actually using processors on both the Flyer and the Amiga. OK, enough technical business, lets try some examples. The last is that the Flyer does not like to use device names and you must reset your tabs to point to the Volume names instead. @endnode @node "tut-QS" "tut-QS" @toc "Table-of-contents" Tutorial Quick Start - Mixing Audio Clips Before you start we need to check your Flyer setup. From the Project/Files view select your "Video A" tab, or whatever you named it. Look in the window just below the tabs. Do you see FA0:, FB0:, etc.? If so, we need to set your tabs to point to volumes. NewTek has the tabs point to devices, because they don't know what you are going to name your drive, but the Flyer commands like volume names. So Let's change them. · Select the Volumes button just to the right of the window, under the tabs · Select your first drive (e.g. FlyerA0:) double click · Now select Set Tab in the far right corner of the screen · Choose the tab you want to assign it to (e.g. Video A) · Rename the tab if you'd like or just say OK (note: this renames only the tab not the drive) Now select the Video Tab again, do you see FlyerA0: or what ever your flyer drive was called? Repeat the above steps for all of your drives. Let's go through an example. Place a music clip and a second audio clip of someone talking in an empty project window. Lock the first clip down and set the in and out points so that you have about 10 seconds of music. In the controls fine tune panel, set both fade up and down to about 1 second. Set the second audio clip so the person talks for about five seconds and set the start time to 1 second and lock to Program time. Play the project. Your music should fade up and you should be able to hear the person talking. Remember, the way it sounds when you play the project is the way it will sound in the mix. Now set the audio levels on both clips. Make sure that you can clearly hear the person talking over the music. If you want, you can add some pans as well. At this point you should have two audio clips in the project and both should be locked to program time. We are ready to mix. Select MixAudio from the Tools Menu and you are asked for a new file name and a drive. You select the location to place the new clip by using the Flyer's requester window (just select one of the tabs we changed earlier). It must be a Flyer Drive. Be sure the volume name of the drive appears in the bottom window just as when we set them above (i.e., FlyerA0:), not FA0:, FB0:, etc. O.k., back to the tutorial. It will take about a minute and the Flyer interface will return. You're done! MixAudio has set all of the audio levels of both clips and combined them into one clip with the new name. You must refresh your drive to see the new clip. Go ahead, take a look. Pretty cool? Review 1. Setup Audio Project being sure to lock the audio croutons to program time 2. Set appropriate levels, fades, and timing 3. Select MixAudio form the Tools pulldown menu 4. Select Flyer Drive Volume for new clip and new clip name 5. Enjoy Let's try another example. Delete the talking audio crouton and clone the first music clip. Now, set the in point of the second clip to the same as the out point of the first clip and make this clip about ten seconds long. If you play the project, both clips should play simultaneously. With the second clip selected, go to the rexx drawer, into the OZ directory, and select butt audio. This will butt the clips together. Now when you play the project, you should hear a continuous clip the total length of both clips-with out a jump (oh, that's how that works!). If not, move the in point of the second clip one frame in each direction until it plays without a break. OK, now select JoinClips from the Tools menu, make sure you select a flyer drive (the Oz directory will come up), and give the clip a name, and your done. You may ask, why the second example was faster than the first? After all, the project was twice as long. Anytime you are doing a mix with two or more audio clips, the flyer must transfer data to the Amiga side of the house. This unfortunately is a slow task (about 50 kb/sec). The good news is that we are working with NewTek to rewrite some of their code and speed up this transfer-it should be about 3 Mb/sec. A speedup will not only help ProMix Tools, but any other product which is processing clips on the Amiga side such as ToasterPaint or ImageFX. When joining clips, all process activity is performed by the Flyer. We will keep you posted on the progress. One final note, if you don't have Co- pilot Audio and Video-get them! They are fantastic tools for setting up your mix. When done, you can use MixAudio to mix all of your settings into one clip. We will continue an alliance with Oz-ware and already have a new suite of tools to release soon. Aussie has even added a direct link to ProMix Tools from the Co-Pilot Interface. @endnode @node "add-audio" "add-audio" @toc "Table-of-contents" Adding Audio to Video One of the most requested features of ProMix Tools is the ability to add audio to an existing video clip, animation, or Flyer Still. Typically this is a LightWave animation or Video that has been processed using a third party product such as Control Tower, by Visual Inspirations. In this case, your video will have no audio track on it. To add audio to the video, simply place your Video clip in an empty project and in the control panel, slide the in and out points to obtain the maximum clip length. Next add the audio clip you want to put onto the video in the project and adjust the in and out points until your video clip plays, synchronized properly. Your project view will have one video clip and one audio clip at this point. Select AddAudio and ProMix will add the audio to the video clip. Let's try an example. Find a 4-5 second video clip or animation and place it in an empty project window. If the video already has audio on it, let's turn it off for this example. Now, place a music clip in the project window and be sure to adjust the in and out points to about the same length as the video clip. Don't forget to trim up your audio clip in the front; we often leave space there when recording clips. For this example, leave the audio settings to default 70 and the fades to 0:00. Make sure you play the project; what ever you see and hear will be on the final clip. You should have a video clip with the sound off, and audio clip and it should all play together. Now select AddAudio from the tools menu. Select a new output file location with the tabs and give it a name. ProMix is now re- writing the clip with the new audio. You will see a "Adding Audio... Please Wait." Message while ProMix processes you clip. When finished, refresh the drive and play the clip. Clear the project and place the video clip we just made in the project window. Max out the in and out points, and find another sound effect or audio clip to put in the project window. Now time this second audio clip to happen during the video clip. You can change the audio levels of both clips and perhaps have a fade in and fade out on the video clip. Play the project. When happy with all the settings, select AddAudio. Since the audio for the video clip was on this time, You now see a new message: "Stripping Audio... Please Wait" followed by a "Mixing Audio... Please Wait". ProMix has detected that you are playing the audio on the video clip, and automatically mixes down that audio to add to the final clip. Let's Summarize: Selecting AddAudio from the Tools pull down menu will add the audio to your video clip. If you have more than one audio clip in the project or you have the play audio turned on in the video clip your processing, the audio will be automatically mixed and then added to the video clip. When working with a single audio clip, the process will be much faster if you leave the default settings on the audio (no fades, volume 70, etÉ). If you change any setting (except for in/out points) MixAudio must first mixdown the clip (this is done automatically) before it is added. One other note: if you select the source video clip as the Output File name, it will over write the existing audio track (if there is one) which brings up the next point. If your original video clip contained audio (i.e. there was a tiny speaker in the upper right hand corner of the crouton) then there is one more step. You need to decide whether you want to include the audio contained on the video clip in the mix, or whether you want the existing audio replaced. If you want the audio included in the mix, then be sure that the Play Audio box is checked on the video clip. Keep in mind that if your audio clip is longer than your video clip, the audio will be truncated to the maximum length of the video. If the video is longer than the audio, the audio will be back time to completely fill the clip. What if you just want a section of audio replaced without touching the audio before or after the insert. @endnode @node "ins-audio" "ins-audio" @toc "Table-of-contents" Inserting Audio InsertAudio works by selecting the in point on the Video where you want the audio insert to begin and placing an audio clip behind the Video. Mark the in and out points on the audio clip and your ready to go. You can't really preview this function, because the Flyer will play both audio tracks at once. Most of the time, you can hear a slight volume change where both audio clips are playing. Once again, if you select the source clip, you will over write the existing audio track without taking up additional drive space. You can use this to your advantage and actually insert a segment of audio in the middle of a video clip, say a few seconds of room noise over a cough, baby cry, or maybe something you said about your mother in law. For InsertAudio we need three edit points 1) the point on the video(or audio) clip where the insert is to begin; 2) the in point on the audio we are inserting and; 3) the out point of the audio we are inserting. The first defines the place the insert will occur. This can be accomplished by adjusting the in point on the video clip, using the lock to clip on the audio clip, or by simply using a start time. The second two points define the length of the audio insert. @endnode @node "mo-tricks" "mo-tricks" @toc "Table-of-contents" More Tricks There are a few more things you can do with InsertAudio and AddAudio. You can also add audio to a video clip from an existing video clip. Let say you have a two camera shoot and the audio is great on one camera, and poor on the second. You can actually remove the good audio and put it on both clips. The first way is to use process clip (Flyer Control Panels) to strip the audio from one clip and then use the above example to add that audio to the first clip. This is best if you have more than two video clips to include in the mix. The second way is to put both of the video clips in a project and set the in points on both clips at a known synchronization point (e.g. a flash, slate, or some other event). Next, turn off the Play Audio on the clip that you want to replace audio. Select AddAudio and the audio will be stripped from one clip and added to the clip with Play Audio turned off. Finally, you can add audio to a Flyer Still. Well, not exactly, we will convert your still and add audio to the resulting clip. Simply set the length of the still and time the audio so it hits where you would like to in the final clip (i.e. 1 second after the clip starts). It is often best to uses files/files and copy the still from your project to a blank project. Don't forget to leave space in your clip to accommodate transitions. Also not that if the audio clip you are adding is longer than the still it will back time and audio will start when the clip starts. If this is undesirable, you can cut the clip to the proper length or set the audio in points and out points on the resulting clip appropriately. @endnode @node "join-clips" "join-clips" @toc "Table-of-contents" Joining Clips JoinClips can be used to join clips together to form a much larger clip; the opposite function of the cutting room. This is obvious with audio-simply butt a series of audio clips together, select JoinClips, and they will be assembled into a single clip. This is especially handy when working with voice-overs. For video, there is a slightly different procedure. To do this simply put the video clips to join into a project and highlight all clips by selecting the first clip and shift selecting the other clips. Select JoinClips and all of the highlighted clips will be joined. JoinClips will cut the video at the marked in and out points. If you would like the entire clip used, be sure to adjust the clips to maximum their length. If you would also like to handle effects, check out our product Render FX. This will allow you to render any toaster transition and then using JoinClips you can link the entire project together. Note Remember using JoinClip to join a sequence of audio clips (without any overlap), such as a voiceover, is much faster than using the MixAudio routine, but you can't uses fades and must use the default volume settings. @endnode @node "last-min-com" "last-min-com" @toc "Table-of-contents" Last Minute Comments Our quest to use the Flyer User Interface to ease the learning curve and standardize the interface has led to a basic misunderstanding about ProMix Tools. While ProMix Tools were designed to be used from the Flyer interface for simplicity, we can't possibly think of everything a great Flyer editor can throw at it. Consequently if you edit an entire project and simply select MixAudio, it will choke. You should simplify your project, or create a sub project to work from (great time to use project/project editing). The only real application (besides Oz-ware's great ProMix Tools scripts) where one would use ProMix Tools from within a project is in mixing audio. You can shift highlight the audio clips you want mixed into a single clip from within a project. MixAudio will mix the selected clips into a single audio clip. Other than that, you should build a project that has only the clips to join, add audio, or mix and use the tools on the simple project. Sorry for the confusion in our early releases. @endnode @node "tech-sup" "tech-sup" @toc "Table-of-contents" Tech Support We would prefer to handle all technical support by e-mail or fax. It is an efficient, cost effective way to get all of your questions answered. You can send tech support questions to BillE@traveller.com or ProWave@aol.com. We hope you enjoy ProMix Tools and it adds to your productivity and production quality. We would like to hear feedback from you, so please email your suggestions and ideas for future tools for the Flyer. @endnode @node "authors" "authors" @toc "Table-of-contents" About the Authors ProMix Tools was developed by Bill Evans and Ray Cronise. Bill is a Software Analyst at SCI, inc. and is currently lead software engineer for the V-22 Osprey intercommunications system. This job is responsible for the programming of the ICS 9 DSP, 6 Xilinx, which provide 40 channels of mixed digital audio to the 6 man crew of the Osprey. Ray is currently a Research Scientist at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and is studying the effects of microgravity on various Materials processing experiments. He is also owner of ProWave, Inc. which produces the advanced LightWave Tutorial series in.focus and the Flyer tutorial series Flight Notes. @endnode @node "thanks" "thanks" @toc "Table-of-contents" Special Thanks We would like to thank a few people who helped on the development of this product. First, thanks goes out to our killer Beta Tester, Brian Jansen @ Universal Video Productions. Not only is Brian patient, but he can kill a perfectly good program faster than anyone we know. Installation scripts were built by Rob Wood; he also keeps Bill awake during those late night programming marathons. Also thanks go out to the entire team at NewTek for providing support and resources for our programmers. We would like to thank the folks at Visual Inspirations and Oz-Ware for their suggestions and comments throughout ProMix Tools development. Once again, if you don't own Control Tower, Decision Maker, and Co-Pilot, you're missing out on a entire level of Flyer editing; I can't edit without them! ProWave's Flyer Croutons were created by Paul Lara (Lara@vvm.com). Paul owns VDO Productions and would be willing to work with you on any project, 3D modeling, animation, graphics design, or narration. You can reach him at (817) 724- 5083. Thanks Paul! @endnode