Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with audio and editing

r/e/m/i/x/t/h/i/s/v/i/d/e/o

nitsuj — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 11:41:27 -0800

Okay, so how are people making those video remixes that are ever so popular right now? I can see it happening a few different ways:

1) They rip the original video from YouTube and pull it into Final Cut or whatever, and edit the sound bites and video with the music (made in some other program, presumably).
2) They rip the video from YouTube and bring the audio only into an audio/music program, and then re-edit the video to match the audio.
3) Some other way I'm not thinking?

What software are people using?

Challenging Video Editing Software for PC Question

noir — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:56:42 -0800

Challenging Video Editing question: If I wanted to take video from a multiple number of different sources (off DVD's or maybe Blue-Ray) and produce a single video from those sources (say each video has its own quarter of the screen), which editing tool(s) would be best to perform these tasks? Software must be PC. By best, I mean: * relatively simple to learn, * open source, or relatively inexpensive * produces good quality, quad-screen videos in high enough resolution to look good on typical home televisions, not just computer screens. *Makes it easy to add your own music tracks or soundtrack, or it can use audio from any of the 4 videos as well, preferably both.

Not Getting Famous on YouTube

tmcw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:55 -0800

I have a song I composed / recorded / etc. I'd like to make simple video by cutting together fragments of public-domain films with this song. I have a MacBook. How to get to point B? iMovie is crashing on every import. iMovie seems to crash every time I open the "Import Movie" dialog. Not a sign of quality software.

I don't want to spend much/any money on this. I've tried writing a quick app in Processing.org to do this, but the movies I'm working with are 100-200MB mpg files, and that fills up Java's heap very, very quickly - I can't imagine throwing FFT analysis on top of that.

Are there are any open-source or cheap applications that allow fairly basic video editing capabilities like this? Anything possibly designed for VJs or very nonlinear editing like this will be? I'm a little miffed that there hasn't been an obvious, slick answer to this like there has been for 99% of my mac artsy-software needs.

Thanks for any help!

Linux-really-tricky?

tmcw — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:46:57 -0800

What's the deal with linux-rt? I know that it's Linux with realtime extensions, and that it's recommended for low-latency audio editing. I'm planning on doing some recording for a while (hopefully with something better than my built-in mic) and I'm wondering if apt-get install linux-rt will be more trouble than it's worth. And fyi: Using a Thinkpad T42 w/ Ubuntu 7.10

I want a kik-ass MIDI suite. And a pony.

lekvar — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:31:52 -0800

I need new MIDI sequencing/editing software. Something as close to Logic as possible, given that I'm using a Windows PC at home. First off, no, for various reasons I can't get a Mac and load Logic onto it, as much as I might like to.

My first MIDI sequencing/editing experience was on Logic 4 back around '99-'00, and I really liked it. It was fast, powerful, and at least somewhat intuitive.

Fast-forward to today and I'm struggling with the limitations of Acid Pro 5, which treats MIDI as an afterthought. Good VST support, but I need to be able to use external modules and keyboards, and Acid doesn't like that. The editing functionality is pretty meagre too.

I can upgrade to Acid Pro 6 for about $200. It has improved MIDI support and editing, but it's still barely as good as Logic was back at the turn of the millennium.

Also in tis price range is M-Audio Pro Tools. I have little experience with Pro Tools. My major impression is that it's mainly geared towards audio recording. That's good, I do that too, but I'm unclear as to Pro Tools' MIDI functionality.

I hear a lot of good things about Cubase too, but I've never used it. How does it compare?

To sum up, I'm looking for a recording suite that:

Has robust MIDI support. Editing and sequencing of VSTI synths and external hardware.

Multitrack audio recording capapbilities.

ReWire compatability

A price tag that isn't above $500. Around $200 would be perfect, but I know that may not be realistic.

So, Hivemind, sell me on some kick-ass MIDI software!

Editing MPEG1 audio in place

Gyan — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:23:31 -0800

How do I edit audio in a MPEG1 without going through a video re-encode? I assembled a 6-min film for a friend in Premiere 7 and outputted to MPEG1. Now, he needs to mute 3 seconds of audio but I don't have the original raw DV footage as it took up much needed space. Can I work on the MPEG1 without any video degradation? What tools can I use? Just in case, what about the same situation for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Part 2?

I don't even know which "For Dummies" title I need

thehmsbeagle — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:48:15 -0800

I need to know how to do some exceedingly simple animation. Problem: I'm an idiot. This is what I would like to be able to do: take line drawings, somehow magically import them into a computer (this may be that "scanning" I've heard so much about), combine the line drawings at various glacial speeds in slideshow-like fashion, and then put an audio track under the whole thing. Only, not like a slideshow. Like extremely simplistic stop-motion animation. (I think. That may or may not be the right term. Argh.)

Put another way - and perhaps I should have led with this? - I more or less need to be able to illustrate a podcast and turn it into a short little video.

It's ridiculous that I don't know and can't figure out how to do this. But I'm stuck. I don't even know what to search for, or what kind of book I should be looking for. Or what kind of expert to ask for advice. Let alone what kind of software one might need for such a project.

Help? Please to assume that my baseline of knowledge about these things hovers somewhere around that of a kindergartener. You know, in case you couldn't tell.

Removing video cross-feed from the audio mix

Pronoiac — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:58:46 -0800

At a recent lecture, I taped from the soundboard & from some microphones. I meant to record these to separate channels, but I accidentally left it in low quality mode - mono, 22khz. It sounds like video got thrown into the mix. Can I salvage the audio? This three-minute excerpt is all I really need. It's from a backup recording device, & this is the only gap from the main recording.

Want a quick listen? Here's an mp3 (1.4 meg), with frequencies below ~100hz & above ~5khz removed to try to be nicer to speakers.

If you're brave, here's the original, uncompressed, excerpt. (8 meg wav file)

I need an easier way of removing the audio track from MPEG2 files.

nickerbocker — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:20:42 -0800

Is there an easy way to remove the audio track from MPEG2 files? I use a Sony HDD based camcorder that generates files w/ a .MPG extension. The files themselves are actually MPEG2 (not MPEG1) files. More often than not, I need to remove the audio track from these files. Currently, the only tool I have to do that is Pinnacle Studio 10 which is a bit of a beast of a program that takes a few steps and a re-encode of the file to get to audio-free MPEG2 files.

Does anyone know of a simpler tool that will do this? Preferably one that does not require a re-encode of the video files. Thanks for your input.

Help me with my VirtualFlub? Can't process AVI's with MP3 audio tracks

baylink — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:44:33 -0800

How do I convince VirtualDub to work on AVI's with MP3 audio? Alas, not too much I've googled around a lot, I've got LAME 3.96.1's encoder DLL and .ACM file in WINNT/system32 on my Windows 2000 box, and I've got VirtualDub (1.6.15) in full reprocess mode on the audio side, and yet, I still get the "No audio descompressor could be found to decompress the source audio format. (source format tag: 0055)" error as soon as I try to play or save out the clip I want. (The typo in that error message brought to you by Microsoft, who won't let me copy and paste it...)

I can navigate the file by frame or keyframe just fine, as long as I don't try to play audio. I've checked the few pertinent previously's, and like those people and a bunch on some web fora, I can play these clips with, say, mplayer...

I'm sort of out of good ideas.

I'm clipping video for a fan vid, and I have something like 38 x 42 minutes of MPEG2 to go through; I'd *really, a lot* like to avoid solutions that involve stripping the audio out, recompressing it, and relaying it; this *has* to be possible, right?

The first cut is the deepest. . .

chicken nuglet — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 10:01:02 -0800

I have a .wmv recording that I would like to edit. I just need to clip off the first 45 seconds and last 30 seconds. How can I do that?

How to split up a large audio file in Windows?

matildaben — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 16:40:43 -0800

What is the easiest way to split up a large audio file into shorter segments on Windows? I have a large WAV file and I would like to automatically split it up into smaller segments based on where the silent areas are (and also possibly edit the auto-selected division points based on manual input). Presume I know next to nothing about audio editing and baby-talk me through it, please. Can I do this in Audacity or do I need an additional tool or plug-in? It should be free as I probably am not going to do this very often.

mac audio editing program

benkolb — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:47:58 -0800

does anyone know of a good audio editing program for the mac? i just need to do some basic splicing. also i need there to be a free trial or freeware

Which laptop is the best for multi-track audio editing?

punkbitch — Sun, 13 Feb 2005 13:00:10 -0800

Laptops (again). I want to buy one. Specifically, I want to know which laptop is the best for multi-track audio editing (and why). Aditionally, which software should I use if I want to create stories "pro" enough for radio journalism? Do I have to get pricey studio stuff? Finally, when people out there submit already-produced audio stories to say BBC, NPR, PRI, Pacifica . . . is there a simple way to send the files via email? What kind of file would it have to be?

Windows Freeware/Shareware to Rip DVD Audio?

bkdelong — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:01:12 -0800

How can I dump DVD audio to make it editable? I have looked everywhere for an accurate soundtrack of White Christmas however the closest one I've found had the songs recorded after the movie ran - and is not the exact same dubbing as used in the movie. [+] ...so I'm looking to take the DVD and dump the audio, editing it into MP3s, and making a CD for myself. That way I can include misc tracks that lead up to the songs.

Any suggestions for free/shareware to use and the process of using it to get desired results?

Thanks in advance.

Audio editing on OSX

Dreama — Tue, 19 Oct 2004 21:00:39 -0800

Audio editing on OSX: I have a 30 minute long .aiff file that I'd like to break into separate tracks and convert to mp3. I know that iTunes can handle the .aiff -> .mp3 conversion. Is there software that can do the 1 .aiff -> 6 .aiffs part? Or one that can do 1 .mp3 -> 6 .mp3s if I do the conversion first?

Is there a way to separate music from sound effects and dialogue in a film, starting with a DVD?

scarabic — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 20:58:48 -0800

I watched Donnie Darko again recently and I thought it was a damn shame that Tortoise didn't do the soundtrack. I became ever-so-briefly obsessed with the idea of replacing some of the musical sequences with Tortoise music, but I wouldn't know how to do this without completely removing any sound effects and dialogue from those scenes. Is there a way for a non-audio-geek to separate these audio elements? Assume I'm starting with a DVD.