How to edit where Audio is involved? Any recommended workflow

[tsk1979]

Hi everyone.
I am back with another question(hopefully its not a "too newbie" question.

I shoot still frames (hundreds of frames), and make timelapse sequences.

A typical sequence is about 15-20 seconds(some may be slightly longer).

Many of these are assembled in an avisynth script.
It may read like this

a1=ImageSource ("sequence 1")
a2=ImageSource ("sequence 2")
.
.

Dissolve(a1,a2,... ) and so on


Next comes music. Using Avidemux the Virtualdub AVI is overlayed with music, because Timelapse without music is kind of Meh.

Typically, many of us amateurs just use a music which goes with the timelapse theme. As in for landscapes, chose something "Cinematic epic". For night sky, choose something "Cinematic mystical",

Now, music being music, has various parts, cresendo's, change in notes and all, and if you can align your change of sequence with change of notes, the impact is much greater

In search of this greater impact I tried doing so, and here is the result
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l54vPtF_7yI

The process for painful.
First I gathered all sequences, and found out effective length when using Dissolve. I assume if I dissolve, I lose 10 frame of length per clip.

I open music in Audacity, and take a not of the times where music changes. Now, I have the freedom to slow down or speed up by less than 1% as it does not make the music sound weird.

With the note on times, and the times of each sequence known, I go for the most optimum order. Its more like the traveling salesman problem.

I assume real professional editors have some sort of audio video console when they go ahead and pad the frames to achieve better alignment, but then, it is not non linear editing?

What to do when you have avisynth and audacity. How do you guys do it. What is the open source workflow for video/audio alignment.

Any tips would be appreciated

[raffriff42]

Excellent video. I would stay with Audacity, although you could make a nonlinear rough cut in Avisynth first, then go into Audacity and fix any harsh edits, manipulate dynamic range etc; might save some time. Do you use label tracks (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/label_tracks.html) to mark important cues? I've recently come to appreciate their usefulness.

[tsk1979]

Excellent video. I would stay with Audacity, although you could make a nonlinear rough cut in Avisynth first, then go into Audacity and fix any harsh edits, manipulate dynamic range etc; might save some time. Do you use label tracks (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/label_tracks.html) to mark important cues? I've recently come to appreciate their usefulness.

Thanks for this. I had no idea about label tracks. This is something I need to use!

[johnmeyer]

I strongly recommend using a decent NLE. I use Vegas. It has a great advantage for videos like yours, for two reasons: it lets you directly import image sequences (i.e., a series of stills); and it was originally an audio editor, so it lets you do all sorts of things with audio.

I am always amazed by how often people use AVISynth for things that could be done so much more easily, and with much greater artistic freedom, if they would just use an NLE.

[edit] BTW, I too do a lot of time lapse. They are trivial to do in Vegas:

Carmel Valley Road at 250 mph (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ4UNlQPXKQ)

Time-lapse of the Carmel Soberanes Fire in Garrapata State Park (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_h67zCfY9E)

[tsk1979]

How much does Sony Vegas cost? Is there a "home edition" or something? Any links?

[StainlessS]

How much does Sony Vegas cost? Is there a "home edition" or something? Any links?

(Google is your friend) Price list:- http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/buy/software

There is a home version of video editor, but by name "Movie Studio", perhaps deeper investigation would tell if sufficient.

[tsk1979]

Whoa, that is expensive. I guess I will stick to Audacity and Avisynth, till I start getting millions of views(ha ha)

[MWilson]

And then there's Adobe Creative Cloud, which is a monthly subscription. I use it and love it, and what you described is a very simple task with Premiere Pro. But it's just as simple with Vegas. From the workflow you describe, it would seem you have a lot of patience! That's wonderful, but it could be easier...

[tsk1979]

And then there's Adobe Creative Cloud, which is a monthly subscription. I use it and love it, and what you described is a very simple task with Premiere Pro. But it's just as simple with Vegas. From the workflow you describe, it would seem you have a lot of patience! That's wonderful, but it could be easier...

The first time I did it with Avisynth, it took me ages, however after 2-3 timelapse videos, with scripts ready, not it does not take so long.
Infact, shooting take much longer. 10 seconds of Milky way footage means over 1 hour of shooting the night sky.

I am looking at DaVinci resolve too.

That said, my love for AviSynth is in part due to SVPflow motion interpolation tools, which means I can do 12FSP to 24FPS without any jerky motion. Its pure magic.

Would like to keep sing Avisynth as much as possible, though realistically I feel that now I have to go two step.

Use Avisynth to generate blank video without audio, and then use some other tool for AV syncing.
Blender looks promising though!

[johnmeyer]

Movie Studio is expensive? It's $49 retail, less if you shop, have someone in school, or get some other deal. If you have money to pay for an Internet connection, you can pay for this program.

As someone who has been in the software business since 1981, I expect to pay money for good software because programmers, support people, and the rest of the team have to eat. For some types of software there is good stuff that people make available out of the goodness of their hearts, but the really good stuff (like iZotope RX for audio restoration) -- especially for complex activities like a full-fledged NLE -- usually beats the pants off the free stuff.

My final point is one of productivity. If you are doing a single project, then I can fully understand not wanting to pay much. However, if you are doing this for a living, or spending hours of your life working on a few projects, having something that is fully featured, well-supported, and built by a team can save you hours -- and perhaps days -- of time. I own Sony (now Magix) Vegas because it supports scripting of repetitive operations. I have written several hundred small scripts and can, at the push of a button, do work that would have taken me several hours (by doing the same thing to several thousand events in a big five-camera shot).

What is your time worth?

[tsk1979]

Movie Studio is expensive? It's $49 retail, less if you shop, have someone in school, or get some other deal. If you have money to pay for an Internet connection, you can pay for this program.

As someone who has been in the software business since 1981, I expect to pay money for good software because programmers, support people, and the rest of the team have to eat. For some types of software there is good stuff that people make available out of the goodness of their hearts, but the really good stuff (like iZotope RX for audio restoration) -- especially for complex activities like a full-fledged NLE -- usually beats the pants off the free stuff.

My final point is one of productivity. If you are doing a single project, then I can fully understand not wanting to pay much. However, if you are doing this for a living, or spending hours of your life working on a few projects, having something that is fully featured, well-supported, and built by a team can save you hours -- and perhaps days -- of time. I own Sony (now Magix) Vegas because it supports scripting of repetitive operations. I have written several hundred small scripts and can, at the push of a button, do work that would have taken me several hours (by doing the same thing to several thousand events in a big five-camera shot).

What is your time worth?

49$?
Oh crap. I have been thinking its around 199$ or something.
If you think about PPP, its like buying a 1000$ software in USA. But 49$ is about 250$ equivalent, so its still kind of okay.

[johnmeyer]

If you think about PPP, its like buying a 1000$ software in USA. But 49$ is about 250$ equivalent, so its still kind of okay.Despite my support for commercial software (expressed in my previous post), I detest the subscription model. The problem is one of contracts and promises. When you buy (technically, you license) software, you know what you are getting before you pay your money. If you don't like the next upgrade, you don't have to buy it, and you can continue to use the old software without paying another cent.

By contrast, these subscription models put the company's hand in your pocket every month, and if their next release is a stinker, you still have to keep paying, forever, to keep using the old software, because as soon as you stop paying, they deactivate the software.

Thus, if the company is like Sony (now Magix) who has not had a decent upgrade to Vegas in years, I would have spent many times more money, just to keep using an old version.

Unfortunately, most software, from Windows on down, doesn't really get enhanced much any more. The good programmers have long since gone elsewhere (doing iOS and Android projects, and other things). Windows hasn't added any signficant functionality since XP, over a decade ago.

[tsk1979]

Despite my support for commercial software (expressed in my previous post), I detest the subscription model. The problem is one of contracts and promises. When you buy (technically, you license) software, you know what you are getting before you pay your money. If you don't like the next upgrade, you don't have to buy it, and you can continue to use the old software without paying another cent.

By contrast, these subscription models put the company's hand in your pocket every month, and if their next release is a stinker, you still have to keep paying, forever, to keep using the old software, because as soon as you stop paying, they deactivate the software.

Thus, if the company is like Sony (now Magix) who has not had a decent upgrade to Vegas in years, I would have spent many times more money, just to keep using an old version.

Unfortunately, most software, from Windows on down, doesn't really get enhanced much any more. The good programmers have long since gone elsewhere (doing iOS and Android projects, and other things). Windows hasn't added any signficant functionality since XP, over a decade ago.

The only subscription model I have is lightroom, because there is no much of a choice in India. at 8$/month, its quite affordable though.

I prefer open source wherever I can, but I guess my next project will be sony vegas based if I can get the hang of it.

Unlike blender, the tutorial support for this is a little thin.

[johnmeyer]

The only subscription model I have is lightroom, because there is no much of a choice in India. at 8$/month, its quite affordable though.That is too bad. Here in the USA I was able to purchase a license to Lightroom, and won't have to pay any more.

It is, for those who haven't used it, a really good program, especially if you shoot RAW still photos.