Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

Tools/Workflow Philosophy: Best-of-Breed rather than Already-Integrated Suite ?

Sunday, July 14th, 2013

I am becoming less enthusiastic about the “Integrated Suite” philosophy or perhaps actuality of Adobe CS6, in favour of a “Best of Breed” approach, where I cherry-pick the best tool for each kind of job and then design or discover my own workflow for integrating them.

I reached this conclusion from the following experiences:

  • As regards editing itself:
    • For general A & B Roll” editing, I find Premiere is ok, though for improved usability, I’d prefer a Tag-based system (as in FCPX) to the traditional Bin-based one (as in Adobe & Avid).
    • For MultiCam editing, even in Adobe CS6, I find Premiere does the job but I find it clunky, frustrating and limited at times, like it has not yet been fully “baked” (though “getting there”)…
      • e.g. In the two such projects I have so far worked on, there has been an annoying 2-second delay from pressing the spacebar to actual playing.  Maybe some kind of buffering?
        • I found a setting for “Pre-roll” in the Preferences but altering it made no difference.
        • The following http://forums.adobe.com/thread/387405 suggested that the embedded audio (in video file) could be the issue, the solution to which was to relink to a WAV file.
      • e.g. It brings up a separate MultiCam Monitor instead of using the Source Monitor.  You have to remember to activate this each time before playing.  I find that a nuisance (and time-waster when I forget) especially because I tend to alternate multicam editing as such with tweaking the cut timings until they feel right, and sometimes that can only be done in retrospect.
      • e.g. When you stop playing in multicam mode, it places a cut (that you probably didn’t want) wherever the playhead happens to be at the time.
        • I see I am not the only one complaining about this: “ExactImage, Sep 15, 2012″at  http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1069438
          • A workaround given at that link: Before to stop the playback press the key 0 (zero) of the keyboard and then you can stop the play (with the Space bar) without the cut in the timeline.” Duh!
      • e.g Markers are really useful in multicam, but while Premiere’s are steadily improving with product version, they are way clunkier and more limited than those in Sony Vegas:
        • e.g. I put a marker at the start of an interesting section (of timeline), I select it and define its duration to be non-zero, so I can stretch it out to mark a region, then I drag the playhead to the find the end of that interest, I try to drag the marker’s right-hand end up to the playhead, but instead the playhead gets reset to the start of marker.  Duh!
        • e.g. Markers cannot be promoted from clip (media or nested Sequence) to current Sequence.
        • e.g. waveform displays (assuming you can get them to appear in the first place) go blank when sliding clips around.  Really annoying when trying to synchronise to music etc.
    • …so I will explore other options for multicam:
      • In the past (as will be apparent from the above) I have had more joy, as regards Multicam, with Sony Vegas.
      • I will check out what people think of other NLEs as potential “Best of Breed” for multicam editing.  Thus far I have heard (from web-search) good things about FCPX and LightWorks.
  • For audio enhancement, such as denoising, I find iZotope’s RX2 far superior to the one in Adobe Audition.
  • For making a DVD:
    • I find Encore to be handy in some ways but limited and clunky in others.
      • e.g. can’t replace an asset with one of a different type (e.g. [.avi] and [.mpg]).
    • The advantage of using an integrated DVD-Maker such as Encore might be limited:
      • e.g. many people are not using the direct link, but exporting from Premiere/AME, in which case any third-party DVD Builder could be used.
      • The only significant advantage I am aware of is the ability to define Scene/Chapter points in Premiere and have them recognised/used by Encore.
        • But maybe some third-party DVD Builder applications can also recognise these?  Or can be configured/helped to do so?  Worth finding out.
    • ?

Training: Den Lennie’s “Music Video” Experience

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

I attended, working on one of the camera units.  Had a great time, learnt lots, at all sorts of levels.  Even how to make good use of the Movie Slate application on my iPhone!  Link: http://www.fstopacademy.com/

Mac: GarageBand: First Impressions

Monday, September 26th, 2011

I have never used Garage Band before, so had a play with it to see whether it could be useful as an audio editing/processing tool.  The answer is a resounding “yes” – despite its “domestic” looking interface.   Not only that, it can edit videos, leaving the video stream alone and affecting only the audio stream.  Just drag a file into it – I tried with a M4A audio file out of iPhone’s Voice Memo.  Some features I discovered were:

  • Basic cutting
  • Envelope shaping (on keyframes)
  • Effects such as:
    • Dynamic range compression
    • Reverb etc.
    • An “Autotune” pitch-stabiliser

“Whatever gets the job done”…

Music: “Flowers Are Red” by Harry Chapin

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

A poignant song from the past:

  • I wondered for years about a song I recollected (not completely accurately) I thought was maybe from the offshore pirate radio “graveyard shift” shows of the early 1970’s. In that song, as I remembered it, a plaintive little girl sang something like “The sky is green and the grass is gold” (or something broadly along those lines). It was about how she saw the world (through individuality, not hallucinogens!). Hauntingly-tragically, by the end of the song, her teachers had finally brainwashed her to sing the “correct” colours, which she obediently did, but now devoid of spirit.
  • Thanks to a reply at the Radio Caroline Q/A Forum, I now know it was: Flowers Are Red by Harry Chapin from his album: Living Room Suite, 1978 (that’ll be the Radio Caroline on “319m” period then).
  • Lyrics are at http://www.lyricsdepot.com/harry-chapin/flowers-are-red.html. Searching around YouTube I found it, though I much prefer his older, simpler version  to his more recent and adorned arrangements, let alone someone else’s acapella version I came across.  And it was about a little boy being criticised for his choice of flower-drawing colours.  Apart from that I got it right.
  • Now I’m going to adapt it to perform with my girlfriend (she sings, I pluck  guitar).

Avid MC: Update 5.0-5.5: SmartSound Sonicfire Pro

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Installed SmartSound Sonicfire (“The Music Score for Your Vision”). Wanted to install version 5.5.2, from Avid MC 5.0 install disk (it is unchanged in MC 5.5), but the installation hung (problem with disk or at least incompatible with my MBP’s reader?).  No download was available for this product on my Avid Download account, while on the SmartSound website, only the latest version (update), namely 5.7.0 (on Windows, else 5.7.1 for Mac) could be downloaded.  However that downloaded and installed fine.  The Sonicfire app also pulled in some additions to its sound library, initially from the web and subsequently from SmartSound’s Core Sessions disk (which was fully readable); spontaneously once I inserted it.

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Royalty-Free Music SItes

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Folk Music Sessions around Hampshire UK

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

http://www.sefan.org.uk/Regular_Listings.html

Nokia N95 8GB Audio Recorder – Details

Friday, August 27th, 2010

 On the Nokia N95 8GB, where is audio recorder and where does it store?

  • [Applications > Media > Voice Recorder]

Settings:

  • Recording Quality = “High”, Memory in use = “Mass memory” (as opposed to “Phone memory”)

Save-Location:

  • [\\Memory card\Sounds\Digital]
  • (as opposed e.g. to [\\Memory card\Sounds\Sound clips])

Ubuntu Studio

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009

Just wondered what was happening video-wise in the linux world, for example how was Cinelerra going.  Last I looked (months or a year ago) it was possible to get Cinelerra working under Ubuntu.  So when I came across UbuntuStudio, I thought it was worth checking out, just to keep abreast of developments.

 

However it appears not to include Cinelerra, instead OpenMovieEditor http://www.openmovieeditor.org/

 

From [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList]: 

Description:

 

  • openmovieeditor – Video editor
  • ffmpeg – Multimedia player, server and encoder
  • ffmpeg2theora – Theora video encoder using ffmpeg
  • kino – A non-linear editor for Digital Video data
  • stopmotion – A program for creating stop motion animation.
  • dvgrab – Grab digital video data via IEEE1394 links

It is only available as an Installer, not LiveCD [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=703822] . For more info:

 

“Carry On” Soundtracks – at Amazon

Monday, July 6th, 2009

http://www.soundtrack.net/albums/database/?id=3603