Audio Editor Olympics 2024: Who Wins The Gold?
This week Audacity, the free digital audio workstation, released some major upgrades that are quite frankly, awesome.
Over time they have been adding features like Real Time effects which means you can play your audio while adjusting the effect then apply those changes when you are happy.
That’s been all well and good but this week they released a totally revamped Compressor and Limiter.
Both modules now allow you to use them as real time effects but more importantly they have added a visual reference to those interfaces.
What that means is that you can apply Compression or Limiter settings as the track is playing and actually see graphically what the results of those effects are.
Having said all of that be warned that both the new Compressor and Limiter have had more professional settings added to what were quite basic ones.
In light of that check the video below to get a grip on all the new stuff.
Still my favourite audio editor.
Filmora’s Auto Reframe and Speed Ramping
OK so this is just a short video demo of the Filmora Auto Reframe feature but I thought it was worth mentioning again.
Part of my workflow after I have produced long form video in 16:9 aspect ratio is to go back into the project and produce a series of shorts in 9:16.
This usually involves the original creator isolating those sections of the longer video they want converted and giving me a list.
Generally speaking the way I do it is to use the Filmora Auto Reframe feature to process the entire video into 9:16 because it is just a point and click action.
It almost always gets the reframing right and even of it misses a little, correction is easy.
Then I use the generated .srt file of the subtitles and provide it to the creator so they can mark the timings on the sections they want produced as short form content.
I export them as individual clips and I am done.
After that all I have to do is add captions or effects and we are good to go.
The Science of Sound in Film — Film Sound Recording for Beginners
Even though it is an old adage and well worn by this time the rule is that, “the most important part of video is audio.”
There, I said it… again!
I remember very well the first time I purchased a video camcorder back in the day and gleefully ran about shooting footage of my wife and son on a holiday driving them crazy in the process!
When we returned home I just as gleefully transferred the footage to my computer and without much thought burned a DVD.
I then threw it into the player, fired it all up and within seconds my jaw hit the floor in horror.
The images I was seeing were awesome but the audio was horrendous and it was then that I realized just how important audio is.
In the video below there is a great deal of professional level information on the subject of recording audio in the filmmaking process.
I am not so delusional as to think I am going to be operating at this level!
I also know that there is important and actionable information for me in it even if some of it is going to be out of my reach.
Best AI Voice Generator in 2024 – Top 2 Tools
So if you are anything like me then you probably have a strong aversion to both appearing in front of the camera or even being heard behind it!
I still hate the sound of my own voice and when you throw in the added stress of recording a voiceover then you can just forget the whole thing.
The A.I. generated speech space is something I have ben keeping an eye on over the past year or so and to me it still has a long way to go.
Even though those generated voices are sounding more and more natural as we progress, they still sound fake to me.
In the video below you can see two of the better ones on the market but for me the Speechify one is not really all that interesting.
However the Elevenlabs service has something that I think holds great promise.
It has a voice cloning system that works by having you provide the A.I. engine with at least 30 minutes of recordings of your own voice.
From that the A.I. engine “learns” what your voice sounds like, what your speech pattens are and much more.
From that it can then clone your voice to narrate anything you write for it.
How to Remove Background Audio Noise from an Interview Video
Way back at the dawn of time… or at least five years ago when video editing software was really getting up to speed the one downside for all the available editors was audio.
Most of them consisted of a volume control and that was about it!
Eventually CyberLink started adding a standalone audio editor with their PowerDirector packages to kind of compensate for that and at the time it put them ahead of the pack.
Finally around version 17 or 18 they dropped that standalone software and came out with a fully formed audio editing module within PowerDirector itself.
Since then the audio features have gone from strength to strength.
More recently they have been adding in A.I. driven features some of which are really, really good.
One of those features is the A.I. audio enhancement tool which you can use to clean up dialogue very effectively.
You can see it in action in the video below.
Top 5 Video-Editing Software You Should Be Using Right Now
OK so fair warning here!
On the surface the video below is a piece of shameless self promotion by the guys at Movavi on choosing their video editing software.
However, if we put that aside it does have some great info to clarify why you may or may not want to choose an editor from a little further up the food chain.
The opening example they give is the free version of DaVinci Resolve.
Let’s face it, Resolve is an absolute beast for video editing with pro level effects, compositing and color manipulation.
That of course begs the question why would you go with anything else?
The answer to that is that Resolve is an absolute beast for video editing with pro level effects, compositing and color manipulation!
Because Resolve has been developed at a fully pro level it is inherently designed to deal with industrial strength video projects at the Hollywood blockbuster level.
In order to accommodate projects like that there has to be a very complex assortment of adjustments available to editors so they can pull off the stuff you see in those movies.
You and I on the other hand are never going to get down to that level of granular control for the projects we are creating.
A good example of this is keying out a green screen.
In something like the Movavi editor you basically select the effect, point and click and the job is done.
In Resolve it is at least a four step process plus you have to work your way through a myriad of controls and settings to get to the same point.
Check out the video below to see what I mean.
If you want to Become a Successful YouTuber in 2024, I’d do this…
Over the years since the introduction of Youtube as a service online probably the one thing that has remained constant is that it is always changing.
Up until Google bought it in 2021 the platform was evolving in a way that was predominantly driven by user preferences and after that it has been changing based on user response.
Either way your grandma’s YouTube is not the one we have today!
So as that evolution has… well.. evolved, so too have the strategies needed for success.
Starting a YouTube channel today looks nothing like it did five years ago and given the size and competition on the platform, you really need to know what you should be doing to achieve success.
Jeven Dovey has a very successful and longstanding YouTube channel and from my perspective is someone well worth listening to on this subject.
Here’s his latest rundown on the six step he thinks that will pave the way to your success.
It’s a 20 minute video so grab a coffee and see what you think.
The #1 Secret to Improve Your Visuals in DaVinci Resolve!
If you are going to use DaVinci Resolve for anything then you might as well learn how to take advantage of at least some of the advanced features.
Even if your requirements are modest you can still pull off some simple tasks to really set your projects apart.
Of course doing that means you may have to go into the Fusion Page but hey! It’s not as horrifying as it first seems!
In the video below Casey demonstrates a technique for adding background movement to a clip and it involves using a few tools like masking that once learned will serve you well.
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