A Not-So-Brief Audio Rant

VidE · Post by **VidE** » Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:46 pm

Trying to 'pad' the beginning of a VO file so it starts at the right time in AS. Needed to noise reduce it in Apples' Soundtrack Pro. But apparently SndtrkPro doesn't export .aiff files that are understandable by AS Pro.

After 25 tries or so I exported as a .wav to Audacity, a new program to me, but hey, I've already spent 2 hours trying to figure why I can't hear anything in AS Pro from SoundTrack Pro. (Except for the original, unpadded file.) It appears that even though I moved the clip 3.3 secs to the right in the Audacity timeline, thus giving me my proper timing for AS Pro, Audacity doesn't seem to want to export that silent part of its timeline-my VO dialogue starts right at the beginning in the exported wave file.

Mostly I'm irritated at Apple, Soundtrack Pro should be able to export files understood by any program, but nooo...they got fancy.

OK, Rant Over.

mooncaine · Post by **mooncaine** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 1:46 am

Ideas, based an Audacity Version 1.3.2 beta that I'm using:

Use Audacity's Generate Silence feature, on the Generate menu, where it lets you type in the time you need. You can even set it to hh:mm:ss before you type in your numbers, using the pull-down .... or just find some silence in your audio file, and paste that -- probably easier and quicker.

When you export, use Export as Wav, not Export Selected.

Let us know if you got the prob solved, and what worked, OK?

VidE · Post by **VidE** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 4:11 am

Thanks for the audacity tip. Being a long time Adobe guy, I'm new to parts of the FCP suite. Apparenty, exporting a 'mix' out of Soundtrack Pro gives you not just the audio, but some other file info for FCP, though it's still called an .aif file. Once I exported using Compressor, AS Pro understood the audio file just fine.

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:52 pm

Can't you chance the preferences somewhere so it actually exports a real .aiff file? Because there's two different types of lossless compression formats: linear bit information, which is just the the audio information such as hertz and bit-rate; and then there's Broadcast, which is the same as before expect it also exports timeline information (stuff like frame information, midi sync... typical timeline stuff really).

Surely there's an option to turn this information off?

I don't use soundtrack pro, but can you export using quicktime conversion? because then you'll be able to export a wav/aiff file that works.

See what happens, i'll be interested to know, because i've been tempted to use STP as my audio editor, but heard things (such as this) about it....