Which video and audio software should I use with Debut

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:47 am

I started another thread looking for help on choosing between Anime Studio Debut and Pro. Based on the comments and being a extreme beginner, I am going with Debut.

I now need some input regarding video editing and audio recording software to use in conjunction with Debut.

On the previous post, Sony Vegas, Ulead Videostudio and Magix were mentioned for video editing software. A recommendation was made for Mixcraft5 for audio software.

I am using Windows XP as my operating system. I am a complete beginner. I have never used animation software before, I have never used video editing software before and it has been close to 10 years since I have used audio recording software.

Here is what I'm looking for:

-Learning curve is not too steep. Obviously, a learning curve is going to be there for any new software but the easier the better. That means Sony Vegas is out.
-Under $100 for video editing software and under $75 for audio (or free, like Audacity)
-Something that is stable and won't consistently crash my computer
-Has a large selection of quality effects, transitions, etc.

I will be using the audio recording software for voice overs, sound effects and soundtracks. Magix, which was recommended, also has the capacity to create your own music with loops and a midi sequencer. This might be something I would experiment with in the future.

Video editing software will be used to stitch together the scenes, import the audio files and experiment with effects, zooms, pans, transitions, etc.

I have looked over the reviews on amazon and it just makes my head spin. Some complain of crashes, others complain that the learning curve is too steep (Sony Vegas) and others say a certain software is not powerful enough.

So for those of you who started out not knowing much about animation and using video editing and audio recording software, which products did you find worked well for you?

94253 · Post by **94253** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 11:04 am

I used to do a lot of audio work. Magix is ok but Sony's Acid is far superior and has a similar learning curve, with only a slightly higher price tag. (There is also a free version at acidplanet.com.) Cubase is even greater but three times the price. Go with Sony if you want to create your soundtracks from scratch. You won't be disappointed.

If you don't want to build your own music, I recommend Audacity. Audacity is simple, free, and has an infinite number of great plug-ins. I clean all voice recordings in Audacity so my voice actors all sound like they're in the same room, even if none used professional mics.

Video editing software for Windows? Give up now so you won't be disappointed! I understand you want something beginner-friendly. Use Windows Movie Maker (which you have already) to get used to the concept & workflow. WMM can do everything you described as your criteria. Pinnacle Studio is ok but WMM now has all the same features & is more stable. Stay away from Adobe. Their stuff is overpriced & underpowered, same stability issues as Pinnacle, and has the steepest learning curve. If you want to use your video software for anything remotely advanced, there is no good Windows option. The aforementioned stability issues are common to most Windows video editors. If you're serious about video editing, learn Final Cut. If you can't afford it & want something you won't have to learn, WMM is honestly your best bet.

Good luck to you! I hope my input is helpful.

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:17 pm

Audacity is exactly what I'm looking for . You mentioned plug-ins (which I wasn't aware of) and I did a search and they have loops, sound effects, vocal effects, etc. Looks like I could create all types of different voices with that software.

So I've found the audio software, now the final piece is video editing software.

Corel VideoStudio Pro is out because too many reviewers on amazon complained of it crashing.

Anyone using a Windows based video editing software they would like to recommend?

One thing I failed to mention is that I also use Ubuntu (Linux) but since Anime Studio doesn't work in Linux and neither does my Yeti usb microphone, all of that work would have to be done in Windows.

Would another option be to transfer everything into a Linux video editing software? Perhaps saving everything onto an external hard drive that can be switched out?

I know there are a few open source Linux video editing software titles but I don't know how good they are. Anyone use Openshot, Kdenlive, LiVES or Kino?

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 3:58 pm

I know this is bad and you all seen it before but it was my 1st ever animation done with the tools the poster is thinking about.

It was all drawn and animated in AS Debut 6.
Audacity to alter my voice (before I knew how to really use it right.)
I would get the new beta version of Audacity because it has better noise removal without making your voice sound like a robot.
And Windows Movie maker to bring the scenes together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXQBgEOVV6c

I have moved on to AS 7 Pro now and I use Sony Vegas for editing and I still use Audacity to cut and alter sounds but I arrange them in Vegas.

94253 · Post by **94253** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 4:32 pm

bry72 wrote:Looks like I could create all types of different voices with that software.

Absolutely. You will be amazed how much you can change your voice without making it sound odd. I've been involved with many large projects and we were able to give all characters very distinct voices with only a relatively small voice cast.

bry72 wrote:Corel VideoStudio Pro is out because too many reviewers on amazon complained of it crashing.

You will find this complaint about every single video editing software product running on a Windows platform. I am not exaggerating. Every single one has stability problems. It isn't the fault of the video editing software, it is the fault of Microsoft. Windows is a very old idea and Microsoft just keeps adding things onto it instead of stripping it down and or starting a new OS from scratch. (That would be too expensive and time consuming. A labor of love like that is best left for the little guys!) Even if you don't work with High Definition video, the Windows platform will always make you want to throw your PC out a Window when you're working with any substantial amount of video.

Don't spend money on something hoping it will crash less than the simpler alternatives. That is the best advice any of us can give you, considering how your criteria can be met by every Windows video editing program I can think of. If you wanted advanced color correction, chroma keying, masking, or other fun things, that would narrow the list down quite a bit. As you can take care of those effects in AS, you're really just looking for something to sequence your media files.

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 5:50 pm

Well, even the reviews on Microsoft Movie Maker is that it crashes as well. There are other open source alternatives like Avidemux and Videodub. Anyone use these?

It just sucks that I have to revert back to using Windows after using Ubuntu (Linux) for almost a year. Nothing I can do about it as Anime Studio and my Yeti usb microphone only work in Mac and Windows and buying a Mac computer just isn't an option.

Other bad news is that a guy responding on the other thread I started about choosing between Debut and Pro said that you can only have one audio file in Debut. My main reason for choosing Anime Studio was for the bones technique and the lip sync option. That means anything past one character, I would have to manually create all the mouth movements and then sync it to audio in a video editing software. The Pro version may allow for more tracks but it does not offer the "beginner's mode" which is a MUST for me. Man, this is getting frustrating.

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:14 pm

sbtuma,

Just watched your video and have a few questions:

1. Did you create the South park characters from scratch or did you import photos of them and use the bones technique to make them move.

2. How did you create the mouth movements? Did you use the lip sync function or create the movements manually?

3. You mention in the video comments that it took you a month to create that video clip. What does that break down to in hours? 20,30,40, more?

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:41 pm

bry72 wrote:sbtuma,

Just watched your video and have a few questions:

1. Did you create the South park characters from scratch or did you import photos of them and use the bones technique to make them move.

2. How did you create the mouth movements? Did you use the lip sync function or create the movements manually?

3. You mention in the video comments that it took you a month to create that video clip. What does that break down to in hours? 20,30,40, more?

I have a video response to that animation. Click on it.

I drew every thing from scratch nothing was traced either because I was unaware of that technique at the time. The mouths are done with the built in sync that comes with Debut and Pro.

I am very very slow at animating, what takes me a month to do, an actual real animator could do in a week.

I got AS Debut 6 around Christmas 2009 and I had this done around Feb 2010. That is learning the software and making the short at the same time.

I have permission from South Park Studios to sample this for educational purposes but nothing more.

94253 · Post by **94253** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 9:43 pm

bry72 wrote:you can only have one audio file in Debut.

This is where Audacity is especially useful. (Well, Sony's product and others can do this as well...)

If you have multiple characters, sequence all their dialogue in Audacity as separate tracks. You can get the timing perfectly, leaving the proper amount of room between each line. Export only the audio for Character 1, import the audio to Debut, use the lip sync feature, then delete the audio file in Debut. The mouth switch layer will retain its keyframes whether the audio file exists or not. Export Character 2's dialogue and repeat. Once you've sync'd all characters, import all tracks as one file from Audacity and import that one file to Debut. All dialogue will be perfectly in sync and you can add music in whatever crash-prone Windows platform video editor you choose. ;)

Sure it takes a little longer this way than importing all the audio tracks into Debut separately, but it gets the job done and saves you money. If you decide it is worth it to you, you can upgrade from Debut to Pro. I just wanted to point this out to you in case you didn't know this was an option. This is how I did dialogue when I had Debut and I know a few others are doing it this way as well.

I don't have any experience with Linux video editors, so I can be of no help there. I can say, though, that after 11 years in the film industry if I haven't come across one that stands out, you probably aren't going to be too impressed with whatever you find.

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 10:40 pm

94253,

Thank you for posting the "work around" to the one audio file issue in Debut. That gives me hope because I know in the beginning I won't be using anything other than the lip sync function for dialogue.

I know creating mouth movements can be done manually as I've seen a tutorial on youtube. However, since I am so new to all of this, it looked really discouraging. Creating mouth shapes for every type of vocal sound?!? No thanks. At least not at a beginner's level.

"....in whatever crash-prone Windows platform video editor you choose. "

Not funny, 94253.

I'll try and find something. A guy on the other thread has friends who use Linux. I'll see what they say. Worried more about the crashing than anything. Since Windows Movie Maker is such a basic video editor anyway, I'm sure there is a Linux equivalent. Might be a pain the butt transferring between the two systems but if it is something that isn't crashing all the time, it would be worth it, in my opinion.

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sat Feb 05, 2011 11:12 pm

sbtamu,

I'm very impressed that you drew all of those from scratch. They look like the real South Park characters to me. That's why I asked if you imported the characters or not.

I watched your work flow video. Even though this discussion is a departure from my initial quest for video editing software, I am curious about a few things I saw on that video:

1. At one point, you click on the "eyes" drop down and it gave you a few to choose from. My question is, when it comes to having a wide range of emotions, is that something the software generates after you create a character or do you need to create (draw) the various eyes, eyebrows and mouth shapes to get all different kinds of facial expressions?

2. I've never used the software, so pardon this super newbie question. I saw that you were moving the character using the bones technique. I believe in video you use either 24 frames or 30 frames per second. Were you doing each and every frame, or were you creating starting and stopping points for certain movements? It was hard to tell in the video. To me, it looks like you were creating multiple frames rather than the traditional way of frame by frame and small movement by small movement.

3. Again, you say a month but not the total amount of hours. What is encouraging is knowing that time includes you having to learn Anime Studio as well.

4. You say you used Windows Movie Maker to create that video. Did you have any problems with it crashing? What version of Windows are you using and what are your computer specs?

I've got a Toshiba laptop that has 1.70 Ghz and 512 RAM. I am using XP home edition with service pack 3. It looks like I have Windows Movie Maker version 5.1 (or 2.1.4027.0 can't tell which as they both say Windows Movie Maker in front of it). What worries me about all of these Windows based video editing software titles crashing is that I have a 5 year old computer. If they are crashing on newer computers, mine doesn't stand a chance.

94253 · Post by **94253** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 12:57 am

bry72 wrote:it looked really discouraging. Creating mouth shapes for every type of vocal sound?!? No thanks. At least not at a beginner's level.

It really isn't as hard as you think. AS will come with example characters and mouths. You can look through all the shapes and you'll find it can really be simplified further. The layers for O, U, WQ are often repeated, as are the layers for rest and MBP and even sometimes FV. AI (and L which is usually just like AI but slightly smaller), E (and etc which is usually like E but slightly smaller). That is only 4 or 5 noticeably different mouth shapes, and it shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to perfect each.

The detail & precision used for your characters' mouths really will depend on the style of your production. I have a very lifelike sci-fi series where all ten mouth shapes are different, and I need to lip sync manually because the auto sync isn't precise enough. Check out http://fletchercomics.com - every character has the same mouth. The same basic shapes are just repeated. In the end it still looks fine. I have another production similar to Fletcher in which I share simple mouths between characters and use the auto sync. It really depends on what style you're going for, but you have to draw some mouths either way. If you can spare an extra 2 minutes to copy a layer and tweak it a little, you may as well...but you don't have to.

bry72 wrote:Since Windows Movie Maker is such a basic video editor anyway, I'm sure there is a Linux equivalent. Might be a pain the butt transferring between the two systems but if it is something that isn't crashing all the time, it would be worth it, in my opinion.

I wouldn't imagine moving from platform to platform would be too hard. You can store your files on an external drive and just plug it into another machine if needed. I agree it's likely you'll be able to find some Linux equivalent to WMM, and I would suspect the Linux equivalent to be much more stable because UNIX platforms are fabulous like that. :)

bry72 · Post by **bry72** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 1:18 am

I wouldn't imagine moving from platform to platform would be too hard. You can store your files on an external drive and just plug it into another machine if needed. I agree it's likely you'll be able to find some Linux equivalent to WMM, and I would suspect the Linux equivalent to be much more stable because UNIX platforms are fabulous like that.

And I think that is the route I will go. Instead of spending money on a commercial Windows video editor that crashes, I'll buy an external hard drive and use Linux based video editing software. I'll just need to do some research on the Ubuntu forums to see how that works.

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 4:29 am

bry72 wrote:sbtamu,

I'm very impressed that you drew all of those from scratch. They look like the real South Park characters to me. That's why I asked if you imported the characters or not.

I watched your work flow video. Even though this discussion is a departure from my initial quest for video editing software, I am curious about a few things I saw on that video:

1. At one point, you click on the "eyes" drop down and it gave you a few to choose from. My question is, when it comes to having a wide range of emotions, is that something the software generates after you create a character or do you need to create (draw) the various eyes, eyebrows and mouth shapes to get all different kinds of facial expressions?

2. I've never used the software, so pardon this super newbie question. I saw that you were moving the character using the bones technique. I believe in video you use either 24 frames or 30 frames per second. Were you doing each and every frame, or were you creating starting and stopping points for certain movements? It was hard to tell in the video. To me, it looks like you were creating multiple frames rather than the traditional way of frame by frame and small movement by small movement.

3. Again, you say a month but not the total amount of hours. What is encouraging is knowing that time includes you having to learn Anime Studio as well.

4. You say you used Windows Movie Maker to create that video. Did you have any problems with it crashing? What version of Windows are you using and what are your computer specs?

I've got a Toshiba laptop that has 1.70 Ghz and 512 RAM. I am using XP home edition with service pack 3. It looks like I have Windows Movie Maker version 5.1 (or 2.1.4027.0 can't tell which as they both say Windows Movie Maker in front of it). What worries me about all of these Windows based video editing software titles crashing is that I have a 5 year old computer. If they are crashing on newer computers, mine doesn't stand a chance.

Every thing was drawn by me except the mouths, they are in AS library.
I used 24 fps
As for the eyes, I just drew eyes closed/open/to one side etc and used switch layers.

As for WMM crashing, just like any other windows app, yes it crashes if I try to rush it.

94253 · Post by **94253** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:02 pm

I just picked up a 1 TB external drive for $50 on eCost.com. Their prices fluctuate a lot but I've been buying all my electronics (external drives, cameras, HDTVs) from that site for the last 4+ years and have been 100% satisfied.