Adobe Audition – Martin Rose's Animation & Media Notes

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When it comes to editing sound for an animation project, you may want to use Adobe Audition over Premiere, to reach audio precision. The program is designed for this, just as After Effects specializes in visual effects and compositing.

You will be able to link to Premiere, all the steps will be coordinated through the Dynamic Link protocol. Audition sessions will pair with Premiere. In the end, you will do the final export, of both picture and sound, from Premiere.

As is always the case, be sure to make a production folder for all of the elements, including cutting copy, sound files, and project files. The Premiere and Audition project files will need to reside there. Keep everything together, stuff must not be strewn all over, in different locations.

Editing sound-to-Picture in Audition, synched to Premiere with Dynamic Link

From Premiere to Audition

First, in Premiere, make sure the Sequence is selected in the Timeline (that is, click on it to make it active). Then, referring to the Main Menu, go to Edit > Edit in Audition. Choose “Sequence.”

From the Edit in Adobe Audition window:

Name: If you like, you can keep the existing name of the Sequence.
Path: Audition will set up an “Adobe Audition Interchange” folder in your project directory. For Browse, select the Adobe Audition Interchange folder.
Selection: Choose what is best for the purpose: Entire Sequence or Sequence In/Out.
Video: Choose either “Send through Dynamic Link” or “Export DV Preview Video.” Choosing DV Preview Video will make a compressed movie file, which is recommended.
For “Transfer Information to Audition,” you should choose “Transfer Settings,” particularly if you have already added sounds in Premiere.
Select “Open in Adobe Audition.”

Press OK to complete the process.

Editing sound-to-picture in Adobe Audition, without being synched with Dynamic Link

First, create a cutting copy of the film you will use for editing sound effects. That is, exported as picture-only, as one layer, all animation complete, and so on. Make an MP4.

Audition settings

Once the program has opened, you will create a Multitrack Session.

Main Menu > File > Multitrack Session
Give it a Session Name. For Folder Location, browse to save the session in the Production Folder.
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz, as you will likely use both 48 and 44.1 kHz files
Bit depth: 24 bits
Master: Stereo

For Workspaces, there are a couple that would suit your production purposes.

Go to the Main Menu > Window > Work Space
Choose “Edit Audio to Video” or “Essential Video Editing.” Both provide the Video Monitor.

You will import the video cutting copy. From the Multitrack Editor, you will edit sound files, make adjustments to the tracks, add effects, and finally mix the tracks, ready for export.

Finally, you will add the audio track to the original picture and then export a combined, compressed movie file.

To import files, do the same as you would follow using Premiere and or After Effects

From Audition to Premiere, to export once the sound edit is complete

Referring to the Main Menu, go to Multitrack > Export to Adobe Premiere Pro.

From the Export to Premiere Pro Window, choose the following:

File Name: Give the file a name. It will be an “xml” file (exchange markup language)
Location: Place the file in the Adobe Audition Interchange folder in your project directory
Sample Rate: 48000
Options: Choose “Mixdown Session” and select “Stereo File”
Select “Open in Adobe Premiere Pro”

Press Export.

In Audition, to organize mix-down tracks

This process is to group or send similar sounds in multiple tracks to one; for instance, when you want to affect both near and far feet with volume and reverb.

Go to the Main Menu > Multitrack > Tracks > Add Stereo Bus Track. Doing so, a “bus track” will be added to the Multitrack Session.

You can rename the tracks and to move them to optimal, convenient locations in the session.

Outputs

As a next step, you will need to set the “outputs” to the “master.”

Bundled with the session Edit window is the Mixer. Click on the Mixer tab to call it up.

With the Mixer, you will find that each audio track from the Multitrack Session is represented as columns or channels.

At the top of each channel, is an Input pulldown menu [ –> ] and an Output pulldown menu [ <– ].

For the audio tracks, you won’t need to change the Inputs, but you will want to change the Outputs, to select the Bus Tracks you intend to group to: Pulldown > Bus > the Intended Bus.

Once you have done this, you can tab back to the Multitrack (or choose to stay with the Mixer).

To adjust EQ or equalization of a track

In the Editor window, at the top-left region of the window, you will find four buttons:

Inputs/Outputs
Effects [ fx ]
Sends
EQ [ an icon like a bar graph with “three columns”]

Click on the EQ icon to pull up the Equalization features in each audio track.

Then, go to a given track. Pull on the bottom edge to expand it, or use the Zoom In & Zoom Out buttons at the bottom-right edge of the Editor window to expand the track. Doing so will reveal either an EQ button, depending on how much you expand the track height by pulling on it, or the “pencil” edit icon.

To set up audio effects for tracks in a Multitrack Session

Again, in an Audition session, “Edit to Audio” workspace, you will find that two tabs are open while you work, the Editor and the Mixer windows.

When the Editor section is forefront, activate the Effects Rack window.

From the Effects Rack, you can select Clip Effects or Track Effects.

Referring to the Track Effects (that is, to add an effect to a track in the Multitrack, which has several clips), when you select a track in the Multitrack, the options will show in the corresponding Effects Rack.

Select the first category and use its pulldown menu on the right-hand side to choose an effect.

Useful effects

Use the context pull-down menu at the right-hand side of the Effects Rack.

When an effects properties window opens, each will access notes about the effects. At the top right-hand corner of the window you will find an “i” icon (“i” in a circle) for “information.” Click on it to call up Adobe notes about the effect. These will describe particular details about given effects.

Note, regarding real-time playback and the need for pre-rendering

When you choose to apply an effect, Audition might post a warning, that the effect might be CPU-intensive (that is, it taxes computer processing). The track might require pre-rendering.

To enable pre-rendering on the track:

At the lower-left portion of the Effects Rack window, find the Pre-render Track button, the “energy” or “lightening bolt” icon and click it to activate pre-rendering.
Alternatively, in the Editor window, in the header section of the track, at the left-hand side of the track, first, make sure the Effects are active (click the [ fx ] button). The enable pre-render icon, “energy” or “lightening bolt,” is at the right-hand edge of the Effects [ fx ] section of the audio track.

You can enable pre-rendering for audio tracks but not for bus tracks. Therefore, enable the pre-rendering on the audio tracks that will be sent to a bus track. However, you can add effects on the bus, rather than on individual audio tracks that are being sent to the bus.

When the pre-rendering is enabled, if you want to make a change to effects, you will have to stop play, make adjustments, and then press play again. You won’t be able to make live changes. The processing of such effects already requires significant computer processing. It’s as though the software has to stop and think before it moves ahead.

Just as you can enable an effect using the Effects Rack, you can also utilize the context pull-down menu to choose to remove an effect.

From the Effects Rack

Reverb > Full Reverb
Amplitude & Compression > Multiband Compressor

Full Reverb effect

When you add the Full Reverb effect to either a single track or to a bus/sub-mix, the result will be a sense of space and acoustic qualities. You will find it’s necessary to add reverberation to clips and recordings that have been captured in a studio, such as foley sounds. The nature of those recordings were to get nice clear audio, at full volume and without noise, ready to be mixed later.

Reverb will make the sounds feel as though they are somewhere, in the visual environment you have carefully constructed. The effect will add a lot of experiential detail to the sound.

Presets

Use the pull-down menu to select a setting that might work for you, or begin to. You would then make adjustments to the pre-set, to finesse the effect to your liking, with the properties below in the Full Reverb window.

Examples of presets are:

Empty living room
Full living room
Great hall
Gymnasium
Small club
Small dry room
And so on

Looking at the Full Reverb window, you might find that, regarding the Output Level on the right-hand side of the panel, by adjusting those sliders alone, you will probably find you can get interesting results, by utilizing both the “Dryness” and “Reverberation” sliders.

Referring to the left-side region of the window, from the Full Reverb properties:

Reverb Settings

Reverberation:

Decay Time: Measured in “ms” or milliseconds
Pre-Delay Time: Measured in “ms” or milliseconds
Diffusion: Measured in “ms” or milliseconds
Perception: Measured in values of “absorbent” or “reflective”

You will probably find that adjusting the “Perception” alone, ranging from “Absorbent” to “Reflective” affects the aural qualities of the space in interesting ways.

Early Reflections

Room Size: Measured in “cubic metres” or width x height x depth
Dimension: Measured in “width/depth”
Left/Right Location: Measured in “percentage”
High Pass Cutoff: Measured in “hertz” or frequency

Under “Actual Room Dimensions,” if you choose to select “Set Reverb Based on Room Size,” the Reverberation values left to adjust are “Diffusion” and “Perception.”

Output Level

Dry: Measured in values of “percentage” from “0% to 200%”
Reverberation: Measured in values of “percentage” from “0% to 500%”
Early Reflections: Measured in values of “percentage” from “0% to 200%”