Jason Levine – Healing People Daily with the Power of Digital Video & Audio

Greetings, everyone. For a final wrap-up on the topic of multichannel file editing, I wanted to showcase the last step in the process: exporting your mastered audio from Soundbooth back into Premiere Pro, or even perhaps a third-party software for authoring multichannel discs (audio-only *or* DVD/Blu-Ray). In either case, we're still dealing with uncompressed, 32-bit WAV information. The files needn't be encoded *before* inserting into Premiere, but you would want to encode to Dolby Digital or DTS if you're looking to author DVDs with 5.1 audio through Encore CS4.

Now, I had a few emails after the first post asking, "Well, what do I do with the interleaved file once I've edited/mastered it in Soundbooth?" and the answer is simple: you export out as individual 'stems', each one representing the individual channels, ie, Front Left, Front Right, Left Surround, Right Surround, Center, Sub (LFE). Soundbooth CS4 will not allow you to re-export an interleaved file...but this is fine, as you'll typically want stems anyway, and as mentioned, many third party softwares require either Dolby or DTS-encoded media, or individual 5.1 mono stems; and that's what we'll do here...

Here's the menu where you'll export your mono channels

Once you've exported the stems, you can re-import these files into a Premiere Pro project. Since you'd ideally want to be able to monitor your 5.1 surround, you'll want to create a sequence whose master audio output is set to 5.1, and 'add' a minimum of 6 mono audio tracks to your new sequence. When you do this, you'll see the surround panner appear in the Audio Mixer for each track. There, you can use the little 'puck & dish' (as they used to call it) and move each puck to it's respective position, adjusting individual Center & Sub Levels with the knobs.

Here you can see that I've created a 5.1 master, with each channel labeled, and each track panned to the appropriate position. Notice that only the Center Channel has the center level adjusted; same goes for the Sub channel

Setting the audio hardware monitoring. Here, I'm using a MOTU Traveler audio device

At this point, you're ready to export the entire sequence, and here's where you have some options. Premiere Pro CS4 ships with Minnetonka's SurCode plug-in for Dolby Digital exporting. You'll get three 'tries' to test it out and create true, Dolby Digital soundtracks, which you can them import into an Encore CS4 project and burn REAL, Dolby Digital multichannel DVDs. Beyond the three tries, you have to purchase the plugin. But the cool thing is that you can do this DIRECTLY in the software by clicking on the Codec Settings button. For me, because my video content was edited in HiDef, I chose Blu-Ray DVD as my starting Export preset, and then selected the audio options I wanted. You've got great control over the audio export here, with data rates up to 640kbps.

Modify the data rates, adjust fold-down and attenuation settings. Great control with SurCode

Now, many people often want to use DTS in lieu of Dolby. Minnetonka also makes a DTS encoder software (in many variations) and the exports generated from there can be imported into Encore CS4 as well. Remember: Encore CS4 will not encode audio to multichannel Dolby or DTS. You have to import pre-encoded files to author surround DVDs. It will only encode standard Dolby Stereo, if left with raw audio material.

And that, my friends, is how you you work with multichannel across the Production Premium applications and Audition 3.0.1. All in all, an incredible amount of control and flexibility, all in the palm of your hands. And definitely be sure to check out SurCode. Once you've done surround for video, it's hard to go back to stereo...believe me!

If anyone's interested, I've got an entire workflow explaining how to take stereo (or even MONO content) and reversioning it for Surround Sound playback. This was a workflow that I actually developed and used as a training bed for several engineers at the BBC, along with my good friend and colleague, Michael O'Neill. It's pretty heavy stuff, and would take quite some time to write up (as I've never officially done that). But, if I get enough interest, I'd be game. Naturally, this entire process would be done in Audition.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hello friends. Having reached my 100th post last week, I felt like I needed to upload some new content to Vimeo, and showcase a bit more of the cool work that I've been doing alongside pals Karl Soule, Kush Amerasinghe, and of course, Johnny Encore.

And as the title of this post suggests, I'm referring to Johnny's mid-autumn hit single, You're In My Heart and InDesign. If you haven't seen the video already, I think you're really going to enjoy this. For starters, it takes advantage of the new Cartoon effect in After Effects CS4. However, there's SO MUCH going on in this piece you really just have to experience it to believe it. Enjoy it here, in glorious HD with Stereo audio, courtesy of Vimeo...

You're In My Heart and InDesign by Johnny Encore from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

On the audio side, because of some 'difficulties' that Johnny was having with certain members of the Acrobats, I had to step in and wound up playing drums and Hammond organ for the piece. In Johnny's words, "The original take simply wasn't DIRRRTY enough. Make it so." And so, I did. Be sure to check out 'Short & Suite' on AdobeTV for details on how this was made, crunchy-sounding, cartoonified-brilliance and all.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Greetings, blog readers. Over the past few weeks, I've been deeply involved in prepping for a series of CS4 tours across the Nordics, and in the process, I've been collaborating with my colleagues on all kinds of things. Everything from sending assets back and forth, writing up how-to documents, waiting to receive files, etc. And beyond that, I've often needed a place to simply store my files, whilst I was waiting to upload/share new ones with the gang.

Enter Acrobat.com. Now, many of you may have heard about Acrobat.com and simply dismissed it as some kind of PDF-Mecca. But in fact, it's much, much more. There are 5 basic elements that make up Acrobat.com, and I'll talk to you about 3 of them that have truly become life-savers, but more importantly: they've changed the way I collaborate with my colleagues; a little something I like to call...

Cross-Continental Colleague Collaboration

If you've ever attended one of my Production Premium seminars, you've probably heard me talk about the benefits of Adobe Clip Notes. This amazing, revolutionary technology allows Premere Pro and After Effects users to create PDF documents from timelines/sequences, embedding (or streaming) video, and let's them email said docs to their client for frame-accurate commentary (using the standard Acrobat 'notes'). It's brilliant, it's truly unique, and it's (once again) become an integral part of my workflow. And when I talk about this, I always refer to it as the following...(and this leads directly into how I'm using Acrobat.com)...

Cross-Continental Client Collaboration

This is where SHARE and BUZZWORD® come into play. In short, SHARE enables you to send files to others for easy access while *you* maintain control. By sending URLs instead of e-mailing large attachments, you and your team can access files from any computer in the office or on the road. You can even 'share' the same files with multiple people at once (without flooding inboxes with massive attachments). I've been 'sharing' for some time now, and it's been a real life saver (particularly because I don't have an FTP).

The second element of the collaboration involves Adobe BUZZWORD®. Here, you're able to write and collaborate on documents, anywhere, anytime. People can simply access your docs online, make comments, add content, images, etc. Again, like Share, you've got control over 'how much' a particular user can modify a doc. This is how we evangelists do our own 'group reports', enabling us to work on the same document without having to actually send separate PDFs or DOCs back and forth, and *then* compile together.

And the third piece of my collaborative puzzle is My Files. Here you can store your files online for easy access from anywhere. Acrobat.com provides an intuitive interface to help you easily organize all the files you share online, including Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PDF files, and images.

As mentioned, there are two additional parts of Acrobat.com, Adobe ConnectNow and Create PDF. To learn more about the benefits of Acrobat.com, check out Rufus' Complete Blog Post on this topic.

Hope to see you sharing, buzzing and filing in the near future!

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hello, my friends! As the title suggests, this is officially my 100th post on the blog. And to celebrate my '100 random rants', uh, blogs, I've got some great content to share with you from Adobe TV, as well as tour information for next month...

Roger McGuinn on Adobe TV: You'll know Roger as the guitarist, singer, and founder of The Byrds. Listen to how Roger uses Adobe Audition 3 to make Grammy-nominated albums, and is constantly re-defining the future of folk music...

I first met Roger back in the Cool Edit days, and was actually fortunate and honored to be able to provide some one-on-one training for him in the *then beta* version of Cool Edit Pro 2.0 (and the first pre-release version of the Loopology Library). At that time, spring 2001, he was in the process of recording an album, which would eventually become a collection of spontaneously-recorded, live, raw albums known as Treasures from the Folk Den. One unique element of this multi-stylistic melange of roots music classics was that Roger had the revolutionary idea to capture the entire album direct-to-disk, sans tape, into Cool Edit (now Audition). An Alan Lomax-esque journey for the new Millennium. Check out this true legend and musical innovator at Adobe TV.

Photoshop Dream Girl, Part 2: In this (my favorite) episode, I talk about stylizing the overall track (both in stereo and mono) and creating (personally) the 50s doo-wop vocals that accompany Johnny Encore...all of them, from Hi to Low. ;) Ba-doom, buh-doom, ba-dum....

Be sure to check out new episodes from my fellow evangelist colleagues: 'Taming the Web' with Greg Rewis, Flash Downunder with Paul Burnett, and Cafe Fibonacci with Rufus Deuchler.

And last, but certainly not least...I've got a tour coming up...the CS4 Production Premium Nordic Tour :) As mentioned earlier, here are the dates and registration links for each country:

2 Feb 2009, Finland

4 Feb 2009, Norway

6 Feb 2009, Denmark

9 Feb 2009, Sweden

And lastly, a big thanks to everyone for reading! It's really been fun, and I appreciate your comments immensely. Here's a toast to the next 100! Prost!!

Until next time...
Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hey there, friends. Well, it's amazing how certain posts can go somewhat unnoticed, and with something like a musical instrument (and a personal tale of love to go along with it) suddenly, the comments start flying in! It's great to see that many people are interested in these kinds of stories/rants, and I'll be sure to try and do more in the future.

That being said, there were several requests to actually 'hear' what this bass sounds like. Well, until I get around to uploading my proper recordings, I went ahead a captured a short little video, playing a few riffs, showcasing the tuning, the intonation, and emphasizing just how big and thumpy this bass can be (completely untreated, by the way...no compression, no EQ, just amplification). Here it is...

The Sound of the Rickenbacker 4003 from Jason Levine on Vimeo.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hey friends! This is one of those posts that I felt compelled to write, simply because a feeling was re-awakened inside of me, prompting my need to shout-aloud about it!

What's that feeling you say? Well, LOVE of course! Love...for my instrument. Now, before your minds go wandering in the gutter, let me state that I'm speaking of my Rickenbacker 4003 bass. ;)

Love is all you need...especially when it comes in Fireglo

I've had this particular bass nearly twenty years, and it was truly the sound and the instrument I always wanted (at least, on the 4-string side; on the keyboard front, it was always a Minimoog and a Fender Rhodes Suitcase '73). Yes, the Rick is what Paul McCartney played on 'Paperback Writer', as well as on Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour (and, nearly all of Wings) Chris Squire of YES, Geddy Lee from RUSH, Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple; they all played them. But the primary impetus for wanting one was the tone, the thumpy, legato nature of the sound, and the purity of each fretted note.

The point of this ridiculous rant is this: If you're lucky enough to play an instrument, and you possess the one that you purchased years ago (years before you could even afford such a thing) and you nurtured, and cared for it greatly, and played it until your fingers bled, you'll find that it ALWAYS has the same effect on you, every time you play it. Even when lots of time goes by. And then, suddenly, you plug-in one sunny, Saturday afternoon. You haven't tuned in almost a month; you fret a chord in the upper register (but still below the 12th fret). And when you release, the sound is not only PERFECTLY in-tune, but the intonation, the tonality, the quality of the sound, of this one chord is simply MUSIC to your EARS...well, then you'll KNOW that you've been having a love affair with an inanimate object.

Nearly 20 Years, and still going strong. I love you, Rick...enbacker.

Until next time,

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Hello, my friends. As we usher in the New Year, I figured what better way to start blogging than to do a nice, techie post regarding something that literally NO ONE knows about. In fact, I imagine that this will not only inspire many to tryout Soundbooth CS4, but more importantly, it may change the way (some of you) think about audio-post for DVD, as well as working with surround audio in general. In short, I'm going to showcase how you can use Soundbooth CS4 to edit, trim, repair, and do some basic mastering on multichannel (6 chan/5.1 to be exact) audio files. For this example, I'm using a 32-bit uncompressed, interleaved WAV file (the native multichannel format for Premiere Pro & After Effects, and a standard) that I created and exported out of Audition 3.

Importing a 6-channel WAV file; channels are displayed top to bottom, LF, RF, Ls, Rs, C, LFE

To be clear, you don't have control over each individual channel on the interleaved file. All channels are treated globally, as one. If you're looking to do that type of granular editing/cleanup/mastering, you'll want to use Audition 3. (note: Audition 3 will allow you to extract the six mono streams from the interleaved WAV file and place them on separate tracks in the multitrack view)

However, in most cases, the need to 'master' a finished 6-channel file is simply because you need to top & tail the beginning and ending, perhaps do a trim or an edit, make a selection and Ripple Delete, and add some final 'punch' to the overall sound, without destroying the attenuation relationships between Front/Rear and Center/SUB-LFE channels. This is where Soundbooth shines.

Fig.1: Switching from Separated to Layered Views

Fig.2: Making Selections, Trimming & Adding Fades

As you look at the pics above, what's really nice about the layout is that you can clearly SEE all 6 channels. You also have the option to show all channels in a layered fashion, but really, aside from being cool visually, this view doesn't do much for me. ;) (Fig. 1)

Using the fade handles on either end of the file, I can construct nice, smooth fade-ins/fade-outs...again, something that is often overlooked when the finished audio is exported. Need to trim? Grab the trim handles. Need to make a selection in the middle of the mix and delete across all six channels? Again, easy. Select->RtClk->Cut or Delete. And the best part? Whether you're working in Mono, Stereo or 5.1, the workflow for editing in Soundbooth CS4 remains the same. The point is simply this: anyone can perform some basic editing on multichannel files. Anyone. (Fig. 2)

The next cool editing element here is the ability to work spectrally. Yes.

Fig.3: Making spectral selections across all channels with the Lasso Tool

Either by choosing 'Remove a Sound' from the Tasks Panel (or simply adjusting the view by using the divider in the Edit Window) you can make spectral selections (with lasso, marquee tools) and boost/cut, heal or delete across all channels, very quickly. (Fig. 3) This has SAVED ME a few times, where someone had a persistent 50Hz Hum across ALL channels (*being present in the Front channels, it was naturally accentuated in the LFE channel) and I was able to easily repair it. Same for using Noise Reduction directly. You can perform a Noise Reduction process (with or without taking a Noise Print) and very quickly restore your audio. This is wickedly cool, and though you're likely to only use this a few times (and definitely to be used SPARINGLY) it can make a significant difference to the overall sound, and really bring things back to life.

But the best part I've saved for last, and that revolves around basic mastering. Now again, when you're dealing with Multichannel Audio, mastering is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT beast from mastering Stereo. That being said, simply by using some familiar processes (namely, the former 'Louder Button', and the Hard Limit feature), this will allow you to pump the overall dB level (by a uniform amount) while maintaining the careful balance between all channels. (Fig. 4)

Fig.4: Mastering Processes** and Noise Reduction via the Menu

**though 'Normalize' is unavailable in this menu, the nature of using 'Make Louder' has changed slightly since CS3. In CS3, is the very first time it is implemented, it will perform a straight normalize to -0.3dB. Each subsequent usage would begin to apply a Hard Limiter. In CS4, it simply skips normalize and Hard Limits +3dB each time it is used, still maintaining a ceiling of -0.3db

Typically, you'll have an 8-12db drop on the rear channels, and anywhere from 12-20dB attenuation on the LFE channel. By choosing "Louder" from the Processes Menu, this analyzes ALL channels, and at first pass, will simply NORMALIZE. (again...this refers to CS3 behaviour). The nice thing about this is that it's not going to suddenly make the LFE(sub) channel -1dBFS. (as mentioned, the LFE is often down around -20/-14dB). No, instead it's going to find the loudest peak (which will likely be in the FRONT channels) and raise everything up to the ceiling (which is -0.3) Of course, you can hit LOUDER again (or hard Limit) and it will do just that, apply a Hard Limit, but keep the relationships in tact. (reiterating: CS4 skips the normailze step, and immediately applies the hard limiter at +3b for each subsequent use). Granted, if you overdo it (ie, too many times) the gap between attenuated Sub Channel and Front channels will narrow...so be careful. And *if* you are going to do this, be sure to have your monitoring set up so that you're hearing what you're doing. You DO NOT want to produce a multichannel export with your sub channel having an RMS level of -4dB (or something like that). Not only will you likely harm your sub, but whomever is the recipient of your DVD, etc, won't be happy...unless they like the sound of over-modulated sub-sonic mess! lol

Fig.5: On-Screen Splitting of the Editor & Spectral Views

Lastly, no matter what you're looking to do, one of the coolest features (reminiscent of the UI advances made in Dreamweaver CS4, allowing side-by-side Code & Design views) is that you have the ability to work in *both* views simultaneously (the editor and the spectral view), making changes and taking full advantage of large screen resolutions. Again, depending on the nature of your work, sometimes it's much easier to spot problems or anomalies in one view vs. the other; so this handy little UI element makes the 'visual' experience of mastering in SBCS4 even better, and more familiar for non-audio professionals. (Fig. 5)

And with that, I believe we're done! I'll be showcasing this very process on the road in upcoming seminars throughout the Nordics and Germany (stay tuned for Tour Dates, coming soon). If there's anyone out there who wants to give this a try, let me know about it! I'd love to hear what you were able to come up with. Also, I was thinking of posting a small, Multichannel file for people to download (so that you can try it for yourselves; in case you're not already working in surround). If this is something you might be considering, let me know, and I'll either post or send a file to you directly.

Until next time, my audio-loving friends...

Blog on.

Posted by Jason Levine at 8:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)