Adobe Premier Pro audio help! Gunshots won't work!

trentsteel

Okay, I'm using Adobe Premier Pro and have hit quite the snag in my editing process.

You see, our whole movie is finished but I ran into the following problem when exporting the scenes or burning them to DVD.


I have a large amount of sound effects in several action scenes. Some of them are layered on top of each other to create new sounds.

Sometimes this works just fine and it always plays fine in Adobe, but, once it is exported, some of the places where I have done this create grating static on the speakers.

I have them set up like this:

Audio Track 1: BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Audio Track 2: ....... BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Audio Track 3: ............ BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

When set up like this, every shot after this first one just sounds like PSSHHHHKKK

But, when I rearrange the clips up to one audio track so they all over lap each other it sounds fine.

Like this:

Audio Track 1: BLBLBLAM! BLBLBLAM! BLABLABLAM!

(You know what I mean.)

This doesn't make sense because you would think a program like this would be able to handle multiple audio tracks, otherwise why would they be there? It's even worse where I put several sounds together to make a kicking sound, etc.

Any help would be much appreciated.

JohnnyCache

what differs from layer to layer?

trentsteel

JohnnyCache wrote: »

what differs from layer to layer?

absolutely nothing, I have checked this several times and I took off all the effects

JohnnyCache

well, i would think it should work the way it is, but have you tried saving your sound as different files, IE sound1.x sound2.x sound3.x so you're using three different, identical files?

trentsteel

JohnnyCache wrote: »

well, i would think it should work the way it is, but have you tried saving your sound as different files, IE sound1.x sound2.x sound3.x so you're using three different, identical files?

Hmmm

Now there is an interesting idea.

Hopefully the same problem doesn't crop up when I put them back together though.

trentsteel

Didn't work. I exported the audio clips separately, each one as a sound on it's own sequence by itself. Then I imported them as separate clips. Then I restacked them and exported them together as one piece and the sound was crappy again.

trentsteel

Oh wait I see what you mean. I'll try that.

trentsteel

Bah. Yeah even tried it with four completely different sounds with different file names and same thing.

JohnnyCache

are they peaking out higher then your export format can handle, but within your editor's ability to play? Just grasping at straws here.

trentsteel

JohnnyCache wrote: »

are they peaking out higher then your export format can handle, but within your editor's ability to play? Just grasping at straws here.

I think that is essentially the problem.

Like I said, everything plays fine in Adobe, but any other format and it's toast. Is there a way to up the exporter somehow? I don't really see any options.


Thanks for your help btw.

trentsteel

Okay. I think I found the problem.

This is my new question:


How do you convert the hz (41000 hz 16 bit etc.) of a sound clip to another setting? (48000hz 16 bit)?

My project is in 48000hz and a lot of my sound effects are 32000 hz. Whenever I export them together they get messed up.

Zifnab

Well, as far as I know Premiere should be able to transcode them for you. I'm not entirely sure where that option would be, but it seems to me that I've done that before. If nothing else, a program like Audacity will be able to handle the transcoding. If you don't want to transcode every single audio file, you should be able to export just the audio from Premiere, which will give you one mixed audio track, then transcode that and re-add it to your project.

When you say messed up, do you mean that they fall out of sync, or something else?

trentsteel

Zifnab wrote: »

Well, as far as I know Premiere should be able to transcode them for you. I'm not entirely sure where that option would be, but it seems to me that I've done that before. If nothing else, a program like Audacity will be able to handle the transcoding. If you don't want to transcode every single audio file, you should be able to export just the audio from Premiere, which will give you one mixed audio track, then transcode that and re-add it to your project.

When you say messed up, do you mean that they fall out of sync, or something else?

Basically, everything sounds fine in Adobe. But, once exported to any other format, some of the sounds just make this PFFFHSKSKSSK really loud.

I have now used dBpoweramp to convert the files to the same format as the project 48khz, unfortunately, the same problem keeps happening.


Here's what doesn't make sense:


1. I export the video and it's original audio
2. I import them back in
3. Sounds fine
4. I add the sound effects, export them together with the audio and video.
5. I import them back in.
6. Sounds fine.
7. I add the music and export it.
8. Import it back in and the music sounds fine but the sound effects now sound like grating static.

blincoln

This is not an ideal solution (what you're doing should work fine), but why can't you mix down to one track of gunshots for your export to DVD or whatever?

capnrico

Isn't that what he said here? :

But, when I rearrange the clips up to one audio track so they all over lap each other it sounds fine.

Like this:

Audio Track 1: BLBLBLAM! BLBLBLAM! BLABLABLAM!

I believe I have used Winamp's DiskWriter plugin in the past to convert .wav files from one bitrate to another (for proper burning to an audio CD), give that a shot.

trentsteel

Well, I found a program that converts bitrates and stuff but it didn't help.

I am thinking now that my export settings need to be changed but I can't find an ideal setting yet. It seems like the exporter can't handle the sound effects when they are all clustered together but it should be able to.

DrFrylock

I think you're off track here.

Digital audio has a maximum sound volume at any given time. What I think is happening is that your gunshots, especially playing on top of one another, are maxing out the wave.

Basically (and I'm oversimplifying a little bit here) think of a wave form as a sequence of 16 bit integers. Silence is 0000000000000000 and the loudest sound that can be encoded is 1111111111111111. Now, all 1s like that sounds pretty much exactly the static you're describing. When you play multiple sounds at the same time, it adds together the values of all the sounds. You get additive interference and all the loudness combines and you blow the volume limit and STATIC.

You likely need to normalize the audio. Sometimes an audio plugin can do this and sometimes it's just easier to do it manually. Try quieting the gunshots down to 25% of their normal volume and see if that helps. Then work and quiet down only the overlapping ones since only the overlapping ones are really causing the problem.

trentsteel

DrFrylock wrote: »

I think you're off track here.

Digital audio has a maximum sound volume at any given time. What I think is happening is that your gunshots, especially playing on top of one another, are maxing out the wave.

Basically (and I'm oversimplifying a little bit here) think of a wave form as a sequence of 16 bit integers. Silence is 0000000000000000 and the loudest sound that can be encoded is 1111111111111111. Now, all 1s like that sounds pretty much exactly the static you're describing. When you play multiple sounds at the same time, it adds together the values of all the sounds. You get additive interference and all the loudness combines and you blow the volume limit and STATIC.

You likely need to normalize the audio. Sometimes an audio plugin can do this and sometimes it's just easier to do it manually. Try quieting the gunshots down to 25% of their normal volume and see if that helps. Then work and quiet down only the overlapping ones since only the overlapping ones are really causing the problem.

Hmmm. Yes. Others seem to be telling me this as well. It's just weird that Adobe can play them together just fine. Like, I can play the clip over and over and it sounds perfect and freaking LOUD. Something in the export process must simplify the project or something.

I like the idea you have though, means more work for me but I will try it. I'll post back here if it works and thanks for your help.

trentsteel

Well. I'm an idiot. I need to export audio and video separately and use a 41khz setting because that's what cd's and most sound effects are at and for some reason exporting both at the same time messes it up.


http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/avtechbeta/premiereproexport.html



Found that after a twelve hour day of turning the volume down and the audio gain down etc. to get rid of all the static and pops. Now my sounds can be as loud as I want.