Audio Editing in AE.....

.... is really not possible.

In After Effects, audio editing is slim to none. And editing becomes even more difficult when the audio and video are interleaved.

For my project, I had:
3 songs that pushes dancing lightning effects,
the actual video,
and the narrator's vocal waveforms.

All three could not a placed together for various reasons. My solution, or more a workaround, was to use three different programs simultaneously.

I used:
an audio program (Sound Forge),
a video editor (Vegas),
and After Effects.

I used Sound Forge to scrub the audio and find the important pieces of dialog that would force effects in After Effects. I then used the compositions in After Effects to break apart and nest the sequence. I broke the three main pieces mentioned above on different compositions.

I rendered in three quicktimes files with the Animation setting on (since this setting allows for an alpha channel).

These three renders were then placed into Vegas. Once in Vegas I could preview the video and make sure the video and audio link track lined up correctly. Then, based on subject changes I was able to transition the 3 songs throughout to keep the entire sequence from stalling.

I rendered again out of Vegas as a normal Quicktime file since it was now suitable to render in a final lossy format which would allow for smaller file sizes.

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It really is time consuming and involves a lot of waiting for each step to render. But this is by far the easiest way to get around the audio-video link. I tried just letting AE do preview rendering, but that involved a lot more time waiting in smaller increments.

By syncing most of the pieces as much as possible before tossing them into Vegas, allowed for a grander, clear picture of what was to come. But, do keep in mind that I had to re-render some sequences a few times since I would find small errors, and this again, would take time, but a mere re-linking to the new file was all that was needed in order to keep the sequence in order.

I hope this helps someone out!

Final Project Influences

For my final project (which I have yet to do a final edit on) I wanted to make an advanced PowerPoint presentation. In order for it to be able to handle the amount of video I wanted to stream out, the 3D space that is called for at one point, and the 4000+ pictures that are cylced through, I needed another program.

After Effects was that program. I wanted for the presentation to be as close to "sensory overload" as possible. I played with audio and video to create a complex looking presentation in which the viewer ultimately re-mixed what they saw on the fly. Every viewing would show different pieces of the whole.

The reason for my upload still not being up is due to the complex nature of the project, many aspects were tied into others, but different layers needed to be exported at different times to create a tie between the audio and visual aspects that were linked on two levels.

The final workflow top-down looked like this:

*Left-to-right and right-to-left digital audio waveforms which were automatically generated with the narration audio
*Floating video
*Dancing lighting tied to one of three songs
*Background video which emphasized the floating videos

*Left-to-right and right-to-left digital audio waveforms which were automatically generated with the narration audio
*Dancing lighting tied to one of three songs
*Occasional image that either synced with audio or held a static image for 15 frames every second. All other images only held 2 frames.

My influences were both from VideoCoPilot:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/elegant_slideshows/
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/audio_to_animation/

Together they worked well to give me a basis for the "sensory overload" i spoke of during the presentation and wanted the audience to feel.

One person's feedback was simple: "It was great, but a few points I had to blink."