Adobe Community: Audio in After Effects 8 CS3

Currently Being Moderated

1. David Wigforss-Hv1BNN,

Apr 21, 2008 3:42 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Not exactly sure what you're getting at.. If you have a movie file that contains both video and audio and want to edit the 2 items seperately, make a duplicate, name them appropriately (video, audio), turn the audio icon off on the video one, and turn the video eye icon off on the audio one. Then you can cut, slice and edit it to your heart's content.

to view waveform, hit ll (2 L's fast)

To play just audio hit . (period on numpad)
To play video and audio - 0 on numpad
to scrub audio, hold ctrl and drag current time indicator

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

2. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 21, 2008 4:24 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

well no...maybe my after effects is messed up or somethin. i dont think i changed any settings, but when i press play, only the video plays. no audio plays. I tried pressing 0 and . but neither played the audio.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

3. David Wigforss-Hv1BNN,

Apr 21, 2008 5:02 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

You press play by hitting spacebar? Don't - you need to rampreview it (0 on numpad) in order to hear audio and play video at realtime. To confirm, you pressed 0 (zero) and . (period) on the numpad, and neither played the audio? If you select your audio layer and hit ll, do you see the audio waveform? Also, make sure audio is enabled in the time control window.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

4. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 21, 2008 5:19 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

ok well one, i dont really know how to select my audio layer (pretty new to AE) two, audio is enabled in time window, and three i think this might help: in the timeline where you can turn off certain features like video and audio and leftmost side by checking the box, there is no box at all for audio. I can check the video box, solo box, and lock box, but there is not even an audio box

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

5. Andrew Yoole,

Apr 21, 2008 5:27 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Sounds like you need to do some reading.

Check the manual on Audio Previews, or view online LiveDocs here:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/8.0/WS3878526689cb9165586 6c1103906c6dea-7ec9.html

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

6. David Wigforss-Hv1BNN,

Apr 21, 2008 6:11 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

"but there is not even an audio box "

Means you ain't got no audio.... Verify that is true by trying to play it in another program. What format is it?

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

7. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 21, 2008 6:52 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

they all work in other programs...the format is .avi ...its just a regular video...and also, does AE not accept mp3's?? cause it says this file type is not supported

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

8. Mylenium,

Apr 21, 2008 9:45 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Sami, please do some reading up. AVI is not AVI. It all comes down to the CoDecs used for the compression. If AE says there is no audio, then the compression used for the audio stream is incompatible and thus disabled. It's as simple as that. It has absolutely no relevance whether the clip plays in other tools. In such cases you simply convert the file externally in VirtualDub, SUPER© or whatevcer tool you prefer and extract a WAV file from it.

Likewise, MP3 is not MP3. AE support's the clean spec, not any custom extensions to the format. So if it uses an odd frame interleave, has copyright bits, is encrypted, has additional meta-streams or whatever, you cannot use that in AE. Similar to the previous, simply convert it in whatever tool you think gets the job done and/or what the online store you may have downloaded it from advises to generate a personal backup audio CD.

Mylenium

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

9. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 23, 2008 2:19 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

ok im sorry but im a little confused with what your saying. You are pretty much saying that the codecs are different so that is why audio will not play, and i need to convert my files using one of the programs you said. right? if so then which program do you recommend? thanks

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

10. Mylenium,

Apr 23, 2008 9:45 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Use whatever you feel like. VirtualDub, SUPER©, VLC mod, MPEG Streamclip and so on are all free. On of them is definitely going to be able to generate either a "clean" uncompressed AVI or Image Sequence plus an audio file for MP3s, simply use WinAmp. There's a million plugins for it and likewise one of them is bound to provide the exact combination you need to properly decode your files to a WAV file for use in AE.

Mylenium

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

11. (raymond_setzer),

Apr 24, 2008 6:29 AM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Sami Sultan wrote:
> ok im sorry but im a little confused with what your saying. You are pretty much saying that the codecs are different so that is why audio will not play, and i need to convert my files using one of the programs you said. right? if so then which program do you recommend? thanks

You have to think of the file extension, such as AVI, as simply being a
wrapper. Inside that wrapper, there could be a fair variety of different
flavors of gum.

Lets say that you also have specific taste buds for specific flavors.
Every time a new flavor comes along, you have to get some new taste buds
installed in order to taste it.

From your posts, your on the lower end of the learning curve on the
video editing subject. AE however has a pretty steep learning curve
because there are such a huge number of properties of that can be
tweaked altered on any piece of video.

If you are committed to learning AE, you start to gather and work
through tutorials. The books by the Meyers are very good, but may be a
little too advanced for someone just starting out.

For your particular piece of footage, Virtual Dub was mentioned. With
it, you can export the audio out into a standard PCM Wav file. I believe
you can find a number of step by step how too guides on using virtual
dub around the web. Searching them out will get you going on virtualdub
quickly which is as close to a 'must have' tool for general video work
as there is.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

12. Andrew Yoole,

Apr 24, 2008 7:04 AM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

>You have to think of the file extension, such as AVI, as simply being a
wrapper. Inside that wrapper, there could be a fair variety of different
flavors of gum.

>Lets say that you also have specific taste buds for specific flavors.
Every time a new flavor comes along, you have to get some new taste buds
installed in order to taste it.

Love the analogy! Hope you don't mind if I use it sometime.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

13. (raymond_setzer),

Apr 24, 2008 10:02 AM in reply to Andrew Yoole

Report

Andrew_Yoole@adobeforums.com wrote:
>
> You have to think of the file extension, such as AVI, as simply being
> a wrapper. Inside that wrapper, there could be a fair variety of different
> flavors of gum.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Lets say that you also have specific taste buds for specific flavors.
> Every time a new flavor comes along, you have to get some new taste buds
> installed in order to taste it.
>
>
>
>
>
> Love the analogy! Hope you don't mind if I use it sometime.

Heck, I stole it from someone else long ago...:)

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

14. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 27, 2008 6:55 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

ok PLEASE somebody help me out here in ENGLISH! I have done so much reading and tutorials and am getting no where on the most basic subject. I dont understand how to get audio to work in after effects. I used virtual dub like i was told but supposedly its like an editor on its own and i didnt understand how to really save the right format in order to get audio to work with AE. I did though save in wav form and that did work in AE but it was choppy and it only had the audio of my video so i had two differnt files, and even then it still wasnt working right. I really need like a step by step guide or like to use windows meeting space with somebody to help me out. I need this ASAP please! thanks for the help

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

15. (Sami_Sultan),

Apr 27, 2008 6:57 PM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

I even have action movie essentials, and the audio on that isnt working as well.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

16. Antinet,

Jul 16, 2009 3:49 AM in reply to (Sami_Sultan)

Report

Your post is a year old, but I'm having the same issue - if I can return production premium, I will. I have never dealt with a bigger pile of garbage software than PP CS4. Premiere is dysfunctional and neutered, Encore doesnt work, Bridge doesnt work, PS has lost its web gallery, and now I find out the one program I actually liked in demos, AE is also ruined by some inane stupidity, like non-obvious audio controls. I have to RAM preview this thing everytime? Why doesnt it stay rendered? Why is fifteen seconds of a composition too much for this program to handle with its audio just sitting there. WHy do I have to press 0 on the numberpad and then space bar to preview audio and video together when that is so basic to editing? Who is responsible for this abomination....?

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

17. Sébastien Périer,

Jul 16, 2009 10:24 AM in reply to Antinet

Report

Antinet wrote:

AE is also ruined by some inane stupidity, like non-obvious audio controls. I have to RAM preview this thing everytime? Why doesnt it stay rendered? Why is fifteen seconds of a composition too much for this program to handle with its audio just sitting there. WHy do I have to press 0 on the numberpad and then space bar to preview audio and video together when that is so basic to editing? Who is responsible for this abomination....?

First of all, if you want longer ram previews you just need more ram, or you can lower the preview quality to quarter. You can also ask the preview to skip some frames so you'll get even longer preview.

By reduce from full res to half res, you will have 4 times longer previews, and 16 times longer preview if you are on quarter resolution.

Previewing with 0 on the keypad will preview Sound and Video, so no need to use the spacebar.

AE is not an NLE, and is clearly not optimised to do editing. AE is a post production tools and it has been designed to produce higher quality render over faster/longer previewing. That's why you cannot preview as in Premier Pro, Vegas of Final Cut. For each frame, AE decompress the full uncompressed version in ram, then apply all the effects and then render it with other layers according to your comp settings, whereas NLE will use optimised routines to preview video and won't uncompress everyframe like AE.

|

Mark as:

Currently Being Moderated

18. Ankit Bhatia,

Aug 17, 2010 10:53 PM in reply to Mylenium

Report

Hi friend,

I somehow manage to import and play the mp3 file in AE but still I am fighting with the avi files as they get imported in AE but unfortunately without any audio. If I run the same avi file with someother software it works perfectly fine. With yours and others replies I am getting that the avi video should have right codecs to play in AE but my question is what are the right codecs?? How do you define a clean avi video?? Please help!!

Regards

Ankit Bhatia