No audio in Ram Preview

[SmarttyPants]

Hi. I'll try and be a short and detailed as I can. After Effects CS5.5. Import an audio track or video containing audio and I cannot hear audio during playback after Ram Preview is created. I can hold the control key and scrub audio. Audio renders when I render the project. I can do an Audio Preview only, but I cannot seem to figure out how to see the graphics (which are animated to the audio itself) and hear the audio play back at the same time. This creates a unique problem when creating graphics which are timed to the audio. Do I really need to render the entire project every time I want to preview my work?

Thanks...

[Rick Gerard]

Make sure that you have audio turned on in the Preview Panel. This screenshot shows it turned off.

[SmarttyPants]

I played with that. In your screen shot doesn't that icon in that state indicate you have muted your audio?

[Rick Gerard]

Yes, It's set to off. This is on.

That's all you should have to do. If that doesn't fix the problem then we need to know all about your system and your preferences settings.

[SmarttyPants]

Yeah I've had it on the whole time. Played with audio input/outputs in the preferences and everything I can think of.

Reasonably frustrating

[Rick Gerard]

So tell me something about your system.

[SmarttyPants]

Well let me try to give you the big picture (pun intended)

What you can't see here: I use a Bose 2.1 speaker system (not that that has any impact).

Audio renders fine, scrubs fine, I can do an audio preview fine but NEVER both an audio and video preview.

[tlipfert]

Just a thought: do you have your composition set to 48K audio and your audio itself is 44.1? Are you using MP3 rather than WAV or AIFF?

Maybe try dragging an audio clip onto the "create new comp" button then nesting the video sequence in there. Don't know that this will work, but it sounds like you have some kind of audio format mismatch.

Theo

[SmarttyPants]

Well I think I figured out the problem but I have to say if this is the problem I'm going to be flat out amazed. It seems the only way I can watch the film and play audio back at the same time is to literally select [RAM Preview] from the Composition menu. Not hit spacebar or the play button in the preview window. In fact if I select [RAM Preview], let it work then start playing, then hit stop, hit play again via spacebar or preview window playhead button (shown below) the audio will not play back?

This can't be right? There just no way that Adobe would purposefully integrate that kind of functionality (or lack thereof) when VFX elements are so often timed to audio? Especially in title sequences?

[Todd_Kopriva]

Read this FAQ entry:

FAQ: How can I play or preview sound (audio)?

The gist: Don't use the spacebar.

[SmarttyPants]

My assumption was that by hitting "play" via either the spacebar or in the Preview panel that a ram preview was being stored while playing back (not at full speed) indicated by the green progress bar above the timeline? I guess they are 2 different things. It just seems a little like something that's been overlooked although maybe there's a reason for this? In a real world high speed workflow when you are flying through animation and making very minor tweeks here and there it's incredibley frustrating to have to literally stop what you're doing to play audio back in this fashion. I can tell you from my very quick research on the subject it seems to be a rather pointed & widespread topic.

No matter though. It is what it is

Quick question. Does anyone know what keystroke other the [zero] on the numeric keypad will work to trigger a RAM Preview if you don't have a numeric keypad! LOL  Maybe I should being using the full length keyboard.

[Todd_Kopriva]

> Does anyone know what keystroke other the [zero] on the numeric keypad will work to trigger a RAM Preview if you don't have a numeric keypad!

from the top of the page in After Effects Help about previewing:

"Note: For additional keyboard shortcuts for use on keyboard without numeric keypads, see Previews (keyboard shortcuts)."

[SmarttyPants]

Nice! Thanks.

Hopefully they're working on making audio playback a little more user friendly like it is in (I hate to say this because I don't use it but have seen it in action and it's audio playback workflow is impressive comparatively) Apple's Motion. Obviously AE is the only choice for professional use but there's always room for improvement.

Thanks for all the feedback