Audio Editing 101: Basics in Adobe Audition

1. Introduction: Hey, guys, and welcome to my lesson and how to editor Audio for your video productions. Audio is a super important component when it comes to doing your video productions, and they say that 50% of your visual experiences actually audio. But I just let you know how important the audio component is to any visual medium that we do. And in this lesson, I'm going to be using Adobe Audition as my program of choice. Feel free to use any program that you like, as these tips applies to all programs super excited to see what you guys come up with, as there will be a project at the end of this lesson of you guys to showcase of before and after of your audio editing. So for that, do let's go ahead and get started. This is how to edit your audio for your video production 2. Importing Files to Audition: Okay, guys. So welcome back. And this is going to be the first lesson. And in this lesson, we are going to be going over importing our audio to the Rto editing program of choice again. Feel free to use whatever audio programming you want to use for this project or for any of your RT recordings. Personally, I used Adobe Audition because it's a part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and it's just easier for me to export it to export it from premier into our audition, since it's within the same family. But feel free to use whatever audio program, your desire. So we just actually going to go ahead and take a listen, Maria beginning. My name is Maria. And you too, can. It's calling half three. Maria, all the three fun stuff you can do with your girlfriends. Okay, so that didn't sound too bad, but it definitely sounded into the distance. You could hear a little bit of the echo in that recording. Um, a little bit of that room echo. So we just kind of want to edit it so she sounds a little bit more closer to us and that the sound sounds a little bit more richer, and I'm not so far away. So the first step we're going to do is if you're using Premiere and you're editing something from Premier, you can actually just right click on the audio file and select Edit Clip in Adobe Audition . And that's going to render place the clip and place An insider will be audition. So now we have a clip here. We can just play it again just to confirm my name is Maria, and it's half three. Maria got all the free stuff you can do with your girlfriends stating, Okay, so we have the audio far right here, and this is just basically how Adobe Audition looks pretty basic layout. It's pretty, you know, accessible. We have the way form right here. We have we have the way, form view, and then we have the multi track view. And the multi track view is basically the nondestructive way of editing, which we're going to be going over in the next lesson. But for now, this is just going to be how you import your audio into your audio program of choice. And let's say, for example, you don't have for me a pro. And you were not going to the importing audio from something My permit Pro. The super easy to import audio, you simply just have to goto any program that you're using goto file and just selling import. And then you just like file right here. And then you look through the camp. You looked through your camera and then you see what you can import so, guys, and the next lesson will be going. We're going t o get over. Sorry, we're going to be going over How toe Working audition and the kind of things that you should expect to see in your audio editing program of choice. 3. Audition Interface : Okay, guys. So now we're back, and this is going to be how your audio interface. That's basically this is the audio interface layout for Adobe Audition ZC. But depending on the audio interface that you're using, it may look different. But out of the tools and functions should be the same. If you look up here, we have the file, you know, edit multi track clips, effects, favorites, view and window. That's pretty unanimous across audio editing programs. But right now you can actually see the way form, and we're actually in way form view. That's why we can see the way form. So if you look appear on the top left, you see that its way from view. And that's basically just to be shown you how the way form looks of the file. Now, keep in mind that way. Phone view is destructive. Editing on what I mean by destructive editing. Is that one Sue do something in a way for view is going to be a permanent effect, meaning that you're not gonna be able to go back after if you save it. So, for example, if I just so like any part of this way, form and I press delete and they try to play that you Teoh. You see how that, you know, cut down and kind of harsh. If I were to save this, that would be it. It would save it in the system. It would save the file as you know, the way I just cut it out and I'm just gonna go ahead and press command. Eaton do so Basically, what you want to do is you always want to make sure you save the file, save a duplicate of the file, so it's not gonna be destructive. If anything, you'll have a have a good, safe version of the father's unaltered unedited You gonna go back to in case you're not satisfied with your edits? So that's basically the way from view right here. It reads like right here. Multi track is gonna be the multi track editor, So I'm just gonna delete this to show you guys Eso this is basically the multi track editor is basically a nondestructive way to do your editing that say, for example, you have multiple tracks. You have vocals, music. Ah, lot of stuff going on. You can definitely use a multi track editor, and it'll be nondestructive on. So basically. Like, for example, we have tracked one right here so we can go ahead and distract the file over here. And if in track, one complained that Okay, So, as we can see, we have that track right there and we can adjust the volume of just that track separately. We have mute. We have solo. Let's say, for example, we have another track here. Sorry. The needed of accident. Um, we have mute when immune to track. You can't hear it. We have solo, for example. We have other tracks, and you just want to hear the other tracks or we just want to hear this one. We press solo, and we can just hear this one and all the other tracks that we had other tracks here, we wouldn't be able to hear him. That's pretty cool. What else do we have? We have the effects right right here, which is supercool. It's one of auditions are relief, standout tools and, for example, I'm just gonna delete this one. But I'm not saying, for example, we wanted to add un effect to this audio. We can click this little arrow right here and then we can, you know, go to a safe. For example, we want to add an echo click on Echo press play or space when your keyboard. So you see the sounds of the trippy on. And if we want to hear the audio without the effect, just go ahead and press this and they will be the audio, you know, as it was before. And of course, you can, you know, definitely play around with these effects on, you know, talk of this back on again. You know, the feedback that go basically each effect has his own way that you could play around with it a little bit, and that's pretty good. And again, the good thing about you know, the multi track editor is that this is nondestructive, so we can always just talk things off and they won't be affected in the final mix. So that's a pretty cool thing about the multi track editor. And yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that you can do. We have the tools, appears well, too, and neither basically like the you know, the tools that are unanimous across the editing programs. You have the razor tool, which you selected. It helps you cut clips and then we have the US list slip. Sorry, slip tool, which lets you are move certain frequencies within a clip, which is pretty cool. So you can see I'm moving the frequencies here in this clip. We have time selection for, like, a certain time in the clip, and we also have shortcuts. So the shortcut is our. So use a razor. Why? For the slip and T for the so for the time selection tool is pretty good to memorize. Thes, I'm sure cuts because it's going to make your editing work full so much more easier and faster. Okay, guys, in the next lesson, we are going to go ahead and get started with the e que the compression and polishing up your audio to make it sound better. Thanks, guys. And see you in the next lesson. 4. Using EQ: in this lesson, we're going to be going over how to remove any background noises. E que compression. Basically just cleaning up your audio to make a sound ask it is possible. So if we take another, listen again, toe the audio. Yes, my name is Maria. And yeah, it's three Maria Tom stuff in doing their girlfriends, stating. So this audio sounds pretty good. I don't really hear anything too much in the background, but like I said again, we did hear a little bit of a room noise because the talent cheese sounds a little far away . So we just want to go ahead and select a portion of the audio that silent. This is super important, and that's why it's important for any audio recording that you're doing toe always have. At least you know, anywhere from 1 to 5 seconds of just silence before he record, because you need to capture that room noise in case you want to edit it in post. So let's just go ahead and take a listen at this, and that's pretty good. That's pretty quiet. What we'll do is we'll go to effects. Noise reduction on will capture the noise print because we want this as a sample press. OK, click anywhere you can click command A to select everything. Go back to effects Click noise reduction process this time which is right under capture, noise, print. And you know, we're gonna have this on this dialog box right here. So basically, this is just telling us are the noise reduction how much a noise reduction is doing and how much is reducing? Abi? So we take a listen. Yes, my name is Maria and yeah, it's called half site three. Maria. That's what it sounds like with 80% noise reduction That's actually talk will be effect off . And let's listen to how it sounds without it, that's yes. My name is Maria and you whip it again. My name is Maria and this you can It's called half type three Maria. So it's a very slight difference, but it does sound a little bit more polished. We can go ahead and press 100% so they could go all the way and then this is very important in special decay. Uh, you want this number to actually be a little lower. So let's say, for example, is given like, you know, 12 or loving or whatever. And now let's take a listen. You too can. It's half three Maria, the Indian here E And even if you feel like you're recording sounds pretty good is just always going toe, you know, just kind of put this on there, just, you know, So it sounds as part is just possible we're gonna go ahead and select, apply. And now that supplied. Now remember, we're talking about things being destructive in the way former editor. I actually just apply that in the way form. So as you can see, it didn't show Appear as it would have showed up if we were in the multi track editor. It just applied it right away and the way from I'm gonna go ahead and leave that for now because usually you want, you know, the U noise reduction toe be applied globally. But, you know, the general rule of thumb is if you can do it nondestructive, you will do it nondestructive. But this is a good example because we're pretty sure that we don't want any noise and our recording, so it's safe to apply globally on destructively to something that you know you're not gonna river back to so that's just something to keep in mind. And now the next thing that we can do actually is go to on. We could actually go to the most high track editor for this. We're going to put a multi track, select anything by the name select. Okay? And now we have the multi track editor again, as we had before are we're gonna go ahead and drag this to track one. And let's say, for example, we want to put a little bit of e que. So what e que basically is is an equalizer is equalizing the different frequencies within the audio. And it's helping you achieve, you know? Ah, good enhanced sound. Ah, more polished sounds, really helping with balancing things and making sure things sound as good as possible. And there's a lot of ways to tweak this so we just go right here. We can go toe amplitude of compression and this is very important. Sorry with filter Nick, you that you have a few options, you can do graphic equaliser 10 bands, which is really good. You want to keep it simple or you could do the Parametric equaliser For now I'll go ahead and just show you guys too. Graphic Equaliser 10 bands as it's really straightforward, not too complicated, but actually find myself using the Parametric equaliser a lot because it's just more advanced and it gives me more options for control. You guys both. This is what the 10 bands looks like. Just press play. My name is Maria and now let's say for example, we want to kind of, like, you know, thin angle with some of these different settings, we can go ahead and adjust them up or down. You can do here. Thank you. Just that down. You see how I you see when I went to 500 it sounds very inquiry is important to pay attention to that because you definitely don't want your audiences on echoey And there are there certain frequency bands that will affect your audio in that way. So, for example, of the 500 mark in this recording, if we slide, the 500 knocked up and we started upto 13 decibels, which is by the way, 13 decibels. That's supposed to simply mean sorry db just simply means the decibels which is the unit of measurement for audio. So that's basically all the decibels are as you continue committed. Klay off the niggling, play around with that on that objectively up your equalizer, another way to do equalizing. And we're just gonna turn this off and we are going to go to the ah Parametric equaliser right here. And this is the one that I tend to really like because you can do a lot of adjustment. But this 11 really quoting to do it if you haven't really short clips like this is to right click on the play button. It's like return play had to start position on the stop. So basically, that was gonna happen. Interview press, honest Indian with your girlfriends, it's gonna automatically go back to the start position. So that's really cool. If you have short clips like this or Kipps are very specific to just going back to the Parametric equaliser, we have it on right here. And let's just go ahead and adjust the settings. The left and right tend to be setting, so you don't really At least I don't really must run with. He's gonna go ahead and select them to de select him. Funny enough. And then, uh so basically, you have your 12345 I can actually, you know, talk all these off and just leave one on for now. And the Q Q. With is basically how big the selection is going to be. For example, you see this space right here? This is the queue with, uh, that's tryingto keep it around my team and to see how I guess more narrow. This is really good for targeting specific frequencies because sometimes with certain frequencies sort of very specific. And you want that you acu with to be narrow enough for you to be old are able to identify it. Let's just go ahead and play this on. Let's scroll around this linings, Maria and yeah, it's Yeah, honest, he indeed with your girlfriends. So you see this frequency right here? It sounds a little weird. So now that we have, you see what we have, the game right here We have it at 13.1 decibels. Again, DBS just simply decibels, which is Thea unit of measurement for audio. That's bring it down to, like, negative 15. And to see how now we have the queue with is basically inverted. Now let's play that. Yes, my name is Maria and yeah, the Indian. So you see how it sounds even just a little bit different. And then we could continue to do the same thing for the 2nd 1 Kind of just scroll around and see what sounds weird. It's half way. Got one right here. Let's bring that down. Yes, my name and stuff you can do with your girlfriends Staking My name is Maria. And you gotta win one right there. So But my name is Maria. And yeah, it's Thank you. Here one that there is What to? So this is just basically what you want to be doing. You want to be scrolling through. The frequencies are with the Parametric equaliser, which I tend to enjoy because it tends to be more specifically targeted for certain frequencies. You just kind of want to bring those down 5. Applying Compression: Okay, guys. So now in this lesson, we're going to be going over how to use a compressor. There's a few compressors that audition offers as well as any audio editing programming that you're using if you scroll. So if you select this right here and then we're gonna go ahead and go toe aptitude compressors, and then we have the single band compressor and we have the multi band compressor. This example? We're going to go ahead and use a single band compressor gonna click on that, and that's what we have right here. So we're just gonna go ahead and pay our audio again. Okay, So what the compressor really does is that it compresses the frequency so everything is balanced. So, for example, if we go back to the way from editor the top here and we look at the way form, the compressor is responsible for basically responsible for making the lower parts of the frequency higher on the higher parts lower. So everything sounds more balanced. So we actually go to the single bank compressor from here, and let's just press command data, highlight everything so we can see easier. We're gonna go ahead and play around with the settings threshold we could do with negative 12 db for threshold ratio. Put about 66 to 1. And basically what these things mean is how the compressor is going toe act for the ratio. This is how much of the compressor is going to act on its decibel. So, for example, ratio of 6 to 1. So for every six decibels, you let one go. That's kind of how light compressions work, compresses work. And also we have the attack right here. It tells us how fast the compression needs to act. I usually like to keep this around 100 and the release is how long can it dies back down again until it goes back to the way it was before the compressor was activated. I would like to keep this one around, I guess, like the 1000 range, but it's totally up to you. You can play by ear, and then the output gain is going to be controlling the volume. So remember we spoke earlier about the gain on the individual tracks. You have another opportunity to ah affect the game again over here. So we're just gonna go ahead and raise it up a little bit because we for trying to get it to the negative 12 and negative six decibels way. Actually, I think from last time we saw had a higher so we definitely don't want to overdo it. School reform. We definitely don't overdo it. So we're gonna go ahead and leave it like that because we had it the way we had already when we adjusted a separately in the multi track editor. I'm just gonna leave it at zero. But you can see how you can go ahead and adjust that sort of score head and first play. This'd how songs with it sounds about it again with it this morning, Maria. And on without it. So as you can see what the compressor is, just sound a tad bit more polished. And the's are factors. Or why? Because we edited the factors we adjusted them. We played around with, um So I'm gonna go ahead and select that again and press X. And now we have the think band compressor here. We're stood in the way form our monitor so we can choose to leave it like that or we can go ahead and, um, apply to the multi track. I'm just gonna apply to the way former make it, you know, permanent. Some just gonna go ahead down here to apply. And now the effect is applied globally. Okay, so that's basically how you use the compressor. And remember that you always compress after your EQ. You never e que after you compress. Compression is the final step because with compressed with compressors, you're squashing down all the frequencies. And you want to do that when you're pretty sure you're comfortable with the mix. You want to be comfortable with the mix with the e que in the volume on the way it sounds before you go ahead and use a compressor. Because once you use that compressor, it's gonna squash everything down and, um, digitize it further. So thank you so much, guys. In the next lesson, we just scoring to export our final audio. Thanks 6. Compression & Exporting: Okay, guys. So now this is going to be the exporting session of the lesson. And in this lesson, we're just going to be exporting Aumar edited audio backed into a timeline. Or we can just export it out as an audio file to use at import in whatever program we choose to imported in. So I'm just gonna go ahead and select file export, And actually, before I do that, I just wanted to let you guys know that if you didn't like myself in which used the adobe premiere dynamic link than once you save you know anything that you're doing an audition is going toe automatically apply to a premiere pro, so you don't have to worry about re exporting it back to Premier. Pro wants to have it say, once you have a link in dynamic link, it goes ahead and just does that automatically. But if you don't do that, you're not using premier or even if you argue some premier. I've had projects in which I wasn't satisfied with the automatic updates, So I had to actually go to export file export, which is right here, and go to multi track mix down and either truth, entire selection, orthe elected eclipse. And basically, this is what's gonna be showing you right here. It's gonna be asking for a name is going to be telling you the sample type are the new sample type. The old Sam protect the format. You always usually one arm export with wave. That's the best quality, the highest quality of audio. And you can go ahead and choose that you can also. And of course, we're gonna choose the location that you can save that. And also, when you export um, sorry. And as you see, you also have the option and get here to export to Adobe Premiere Pro. But like I said, since we used the dynamic link to get in here, we don't have to worry about that for now. But if we did not, if we just opened up audition and we did not use the dynamic link initially, then we would have to go ahead and export Gobi Premiere Pro. So it's pretty straightforward, Uh, very easy. Once you go ahead and you say that you're gonna go to Premiere Pro and I've actually are safe This in a folder that I named High part of the audio and basically that Diab dialogue boxes are earlier. I send it to this location, so I save it here. I imported it into my hot, wrongly audio Been for the project and I actually selected it out here and then I put it in here. So this was the original father we had. My name is Maria and you can It's called Half Side three. Maria guys, all three fun of stuff you can do with your girlfriends. And this is the edited audio. My name is Maria and this is my YouTube channel. It's called half site three Murga guy, All the free fun stuff you can do with your girlfriend so you can hear that difference. This one sounds a little bit more polished. You can hear her clearer. She she sounds closer than this one. So that's basically how the end result turned out after just facing fixing it up a little bit. And post, thank you so much for taking this lesson. Guys, I hope this was helpful for you. I hope that you guys can, um, started pine these tips and tricks your own audio productions on Really excited to see what you guys come up with. Thanks again 7. Outro: Hey, guys. So thank you so much for taking my lesson on how to edit your audio for your video productions. I'm really looking forward to see what you guys are blowing in the project gallery on again . Thank you so much for taking this lesson. Feel free to leave a review of a low on you know, the tips that you've learned from this or on this helpful on thinking much today.