Sound FX Problem

[Crisis]

Im doing the editing for a film. Visual and sound editing. So Im adding in gun flashes and gun firing sound for the weapons.

The flash is fine, no problems there.

For the sounds I get some strange problems. For an automatic weapon (MP5 SD3) which is silenced, the sound is great, both in the program and when I export it the sound is fantastic.

BUT when I put in another sound effect for another automatic weapon (M4A1) it sounds fine in the program but when I export it the sound goes crackly and distored. I am not sure why. It only does it on this sound. But if I use another program such as Windows Movie Maker and put the sound it, it sounds fine in the program and when saved.

Now before you say "Why dont you just do it in Movie Maker" because I need frame by frame sound control so the sound is played at the exact moment it is shown on screen, plus I have over 100 SFX for this weapon alone to put in within about a 5mins shooting time.

Any ideas on whats going on? If you want an example I will post one up later on request.

Thanks for reading, hope you can help

[Alan Mills]

possibly the bitrate of the sound bite you are adding is not the same as your Premiere Project?

I'm not an expoert in this field (yet!) but I have heard there can be some issue with regard to 'incompatible' bitrates of sound. This might be what you're experiencing.

[Crisis]

And how does one change the bit rate?

Attatched are the sounds.

mp5-1 works perfectly.

The other 2 dont. What differences are their?

Btw... making project as Dv-NTSC Standard 48kHz.

Dont ask why NTSC, I had a problem earlier. Just ignore that for now.

[Alan Mills]

like i said, I'm not a sound expert so can't answer your specific questions and thinking on my feet here.

A general thing that does upset Premiere in all sorts of obscure and unpredictable ways is a bad HDD. If the files themselves are ok then do try (because it's a bloody good idea anyway) defragging your hard drive and making sure you have plenty of space on it.

[Crisis]

It nothing 2 do with the HD, I've saved multiple types even as Quicktime, AVI, different compressors.

I just got another 80gb External HD for my movies. HAHAH.

Thanks for your help, at least its some ideas.

[Marc Peters]

As Mr Mills says, make sure you keep the sample rate the same from the source to output. Additionally, try reducing the gain in the audio (windows > audio mixer, reduce the gain bar - forgive me if this is wrong, not at home).

[Alan Mills]

OK so it's not the HD on this occasion - maybe! But don't discount the advice though. Do defrag at least weekly. Premiere can get 'very upset' if you don't and can cause this type of problem.

Also, a word of advice, Adobe do not support external and network HDDs for premiere. You might do better to work on a local drive and use the external one as a holding area for non-current work. Probably will never prove a problem - just not supported is all.

Like Marc, I suspect the issue is the bitrate. I know enough that this can cause probs but not (close to) enough to know how to remedy it and/or prove it is the problem.

Might be as simple as resample in Audition or something.

Let us know how it all goes.

[Crisis]

I tried:

- Changing Speed of the Sound.
- A few other sounds which would be okay.
- Converting the sound to Stereo.
- Putting sounds that do work in their place to see if it was just the movies location.
- Changing the dB level of the sound.

No luck on any of the above, some sounds just dont play right. But they play correctly in the program just not when exported and then played!

[Alan Mills]

I had a glance at the audio files in hte attachement and noticed the following. The bitrate is differnet in each of them, with the highest bitrate being the one that you say worked well. Also, the file that worked well is the only MP3 file in the set.

Coincidence? I don't know.

Also, the one thing you didn't say you'd tried is to resample the sound files to your output bitrate you're using and then import them.

What are your project settings and with the attached files, maybe someone can reproduced the problem and maybe work out a fix.

Now, if only I knew how to drive my copy of Audition. It might just be a five minute job to resample them. I just don't know.

[Pieguy]

Here is the M4 audio fixed up I think (Done in Audition)