Adjusting sound externally using a deck
 

Hello. I have Adobe Premiere Pro and I would like some advise on purchasing a deck which will allow me to adjust volume on the timeline. I.e, as am previewing the final output, I can move sliders up and down just as you would on screen using the mixer.

Does anyone have any particular advice on what is available and for reasonable cost.

Many thanks in advance.

Steven

u can do this on the fly i think.. i know u can automate fades and pans with vegas, so i can only assume that PP have followed.

Im sure u can...

Ah Peter yes. I think you are right that it can be done on the fly but what I was after was an external device such as a mini mixer which I can plug in to the computer and control everything away from the keyboard. A bit like a DJ adjusting the volume of output from his CD players. Am I being clear enough?

Thanks in advance to your help.

Many thanks

Steven

It will cost you a bundle if I understand what you want to do.
That is, in real time, as you view the footage, you want to be able to adjust levels for each track and then output a final set of sound channels that can be married back to the video.

The one tool I know about doesn't interface with an NLE but is a stand-alone product. Pro-Tools is one such 'tool.' Probably costs somewhere around $10K entry level by the time you buy the control surface and its interface, the software and the video/sound interfaces. It may insist on SMPTE time code which is another problem with a lot of DV footage.

Just because I don't know about less expensive tools doesn't mean they don't exist, just that they are the only one's I"ve played with.

now i get you...

well, this kind of thing has been around in teh audio field for a while, we use midi controllers to adjust pans, and fades etc etc

Emagics (now owned by apple) Logic Audio has a console which does this seemelssly, much like the ProTools setup mike was refering to.. teh ony difference being that it also controls standard MIDI CC and NRPN etc etc.

i am yet to see a video applicaiton with this function,

HOWEVER.....

Pinnacle now own steinberg, so hopefully it wont be too long before they integrate Edition (or something) with Cubase

Id lov to control fades and realtime efects thru midi controllers on my keyboards and workstations, as the video plays along...
i mean i dont see why it CANT happen int the near future as latency these days is almost not an issue...


to answer your question, I dunno

It would be interesting to see if there really is a market for this approach.

In truth, the difference between current NLE practice and your desire is that we tweak the rubber band with a mouse and can take a lot of time to do so (no need for real-time decisions) vs having to do it in real time with sliders.

I'm just guessing that most editors are much more comfortable with the rubber-band-controlled-by-the-mouse.

Hey thanks for all your good responses. Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by the term rubberband? This is a term which I have not actually come across.

Many thanks

Steven

The 'rubber' band is a horizontal line that runs through the audio portion of the clip on the timeline. Depending on the NLE, you can grab the line, place eidt-nodes on it and then move the node up and down to increase or decrease the sound level. The line can be moved around like a rubber band (that stays where you place it. After I've worked over a sound track, the rubber band line may look more like an audio waveform.

Some NLEs also provide a sound waveform representation on the timeline as well.

it's an interesting idea doing it in hardware, i assume you mean like a mixer or mixing board?

but anything out there that is even close to reasonable would be analog.

i know you want hardware at your fingertips but the closest thing you might find is something like adobe's audition.

i probably wouldn't have bought it on it's own but i got it with the adobe video bundle and it was an amazing tool for doing all sorts of sound work with very little learning curve considering all of the things it will do.

matthew

"but anything out there that is even close to reasonable would be analog"

actually it would have to be digital, or digital enough to send midi Controller data to the NLE...

With a yamaha AW16g, you can hook it up via midi and use it as midi controller, all the while processing the audio within the mixer directly... or even recording.. , then you could easily route that output back into the NLE for a live recording..

but i fail to see the point of doing that consideirng rubberbanding is just as good, if not more efficient (and cheaper) as well as teh fact that if your using Vegas or Encore, these also allow u to use DX and VST effects (with adapters) and plugins to further process ur audio.