Setting Edit points to match Music Beats

50Cal · Post by **50Cal** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 6:50 am

I was wondering if it was possible to set edit points in a timeline to match the changing beats in a music track. That is, I want the transitions to match the beats in a song. Now what I tried doing is hitting F3 (shortcut for mark-in) as the music plays but each time I hit F3 the music stops and that just isnt what I want. I want to be able to play the music while hitting a button that will set the edit points during the playback, so I can come back later and then insert video clips, transitions, and such at those edit points. I hope I didnt sound too confusing.

LGO · Post by **LGO** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 5:01 pm

Hi 50Cal,

I did this exact thing 5 years ago in VS 3 (if you can believe that). However, I had to do it manually . . .

I loaded the music into an audio editor that showed a graph of the music against a time line. It was simple to see the beats and write down the exact time codes for the beats I wanted to make a scene change. Took that list and adjusted my vid clips and stills to match the time codes. Took a bit of fine tweaking to get it right, but that's the anal side of me.

All told, it took about 4 hours of time to create a 3 min 30 sec video.

If vid studio can automate or simplify that process, I'd love to hear about it!

Good luck,

LGO

50Cal · Post by **50Cal** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 2:11 am

Geez, thats definitely way too much work for the simple thing I want to do. I'm editing our graduation slide show and I just want to insert pics of different students to match the beats of the graduation music. Now Adobe Premiere has that as a standard feature but I was hoping I would be able to find it somewhere in VideoStudio cuz I'm using the evaluation version Adobe Premiere and it only lasts for so much time. Of course I can do what u suggested but, I gotta study for tests and such. With Adobe Premiere it took me just 10mins, lol. Thanks for the reply though.

LGO wrote:Hi 50Cal,

I did this exact thing 5 years ago in VS 3 (if you can believe that). However, I had to do it manually . . .

I loaded the music into an audio editor that showed a graph of the music against a time line. It was simple to see the beats and write down the exact time codes for the beats I wanted to make a scene change. Took that list and adjusted my vid clips and stills to match the time codes. Took a bit of fine tweaking to get it right, but that's the anal side of me. All told, it took about 4 hours of time to create a 3 min 30 sec video.

If vid studio can automate or simplify that process, I'd love to hear about it!

Good luck,

LGO

gordon_fan_24 · Post by **gordon_fan_24** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 3:05 am

If you are looking for a free program, AVID has a free version of their high quality program, called AVID free DV, It is very similar in many ways to their expensive AVID Xpress DV program. (which I regularly use)

http://www.avid.com/freedv/resources.asp

It can be kind of confusing to learn at first, however once you get the hang of it, it is simple, there is a very helpful support forum (just make sure you use search before posting, they hate that more than here), and many different instructional videos for "free Dv"

Video Tutorials address:
http://www.avid.com/freedv/tutorials/index.asp

AnimeChick · Post by **AnimeChick** » Sun Jun 05, 2005 6:06 am

If you upgrade to Mediastudio Pro, it can flag the exact points in the timeline. Also it can show the wave graph audio alongside the video timeline. It's really easy to see the beats.