Audio Artifacts

[Ken Berry]

One option might be to remove the background music from that part of the project before rendering it. Then in Premiere, remove the offending bit, and insert the background music in Premiere.

[inyour4head]

That is actually the best advice thus far. It means a little extra effort on my part but I think it will work. Thanks Ken!

[canuck]

Could you perhaps create a SmartPackage of your project (or at least a partial of it) and upload it to DropBox and post the link. We could then look at it and actually see what you are doing and how your project is setup.

[skier-hughes]

Yes I took his comment to mean just that. I can certainly import the rendered file into Premiere Pro but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to fix the problem when the audio/video is all one file. What I mean is that if I try to cut out the problem area on the voice over it will also cut out the background music as well creating another problem. I appreciate the feedback but I don't think there is an easy way to resolve this problem.

Sorry, I thought at the point you had the audio problem there was silence as indicated in your screen grabs, so cutting a few frames of silence apart from the introduced artefact would work.

[inyour4head]

Here's a smartpackage of the clip in question but all of the files may not be uploaded given the size; **EDIT** Apparently I don't have enough storage on dropbox for all the files.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/aaqq312qnivd ... d9Eva?dl=0

Take a look and feel free to share any questions, comments, or concerns. The sample I referenced here is located in the voice track # 1-17. I trimmed the clip to the max and at last render it was gone. However, my results have been varied at best. I can render the clip one time and the artifact isn't present. I can then make a couple edits and re-render it only to find artifacts in various places. I believe it would be easier to track down the problem if the results were more predictable. It would be nice if I could resolve the issue within Corel rather than using other software to do so. I have other projects that are long overdue for revisions so regardless of my choice to work with Premiere Pro I still have bear with this software at least a little longer until all of my projects are complete.

[inyour4head]

I decided to re-install VS again and was reminded that every single time I do so the program crashes while in the process of installing VFX files. (see picture) After I 'close the program' the VFX load window closes and I proceed to install the hotfix and service pack 3. I open VS and as soon as I start editing the program stops responding and I have to close it out via task manager. After several attempts the program finally allows me to edit. Could it be possible that herein lies my problem?? Something hasn't been right from the time I upgraded to X8.5 and this isn't the first time I've brought this up. Take a look here; http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=57444 There is an issue with installation and this is presumably causing the program to act erratically. Any suggestions?

[inyour4head]

I just completely deleted VSX8.5 including all residual files and then installed VSX7 but I'm unable to open my project files presumably because they were last saved in VSX8.5?? They are still vsp files so I don't quite understand why I'm unable to open them. Its been nothing but a nightmare working with the latest version and apparently I can't even revert back to VSX7 at this point. I mean I've had little annoyances with the program since I became a customer with VSX5 but this is ridiculous.

[Ken Berry]

Unfortunately for you, one feature that has been a constant with every version of VS I have ever worked with is that later versions can open earlier versions' project files (.vsp), but earlier versions cannot open the vsp's of later versions, unless -- and here's the important bit -- the later version's project is 'Saved As' an earlier version's project. Moreover, this can only be done up to two versions prior. So X8/8.5 could Save As a vsp of either X7 or X6, just as X7 could Save As either X6 or X5.

I repeat, this has been a feature of VS since the year dot...

So all I can suggest is that you swallow your justifiable anger for a few minutes and reinstall X8 -- don't bother with the updates. Then open your various project files and Save As X7 format vsp's. See the red arrow in the image below.

[Curious]

Here my general advice coming from different video editor program that could help you (or maybe not):

Try too keep all audio files used in the same sampling rate (you are working a project that will output to 48 Khz audio sampling, use all audio sources that are 48 Khz imported in the video editor. Always use wav files and not other compressed files.

The reason of doing the same sampling rate is that this would requiere audio resampling otherwise and this usually not a good idea. It is a process that could easily create audio distorsion (like metal can audio or buzzing) if the upsampling/downsampling algorithm used is not of state of the art quality. I have already got horrible results in the past by not following this advice. I don't know if videostudio has a good resampling algo because i am avoiding this myself in my projects.

When needing to upsampling/downsampling your audio files externally, i am using this free tool that when set at highest quality will do it very well at no cost.
r8brain: http://www.voxengo.com/product/r8brain/

There is an option in videostudio preferences->edit tab called resampling quality: i am not 100% sure if this affects audio resampling quality as well, but i am always setting this to "BEST" quality (it would probably slows rendering, but for me worst is never a tradoff for speed especially if you are not satisfied with the results and need to restart the rendering for that purpose later..)

[inyour4head]

Thanks for all of the feedback. Sorry I couldn't get back sooner but we've been busy dealing with 14" of snow with ice underneath...

@ Ken Berry

Thanks for sharing that information as I wasn't aware VS worked like that. Unfortunately I'm still having problems in X7 as well. However, I think I have located at least part of my problem. In other areas of my project (not any of the audio clips in question) I am using NewBlue audio filters and I have since edited those clips with Audacity before importing them into VS7 to avoid this. I rendered one of the projects today and none of the 'uhh's' were present in the other audio clips. I have noticed in the past that sometimes the clip I add the filter to has playback/render issues but I never would have imagined that it would effect a totally different audio clip like that. I still had a few unexpected crashes and slow response times using the program but at least it worked. Now I just hope it works for the rest of my projects so I can complete the video and move onto something else.

@ Curious

I had never considered differing re-sampling rates as being an issue. At first glance I don't really see that as being an issue in my projects but I'll definitely keep that in mind. I also set the re-sampling quality to 'best' so we'll see what happens. Thanks.

[inyour4head]

Just wanted to note that I was wrong in my assertion that the NewBlue audio effects were the cause of my problems. I have since been having the "uhh" artifacts at the beginning and end on some of my audio clips again. In addition, I've had a new problem arise concerning the crossfade transitions not wanting to completely fade in/out. It just seems that I cannot get a break with this software no matter what I do. My only regret is that I have to complete my projects with VS before moving onto Premiere Pro for my editing needs. Hindsight is always 20/20. You get what you pay for- lesson learned.

[Curious]

In a crossfade transition, the sound fade in of latest clip while the previous other fade out, so you'll get a kind of mixed sound at some point of both clips in the middle of the crossfade. But you can tweak the audio of the crossfade to your taste: just click the audio mixer button and you will see the mixing of the 2 audio clips in the transition. Just zoom that transition and you can with your mouse add an audio volume adjust point so you can setup that the 1st clip for example fade-out very rapidly and then you would almost hear only the fadein of the latest clip. I have seen a lot of video editor and a crossfade mixes audio always like this...

Very often i tweaked the audio of a crossfade like this, specially if the audio of the 1st clip is much more louder than the next one, so it could give the illusion that mostly the audio of the 1st clip is heard in the transition.