LAB NINE IN AUDITION

TASK: PARALLEL PROCESSING

IN AUDITION

Setting Up a Session

Create a new Audition session, and import track 48, Subway,

(which was used in Lab Six).

Place Subway in the first track, and make two unique copies
of it in tracks three and four.

Process the File

Place the clip in track one into Edit View, select FFT Filter
from the Effects menu.

Remove all the frequencies below approximately 2 kHz (you

are creating a high pass filter). Use the frequency display area
in the effect (outlined in red, below) to monitor your
frequency as you change it.

Using the parameter display to note the frequency setting of the

breakpoint
Preview the sound. Following this procedure should
effectively remove most of the lower frequencies in the sound.

Process the file.

Notice that the filtering process removed a lot of the energy in

the signal.

Normalize the new processed file by selecting Effects >

Amplitude > Normalize.

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Applying a Second Process

Select the clip in the second track, and place it into Edit View.
Return to the FFT Filter.

Create a bandpass filter to slightly boost (by about 3 dB, or

150%) the midrange frequencies (400 800 Hz), and remove
all other frequencies.

Preview the sound. This process should boost the mid to low
frequencies and leave the high frequencies. If the sound distorts,
lower the amount.

Process the file.

Because this process boosted frequencies, there is no need to

normalize the file. In fact, it might be verging on distortion.
Applying a Third Process
The third process will be limited to volume change. All three
clips should begin at time zero, and they all should be the same
length.

Create a dynamic volume relationship between the three

tracks.
Here is one possible example:

Parallel presentation of multiple processes.

In the example, the original and the two processed versions
cross fade amongst themselves. The result is a continually changing
sound that balances variation (the changing filters) and unity (only
a single sound object is actually heard).

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In order to create a nearly continuous sound, with minimal

disruptions between the processes, notice that the arrival points of
my fade-ins coincide with the beginnings of fade-outs in another
track. This is an old analog studio mixing trick, in which, when
cross-fading, you dont begin to fade out a track until the new track
has already reached maximum volume.

MORE AUTOMATION IN AUDITION

The notion of automation in Audition is less than in ProTools since
Auditions volume envelopes do not control anything external to the
track (such as a volume fader).

HINT: USING LOOP PLAYBACK WHILE EDITING

VOLUME AND PANNING ENVELOPES
Before we go into more detail about automation, I want to pass
along one easy hint. Volume automation, particularly in regard to
balancing the amplitude levels of all of your clips, is something that
you should practice extensively. You need to listen to every clip
carefully in relation to those clips that occur before, after, and
during its playback. Taking into consideration whether the clip is in
the foreground or background, for example, will determine its
relative amplitude; however, remember that some sounds, even
when normalized, will present a lower volume than others because
of their quality of sound, timbral richness, and ambient noise. For
this reason, you will need to adjust each clips volume with a great
degree of detail.
You need to do this process while you are listening to the
music; making decisions visually will not create the best aural result.
Do not allow visual representations to influence music and sounddesign decisions.

For example, one interesting method of presenting two sound

objects is to contrast their amplitudes. In the example below, the first
sound is a dramatic and loud sound object that has its own volume
envelopeit fades out naturally. Immediately afterwards, a
contrasting sound object is presented at a much lower amplitude.
The effect for the listener is one of partial masking: the first sound
will be very obvious, while the second sound object should be heard
almost as an afterthought, or an aural shadow. (This type of
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gesture presentation is a standard compositional technique in

concert music; it is not limited to electroacoustic music composition.)

Contrasting levels between two successive sound objects.

The second sound object should be barely audible, so at what
level should its volume automation be set? (Note that both sound
objects are normalized.) Based upon the visual data only, pulling
the volume level down to half would seem like a substantial
reduction; however, halfway down is only 50%, or 6 dB. Six
decibels is, in fact, half as loud as unity gain; however, remember
that our dynamic range is 120 dB. In the above example, the second
object is 24 dB lower, a level that was only arrived at after listening
to the two tracks over and over while making careful adjustments.
In cases where you have many short sound objects occurring,
correctly assigning volume data to them all in an efficient manner
can be difficult. In the example below, taken from an assignment
presented in Unit Six, many such short events occur. This section of
the work can be made even more interesting if there are differences
in the amplitudes of each object (all objects have been normalized).
But listening to the first few seconds, then stopping playback,
making an adjustment, listening again, stopping playback, making
an adjustment, and so on, will not provide a good overall aural
picture.
(This is another example of the computer providing excellent
control over minute detailin this case volume envelopes of sound
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ing a more global result. The listener will be unable to hear the
exact relationships between the events and will instead hear them
as a single gesture with intricate amplitude detail.)
Instead, use Loop Playback to adjust your levels interactively.
Select several seconds, perhaps even ten to twelve seconds, in your
session. Set the track display to show volume automation data,
then begin playback. Because the selection will continuously loop,
you can make small adjustments to your automation envelopes as
the clips are playing. By selecting more than a few seconds, you can
get a feeling for the sounds as they occur in time over a longer
period.
Continue to select longer and longer periods of time to get a
better overall perspective in adjusting the volume relationships.

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