Sound Template

[Totaly Pavlina]

Iam curious what everyone template for creation of sound effects to picture are. I have a good overall "God" Mix template with all the stems and routing and things I need, but I find that when I am working on a specific sound or set of sounds and creating new sounds with many plugins, my sessions just get out of control and jumbled up. Trying to get some structure in place so that if I ever have to revisit a design session, it will make some kind of sense.

I know what you mean. Sometimes I wish I had the ability to have track folders like in Logic, a feature that Pro Tools hasn't absorbed yet. I'm not sure if you're asking about a literal template file or just a standard structure for your workflow, but ultimately it's just about your preference.

For each major sound moment with unique track content, I will usually do one of these sub-mix setups. Once I hit the mixing stage, I can still control the balance between the layers of the car crash (and what gets sent to reverb and FX) without having to open up the 35 individual tracks.

When setting up your mix session, you want to make things as intuitive as possible for yourself. For instance, I always leave insert slot 1 for an EQ/filter and insert 2 for a compressor/limiter/gate. Even if a track only has a delay on it, I will still stick the delay on insert slot 3. Same goes for sends: for RomComX, send 1 is always Room Reverb 1, send 2 is Room Reverb 2, send 3 is Sweetner Reverb, send 4 is delay, send 5 is special effect. This way you can start to associate a particular send with a type of sound, and you don't have to think twice to know which knob to reach for.

I agree it makes sense to not do serious sound manipulation/design work in your main edit session, for a number of reasons..... first being thats often its better to do serious manipulation at 96k, and then export 48k files to the main edit session....

Second being that you might want literally hundreds of source files available to create a few specific sounds & its easier to not clog up your main edit session with all the source material (eg for creating wooshes I might have literally all of Franks fire library & all of Michaels two rocket libraries in my woosh creation session, along with a lot of other material.. and a few different plugin chains.... Certainly dont want all that in the edit session!)

Another is that its valuable to be able to leave plugins enabled & setup, especially when the sounds created are dependent on them, but they aren't the sort of plugs you want to carry in the main edit session... Especially as their automation may have no relationship to picture and they wont want to be conformed the way a main edit session does, when picture changes)

And there is definitely merit in having a design session (and every version of tis evolution) archived for every major design element, simply because as VFX etc become finalised you may need to revisit it (and/or earlier versions of your designs) to create variations...

Having said all that, there are also times I want to work in context, and even in my big edit session I usually have a few disabled tracks down the bottom, one with Doppler on it and another with TL Space, Altiverb etc - these are bused to their own dedicated record tracks, so while editing if I come across something I want to doppler or convolve I just enable the source/plug track & the destination/record track - print versions, & disable the tracks again)

Interesting subject, I have the same issue whenever I'm in a project that get's too elaborate. I mostly realise too late that i should have created an extra design session in PT. But sometimes switching between 2 sessions kills the creative flow.

I usually create an aux or 2 with my mandatory Design plug ins. My track layouts change per show, if theres heavy guns, or cars, etc Ill dedicate and cater tracks specifically for those key elements, and create LFE tracks for them as well. But I always put plugins on auxes and send from my DSN tracks and automate the sends and plug-ins accordingly.

I guess just looking for tips on how to approach things. For instance, I have some rough cuts of the picture currently in which I am trying to design some pretty crucial sounds to the story. They are sounds in which the characters interacts and responds to, so the picture edit is still loose should I need a little more room here and there. I am working very close with the director and editor.

I find that when on a roll and just free associating things, I end up duplicating regions and tracks many many times so that I have different "sets" of options. The end result is a big mess of tracks, plugins, bussing etc, that all make sense at the time, but months/years down the line may make absolutely no sense.

I do not like having the "design" sandbox to be in my main mix/edit session because I play files and record in real time and just mess around with things, until something strikes me and then I start to fine tune it. Many times this audio gets sent out of protools into another program and then ingested back in.

So I guess I am looking for tips on keeping things open and creative but within some kind of structure that makes sense. This is my first project where this much actual design is a factor so I am curious as to what steps should be taken and what information needs to exist to make a decent workflow to the mix sessions.

Working on a file. Saved it as a .wav first, then opened the .wav file to SAVE AS an MP3. Received message "There is no template available for this format. The selected media may not support it". I also attempted to use the CONVERT Windows menu option which also failed. The file plays perfectly as a .WAV but I need it to be an MP3 or MP4. Thanks!

Per Support I uninstalled the product, used Revo uninstaller to ensure all associated files were deleted, and then reinstalled. This did not fix the issue. Waiting for support to offer a different solution.

Could you also say what specifics you are trying to save the mp3 as...meaning the bit rate and sample rate, mono or stereo? Also, you wrote that you're not able to save as mp3, but could you say if you are able to import other mp3 files into the program? Thanks!

When I go to save it, it wants to save as a .wav, then I pick from the drop down (mp3) and then the TEMPLATE field becomes blank and I think that is causing the issue. If I click on CUSTOM in the "save as" window, I can then select an mp3 template but as soon as it goes back to the "save as" window it issues a message that the file format won't allow the template to be used. I've tried taking the file down to 16bit 11,500 but same this occurs. I tried raising to 44,000 but the same thing also occurs.

If I save the file as a wav, then open it with Music Maker, I can then export it from MM as an MP3. Works fine. Maybe I need to deinstall MM then reinstall SF15, then if it works, reinstall MM? Right now, support has me installing SF15-PRO version to see if the same thing occurs.

k Here's what I did... I was asked by Support to deinstall SF AS and install instead the PRO version to see if that fixed things. It did not. Then I uninstalled ALL MAGIX software on my device using Revo Uninstaller to ensure all files were removed. Then I restarted. After that, I purchased CCleaner Professional and updated all drivers on the laptop (27 updated with 12 related to audio). Then I rebooted. Then I used CCleaner Pro to clean the Windows 10 registry. Then I downloaded a NEW install package of SF Audio Studio. The bit count was exactly the same as the one I was using before but I wanted to make sure I had a clean file. Then I rebooted. Then I reinstalled SF AS 15 which included Music Maker 2022. Then I restarted. Then I launched SF AS 15 and attempted the very same actions as before. I opened the WAV file (which plays fine and is not corrupt), I attempted to SAVE AS .MP3 and bang! I got the same error "There is no template available for this format. The selected media may not support it. Would you like to try again?".. If I then click on the CUSTOM button, I can see there is an MP3 template displayed but when I select it, I receive the message: "The custom template you selected is not valid with the current project settings. It has been filtered out of the template list." I did test once again, opening the very same .WAV file in Music Maker and Exporting it to a .MP3 file and that works great and is clear as a bell. I think I've done enough on this one for now. I have to move along with the solution I have. I like the software very much so will continue to use it. If you send me a Template to install manually into some file folder (like a .dll file or something), perhaps we can try that?

Okay! Wow. Not sure why I didn't do this earlier! Sheesh. I created a new .WAV file (16bit 22,050 STEREO 2 Channels) and then opened it from the folder and did a SAVE AS .mp3. That worked like a champ. Then I created one (24bit 22,050 STEREO 2 Channel) and did the same thing and that worked like a champ. There is something "different" with that first WAV file. Okay, the issue arises when you have more than two tracks. Does not matter whether it is 16 or 24bit 22,050, but as soon as you have four tracks and attempt to save it as an MP3 I hit the issue.

There are limitations as to what parameters can be used when encoding an MP3. For instance, until just recently, encoding a 320kps, 44.1, Mono MP3 in Sound Forge was not possible. There are other MP3 limitations as well. The same with most lossy formats. PCM files do not have many limitations. FWIW, the 'standard' PCM format for audio only projects is 'typically' 44.1kHz/16 bit. A 22.5 kHz PCM has a (nyquist frequency) cutoff at approx 11,000 Hz .. which is rather low for most music projects. Rendering a (single channel) mono PCM file will cut the file size in half, which is fine for audio that has no spacial content, a vocal or a close mic'd snare or kick drum for instance.

Encoding mono MP3s does not cut the file size, but it increases the kps resolution x2 with about the same file size as stereo MP3. Good for a lectures or an audio book where there is no (stereo) spacial content.

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