Understanding a waveform.

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James Sharp
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Understanding a waveform.

Post by James Sharp » Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:25 am

I have to start this post with a little story to explain this whole deal. Well i was in my room working on an amv in premire and my friend who is also a musician comes in and takes ONE look at the screen and points out every symbol crash and drum hit and gutar solo in that thing... it was amazing. ever since then i have been desperatly looking at waveforms, and forums and all that jazz.. Just trying to learn them.. but i still have no clue what they mean. all i know is when it spikes..somthings happinin. So my question is mainly to most of the experienced editors that sift through these forums daily... how the heck did you learn to read a waveform. and how long did it take.... MAN WHO WOULDA THUNK YOU HAD TO KNOW MUSIC TO MAKE AN ANIME MUSIC VIDEO :D
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Post by trythil » Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:41 am

I learned about waveforms in physics and by editing audio.

The important part isn't really knowing what's what in the waveform, though we have a good guide for that (http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... io1.html#5). The important part about music is, well, the musical stuff. You want to be aiming for a way to convey rhythm and mood through your scenes, and by that I don't mean "flash on every second frame in a 4/4 piece at the drum build".

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Post by FurryCurry » Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:21 am

It helps a bit to be able to "read" wavforms a little to get timing your cuts to go a little faster, but perhaps musical knowlege is a little more useful for deciding what to sync to. The more you can hear what different instruments are doing, the more options you have in deciding how to balance the tension between steady, even beat syncs, and the need to cut to a new clip (or hold one longer) to get the scenes you need on the screen for the right amount of time.

It will come with experience. You might even find it helpful to throw a song into Premiere, even without video, and scrub over an interesting section a bunch of times, like a drum fill, or some point where the song changes pace.
That might help you associate what you're seeing with what you're hearing.

I actually do have a background in music, I completed my "degree" (just a technical school completion, actually) as a pro guitar player.

Not terribly helpful with the administrative paperwork that makes up most of my job, but useful for expanding my creative options in amv editing, especially if I decide to edit a song's length. Familiarity with the musical side of things makes it easier to keep a song sounding more natural and coherent, because it's easier to understand the structure.
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Post by dokidoki » Thu Apr 28, 2005 9:43 am

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Post by The Wired Knight » Thu Apr 28, 2005 11:30 am

For the songs I work with I can typically read them well enough that I know what spikes or shift in them is what part of the music but I won't typically have it down to the beat or instrument.

Try using a song where the only two singers are a high female voice and a low gruff male voice. Easiest wav to read EVER!
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Post by AquaSky » Thu Apr 28, 2005 11:33 am

I can usually distinguish vocals, cymbals, and bass hits by now. Definitely tougher to do once the BPM gets higher though.

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Post by Rozard » Thu Apr 28, 2005 1:16 pm

IcyCloud wrote:I can usually distinguish vocals, cymbals, and bass hits by now. Definitely tougher to do once the BPM gets higher though.
Or the audio is overdriven *cough*WHO SENT YA*cough*
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Post by AquaSky » Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:14 pm

Rozard wrote:Or the audio is overdriven *cough*WHO SENT YA*cough*
Yeah, that must have taken some serious effort to beat-sync. My hat goes off to you for that one.

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Post by downwithpants » Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:32 pm

vertical axis is intensity (loudness) - taller things are louder
horizontal axis is time - things to the right occur later than things to the left
how squished together the spikes are the frequency (pitch) - more closely squished waves sound higher in pitch.
timbre (sound quality) can't be resolved well by looking at the waveform, but basically more regular waves are more tone-like, and more irregular or dense waves are more noise-like (often percussion or speech).
individual articulated notes are usually identifiable by their envelope (outline of the amplitude peaks) - from left to right: a rise (start of the note), a small and steep decay, a long and steady decay, then complete decay to silence or background noise (end of the note).

most of the time the waveform shows the interference of several tones and a whole lot of harmonics (frequency multiples of the tones) for each tone, and each note (tone + associated harmonics) is constantly changing in loudness and pitch, so it's pretty much impossible to tell anything absolute from looking at the waveform in musical recordings. the only useful cue a waveform in your editing program gives you is beat onsets. the rest of the music cues you should be getting from just listening to the music. your auditory system is better at analyzing and parsing music than your visual system.
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Post by Rozard » Thu Apr 28, 2005 5:22 pm

IcyCloud wrote:
Rozard wrote:Or the audio is overdriven *cough*WHO SENT YA*cough*
Yeah, that must have taken some serious effort to beat-sync. My hat goes off to you for that one.
Some of it was either a patient ear, or just counting frames and averaging :)
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