Audio volume envelope

[mcconnor]

Hello,

I mainly use NLE (notably Power Director) for creating family videos. I recently decided to try doing this with shotcut and I am just taking my first steps so maybe I am missing something but I suggest simplyfying the adjustment of audio volume. For e.g. family videos or outdoor footage it is common for the audio volume to change quickly. I know that by keyframing the gain filter I can adjust volume and I am doing this right now but it is cumbersome if there are many edits in many tracks (at least this is my impression)

a) you have to deal with a separate window
b) atm if you adjust keyframes the loudness in db is not shown when adjusting the keyframe making it hard to do exact positioning
c) changes are not reflected in the waveform - that would be ideal to quickly judge the result

I suggest making editing of the volume possible directly ON TOP of the audio waveform (like an overlay) via an envelope (that perhaps writes the values to the already estblished filters like it is already done with fade in /out):

a) click/hold/drag the envelope line will change the volume of the whole audiotrack of the clip
b) double click the envelope line will insert a keyframe at this point that can be moved thereby showing to actual value in db
c) click on a keyframe will select it, “del” will delete that keyframe
d) the filtering is applied to the waveform so that the user gets a visual feedback of the modification

The waveform is already there and the real-estate in the GUI occupied by it would be wisely used with this approach making it unnecessary to have a keyframe window open only to adjust volume - which you are bound to to a lot most of the time…

[Namna]

If I understand your suggestion, it looks like the feature Apple was offering with iMovie HD (I’m using Google translation)

Yes, it is handy.
I therefore support your suggestion.

[mcconnor]

Yes - like that. In Powerdirector it looks similar.

[brian]

I created the audio “Normalize 1 Pass” filter just for this purpose.

There is some context in these threads:

Introducing the One Pass Normalize Filter and Audio Loudness Scope

The previous audio normalize filter has been renamed to “Normalize: 2 Pass”. Its functionality has not changed. You can select a clip, analyze loudness of the clip and then the filter will apply a fixed gain “shift” to achieve the target loudness across the clip. The target loudness is configurable. This type of normalization is most appropriate for pre-mixed clips like music or clips where the volume is constant for the duration of the clip. A new audio normalize filter has been added named “N…

Having Trouble with Normalize

Hi! I have a single video track, which includes audio from 4 different mics (a Skype group call). One speaker is louder than the others, so I’d like to reduce his volume. Normalize seems like the way to go, but I can’t seem to get it to work. If I click on the ‘clip’ and add the Normalize: Two Pass filter, I get the Target Loudness toggle and am able to set it to any value I want. But after clicking Analyze and letting the job finish, I hear no difference in the audio. I set it to -23, but the…

Audio normalisation in LUFS

I would like to set up some output presets which, in addition to outputting video with the selected codec parameters, normalise the audio output to the correct level for various streaming services to minimise the dynamic range compression/volume adjustment they apply. Would it be possible to use an LUFS-based audio-normalisation library (such as libebur128 in FFmpeg) to normalise to a given target value? If so, how?

Also, here is a video where I describe how I use track filters to normalize audio and overlay the file date for my home movies:

Shotcut Tutorial: Track Filters

[mcconnor]

That is indeed a very helpful feature and will come in nicely for various scenarios. Thank you for implementing this. I will give it a go pretty soon as I am about to finally cut family videos of 2015… quite behind schedule unfortunately.

But nonetheless that filter is lacking the ability to easily and flexible change volume of only parts of an audio. That is why I would see the filters rather as add on to the feature I was suggesting…

The key framing is essentially doing that. But I think usability would be way better the way I proposed…