First my compliments for the developers of Shortcut. Your doing a great job and I wish I had discovered Shotcut earlier.
Here is my question: As an amateur composer I wish to upload my compositions and Music to Youtube. Unfortunately Shotcut seems to be concentrating on Graphics more then on Audio (This is my personal impression). As I look at the different Audio rendering possibilities. I can choose a whole lot of different settings. Can you give my some advice which format I could choose to enhance my Audio?
Ideally, use an export format that supports uncompressed or lossless compressed audio. That means not MP4 or WebM even though YouTube encoding guidelines suggests using MP4 with AAC compressed audio! If you can tolerate the long upload time, try using ProRes (there is a preset for this). The default preset outputs uncompressed audio, but you can also change Export > Audio > Codec to āalacā (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), which will save a little space.
If you cannot tolerate the upload speed, then just use MP4 default export settings but crank up the AAC quality all of the way by setting the bitrate to 512k.
Yet another option is to start with defaults (click Reset if needed to get back to default), change Format to āmatroskaā and Audio > Codec to āflacā (Free Lossless Audio Codec). Give the filename a ā.mkvā filename extension.
I hope that helps.
Iāll try your suggestions in a few days and, of course let you know what works best for me.
When I export the audio from the program I use (Cubase) I already have to convert the audio-file to āWav32ā.
Then I have to synchronize it with the (separate) video of the recording itself. It doesnāt seem to be possible to record Cubase + audio at the same time, like you would with a video-game.
Anyway, like I said Iāll give it a try
P.s. The upload time isnāt a problem, Iām a patient guy.
YouTube is going to resample your audio and video no matter what.
You might consider the effects of uploading one audio format and having YouTube transcode it to AAC as part of their mandatory resampling.
If the upload times become daunting you could test audio uploaded as AAC and audio uploaded in some lossless format and transcoded to AAC by YouTube and see if there is a perceptible difference.
Before you worry too much about audio quality on YouTube, consider that not everyone will be listening on devices that are optimal for best audio quality and dynamic range.
I have this problem with live music videos I shoot then edit for a club. I spend a lot of time editing the audio for best reproduction, but still people listen on their cheap phones and then say things like āItās a bit tinnyāā¦
All well and good if you listen to the playback on high-end audio equipment, but cheap phones or laptops? Waste of effort on those people
If you can tolerate the upload time, upload a lossless audio format and let YouTube transcode it to AAC. Just make sure the format has truly lossless audio. If you want less upload time, Iām thinking youāll be better off going AC3 ā AC3 after itās resampled by YouTube.
The upload time is no problem. I had to google the translation ālossy audioā but I get your point
Thanks for your reply.
I think my best strategy is to try Danās advices and then use Youtube to trans-code it into AAC.
Here is a handy tool you can use to estimate the upload speed. You will need to know the upload speed of your Internet connection which you can find out using the ookla speed test program.
Well, I tried multiple formats and settings. The result varied from a file-size of 3Mb as large as 3.5Gb. As Youtube wonāt allow a size bigger then 1Gb (unless you are a professional user) I settled for a file which is 23Mb (audio & video).
The (original) exported audio-file was 65Mb in Wave-format. Due to limitations in my current software I canāt use Flac or another extension. So I ended up with a upload file of 23Mb.
Iām about to upload this file to Youtube and trying the advice of Chris (transcode to AAC). I hope there will be something left of the audio quality.
Anyway, the āproblemā i have is NOT with Shotcut but with the several format-changes I need to use to create a usable Video file. This problem starts with recording from Cubase which wonāt allow recording Audio&Video at the same time, so I have to use a screendump program to capture the video and the (limited) export settings in Cubase. Then I have to synchronize both with Shotcut. Next step is to export the resulting video (including audio) to the best possible quality. Finally Youtube itself likes to āeatā some audio-quality also.
Going to upload it within the hour (whish me luck)
What software are you using that won't export FLAC?
Strike that I see youāre using cubase, if you have the option(IE if your system is powerful enough) you might be able to sync things using something like VLC to stream it locally directly into shotcut although that would be a lot of work for whatās likely a small improvement.
I listen to a lot of people that make their music with their own home studio.
Iāll watch their video, which in almost every video I watch, is a linked SoundCloud link. https://soundcloud.com/upload
"What types of files can I upload? You can upload AIFF, WAVE (WAV), FLAC, ALAC, OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR, and WMA files. The maximum file size is 5GB. "
For many artists donāt upload that much to YouTube, like Arius.
I seem to have a problem with the settings of my hardware (Synth, Mixer and Pc) in general. I have to do a āwork aroundā to get my āstudioā working. My system is powerful enough I7-7700, 16Gb and 2xSSD.
Iāll have to fix this first (problem with Port-settings).
Iāll keep your advice in mind.
Iāve uploaded the āfinal versionā which was only 26Mb (Audio + Video). There is a loss in quality audible but Iām the only one how can listen to the composition in 'Full hq" so I notice a loss in dynamics mainly. I also searched (before uploading) to enhance the sound-quality using a Youtube editor but I didnāt find the option.
