Preliminary notes:
As a finishing system, Mistika is designed to pass the audio as it is, ideally with no modifications or only the ones related with standard editing functions and final encoding.
Mistika does not have dedicated tracks for audio. By default, all the audio channels of the clips that are covered by the record monitor range (the vertical red bar) are added up to the mix. Then, you can control the output level of each track in the AudioPanel->Mixer, or use the AudioPanel->Router to route the source channels of a particular clip to different tracks of the output mixer.
For additional control, you can select an audio clip and manually animate its audio curves in the parameter curves panel.
The following are the most frequent questions about audio in Mistika:
Question: How to create audio cross-fades easily and indpendently from video tracks?
Audio cross-fades can use a different approach than video tracks, as sometimes you may want independent control. For example, in a dialogue scene you may want to cross-fade the video track but delay the audio cross-fade a bit more in order to let the previous character to finish a sentence while watching the next shoot.
- first, If the clips are AV type you have to execute A/V break, as you may want different in out / points for audio cross-fades and images.
- Then overlay one audio audio clip on top of the other on the same track. That will produce an automatic audio cross-fade between both audio clips, using independent in/out points than the video track.
- You will also see that the overlapped area is highlighted in green color rather than red. This is because in this case it is not considered a mistake like in the case of video track overlaps (which appear in warning red color), audio overlaps are permitted on purpose for creating independent audio cross-fades.
- You can achieve audio fade up / fade down in the same way, by mixing to/from a silent clip or one that you have extended its head/tail to create silence.
Note: This method is designed for easy cross fades, but it does not offer control for animation curves. If you want a custom animation for the gain of each channel you will need to select the audio clip and animate the curves in the parameters curve editor
Question: I am producing 5.1 or 7.1 audio and I can't listen some audio channels, or they are not in the right tracks, how can I fix it?
First thing check the AudioPanel->Setup. In this panel you can define the number of input channels (for capture actions) and the number of output channels (for video output and rendering actions). Also increase Edit->Setup->Vumeters_to_Show to see all the tracks that you need.
Then:
- if your desired audio channel does not show on any Vumeter, then it means that the import process has failed to find any audio on it. Check if your audio file is supported or try with other application.
- if your desired audio channel is shown on the desired Vumeter then it means that Mistika has sent its audio to the audio output hardware. If can not listen to it check the audio external devices and cables, as the problem can not be in Mistika.
- If your desired audio channel is there but it is shown in the wrong Vumeter (it appears but it is not in the track you want), then you will need to use the AutioPanel->Router to route it to your desired channel:
First select the audio clip (the corresponding router channels will activate), then use the knob at the bottom of its track column to route it to the desired tracks of the output mixer (which will produce the final mix).
Please note that the Mistika router and Mistika mixer work in similar ways as the real ones. All the channels come in stereo pairs, and then if you need to cross odd and even channels you will need to use the "pan" knob of the corresponding track to decide which track of the mixer will receive it, (or to produce a custom mix of the stereo pair ).
- When rendering movie files with audio, choose "Audio in Movie" and make sure your desired format support as many output channels as selected in the audio panel. The audio options permit to adjust the most common parameters as the audio bit rate and some others.
Note: Mistika movie files use ffmpeg libraries for audio encoding. Expert users with ffmpeg knowledge can gain additional control by modifying the following file directly (please make a backup first). Depending in the Mistika version:
MISTIKA-ENV/config/avformat.cfg
or
SGO AppData/config/avformat.cfg
- This file provides a section for each movie format found in Mistika render panel, and it accepts the usual ffmpeg syntax. For example, to change 16 bit big-endian audio to 24bit Little Endian audio just substitute the string "pcm_s16be" by "pcm_b24le"
Question: Sometimes I listen "audio glitches" between audio cuts. How can I fix it?
Please make sure that AudioPanel->AudioDefeat is deactivated. Mistika is designed to produce a 1 frame audio cross-fade automatically between adjacent clips. But if the AudioDefeat button is activated it will shut down all the audio processing including this capability. (the only purpose of AudioDefeat is to permit to edit and pass trough unsupported audio formats like Dolby-E.
Question: How to fix audio sync problems?
For proper sync, the audio output needs to be sent to a professional AV board that can keep both audio and video on sync. Currently, (DVS, AJA, etc). If the audio is sent to other devices like the motherboard connectors or other audio boards managed directly by the operating system (mConfig->MasterFormats->MotherboardAudio) then there is no warranty that they will be kept on sync at all.
If the audio has come out of sync on the source files (or we are in the previous case), you will need to use Edit->AV break to extract the audio track and then shift it manually as necessary.
Question: How to produce 5.1 audio for DCP?
The DCP standard requires each audio channel in a separate file. You will need to render each audio track to a mono file. If you don't have it like that, you can render to uncompressed audio and select render->audio->settings->SplitChannelsInMonoTracks. Then use the DCP module to pack everything into a DCP.