Hello to everyone!!!

I have two different audiostreams (both ~ 1h) and i want to mix them together to one, like the first 10 min from stream 1, the next 3 min from stream 2, the following 5 min from stream 1, ...

Is there any possibility to do that?
Perhaps with besweet's listfiles (with timestamps?) or is there a frameserver-tool like avisynth for audio?

I am also happy for any advice (or software tip) which makes this possible!!!

yup...


a. what format are those streams in..?

any sequenser would do for this. i always use samplitude producer
for any mixing.. "sam" would be considered as "overkill" for such
a task.. but you ain`t gonna find any better sequenser..

there is other options for this.. but i would go for "sam"..
in either way.. you got a state of the art.. seq.

thanks for your answer!

first stream is ac3 2.0 192kb 48khz
second str. is mp3 128kb 44100hz

as samplitude producer is pretty expensive are there any freeware tools which can handle this (or is it necessary to buy something)?

yup...


hmmz.. am not shure.. if besweet gonna do it...
maybe/maybe not. try.. or take a tour in doom9.

but as you stated.. one is ac3. and one is stereo/mono mp3.
do i understand you right.. when i say you wanna
change/replace one channal in the ac3..??

anyway.. you have two diff.bitstreams.. you have in either way
resample one..

so back to the sequencer issue..


ps: do you got any ftp..?

No i want to mix two movie soundtracks:
my father brought me an american dvd and now i want to make an avi- backup copy with german sound track (which was recorded in a movie). the german sound is the mp3 file but not in real good quality so i want to take the parts in which it is spoken from the mp3 and mix it with the other parts from the original dvd soundtrack (ac3-file). In the end i want to have a 192kb ac3-file (mp3 will also be good)

In this situation it is also very important that the sound is synchronous with the pictures!!!

what will be the best way to do that?

is it necessary to decode both files to wav?
the ac3 file is for a 23,976 fps ntsc movie, the mp3 for a 25 fps pal movie
is it better to downsample the ac3 file to 44100hz or upsample the mp3 to 48khz?

does the whole necessary process reduce the sounds quality very much?

pfuh really a lot to look at...

Woah..now that would be -extremely- hard. I doubt that you'll be able to keep the audio and video in sync..
Yes, you'll have to decode both to wav if you want to mix stuff (damn that's gonna be hard)
Downsample the AC3 to 44,100.
Ahm, well, the outcome will be a REALLY LOW quality reencode.. Reencoding parts of a 128kbps MP3...BAD, so yeah, it will reduce the quality very much.
I think doing that would be extremely hard bond, why not use subtitles?..

I thought about using BeSplit to split the streams without reencoding and then listfiles as input for BeSweet so that i have to reencode just once, but there is still the the ntsc/pal-thing and because of that it will be really difficult to cut at the right spots

i think i will stay with the bad quality mp3 i already have!

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&t...&threadid=39600

I just "reliked" the already banned idea mentioned above

to sum it up again:

I have two audio streams
a ) ac3 192kbps 2ch for 23,297fps (ntsc)
b ) mp3 128kbps vbr for 25fps (pal) - 44.1khz
and i want to mux them like already said

i plan to do it that way:
1 ) convert the ac3 to a 128kbps vbr 44.1khz mp3 and to change the frame rate from 23,276 to 25
2 ) cut the two mp3 streams as necessary with besplit
3 ) join the two mp3 streams with besplit

so there is only one reencode from ac3 to mp3 which shouldnt cause bad quality!


now my questions:

1 ) i read somewhere that the pal->ntsc conversion can cause some sound quality troubles - are there also troubles with ntsc->pal conversion?

2 ) do the two audio streams both have
a ) to be the same file format (i guess they have to..)
b ) to have the same bitrate (vbr/cbr)
c ) to be either vbr or cbr (is joining vbr with cbr possible?)
d ) to have the same sample rate?

3 ) the pitches of the two streams are different. is there any possiblity to equalize them?

4 ) is there a possibility to add ~200ms silence in between different parts. ok for the beginning part i can set the delay but in between?

5 ) does there exist a gui for joining jobs with besplit? i am not a real friend of commandline

6 ) i first wanted to reencode the whole thing with vorbis. Is that a good idea in terms of quality? (the mp3 source is already bad quality )


Uh many questions i hope someone can help me

ad 3) i thought about using my ears and the gain/normalize functions to increase the volume of the first file (ac3) so it has ~ the same volume like the mp3 (which i dont want to change)

using besweet's (auto gain) -g max parameter the volume of the encoded ac3 is still a little bit lower than the mp3, so i thought about trying a higher dB value - is this a bad idea in terms of quality? or is there a better solution by using post/hybridgain (which i dont really know what it is )

You seem very keen on this idea!

Firstly, don't worry so much about re-encoding the mp3. From the sounds of it, most of the possible damage has already happened to this file. Whilst it's always bad to transcode, you probably won't make it much worse!

OK, if I were doing what you want to do, I would use Cool Edit Pro (99 tracks), or Cool Edit 2000 with the multitrack plug-in (4 tracks - you will run out). These are not free - sorry! There may be some DJ sotware that allows you to do programmable cross-fades between two audio tracks, which may be available as shareware - I don't know. Whatever, I'm assuming access to CEP because that's what I have.

This is what I would do:

1. decode both files to .wav

2. resample both to whatever the destination sample rate should, be using CEP. Call the sampling fate FS.

3. choose one of them (probably the one that is already in sync with the movie! call this file 1) an insert that into the multitrack view as track 1. I would use this is the reference, and make the other one fit.

4. Insert the other file (file 2) into track 2

5. see how much too long or too short track 2 is, compared to track 1.

(If the two files don't quite start and end at the same place (e.g. one has some extra silence at the start, one has the end cut off etc), find a part near the start that is present in both files, and line the two files up at this point (right click and drag in CEP 1). Call this point A. Note down the time index. Now find a part near the end that is present in both files, and note down the time indexes in both files (points B1 and B2). It helps to display the time in seconds or samples. To find the same part in both tracks, you can solo 1 track, then the other, and compare.

L1=B1-A
L2=B2-A

Now, close cool edit (don't save anything), and re-start it with just file 2 loaded. Now, calculate
(L2/L1)*FS
Round this to the nearest whole number, and enter it into "Adjust Sample Rate" in Cool Edit Pro. You'll now have file 2 matched in speed to file 1, but the sample rate is wrong. Resample it (using "Convert Sample Type") back to a sample rate of FS. Save it.

6. Compair both files in the multitrack view:

Insert file 1 into track 1, and file 2 into track 2. If you drag one file so that they match at point A, then you should find that they pretty much match at point B too. If you're dead lucky, they'll also match all the way through - but this is unlikely! They'll probably wonder out of sync very rapidly, and not re-sync until point B. You may also find that one version is editted compared to the other. If it's a huge edit, you might want to re-do step 5, taking account of it.

7. Insert the cross fades

In CEP multitrack, click View:Show volume Envelopes. In File 1 (track 1) find where you want to change to file 2, and create a fade out (click on the line showing the volume envelope at the top - create one point at maximum, and another slightly later at minimum - there's your fade out). Drag track 2 so that it's perfectly in sync with track 1 at this point, and create a fade in on track 2 to match the fade out on track 1 (i.e. a crossfade - CEP can do this automatically, but it doesn't always do what you expect!).

Find where you want to switch back to track 1 - put a fade out in track 2, and a fade in in track 1.

Find the next point where you want to switch back to file 2. If track 2 and track 1 are in sync at this point, then do the same. If they're not, insert a second copy of file 2 onto track 3, and drag this to be in sync where you want to cross frade.

If you run out of track, you can actually drag waveforms on top of other waveforms in the multitrack view - you won't be able to see them anymore, but you can still hear them, which is all that matters!

8. Mixdown

When you've gone through the whole movie, cross fading between soundtracks as appropriate, you can mixdown to a single waveform, save it as a .wav, and encode it as you wish. Because you used the already synced waveform as a reference, this should be in sync too.


This whole process will be as slow to do as it sounds!


There's a few things to watch in CEP. Firstly, make sure the first and last volume envelope points are dragged down to zero for all tracks that you don't want to hear at the start and end (i.e. all except track 1!). Secondly, work in 16 bit, and make sure you're doing 16-bit mixdowns. Thirdly, turn off background mixing in the multitrack window (see the manual). Fourthly, use a quality of 256 or lower when resampling (you can use 30 without any real problems in this case, and it's quicker!) - there is no advantage to going higher than 256. Fifthly, maybe you should try this process on the first five or ten minutes of the film, to find out what's involved before you start working on the whole thing!


Maybe you could find someone with CEP who could help you with this project (sorry - that wasn't an offer!).

Whatever method you choose, good luck with it! Personally, I think it would be easier to wait for the DVD!

Cheers,
David.
P.S. I have used the process I describe here to sucesfully mix and match two varying quality+speed recordings of the same thing - my wedding!