I'm using CD music in a short interview video.  For some music clips I can adjust the volume anywhere in the clip and it will stay where I put the adjustment handles.  In the last clip - this is hard to describe - every time I click on the volume in the timeline it adds an adjustment handle that stays where I don't want it.  I can eventually lower the sound, but I can't bring down higher adjustment handles that I don't want.

 I've tried to analyze what factors make that clip different than earlier clips.  I've deleted the problem clip and started fresh, but that one clip won't adjust where I want it.  The volume line is zigzagged up and down when I want a smooth fade or rise in sound level. 

This has happened on other projects.  This time I worked with it, looked for the cause, tried different solutions, and came up with no ideas.  I searched the forum for this problem, but couldn't find anything.  Any ideas? 

I hope it's a simple fix.  Let me know if you need a better description. 

Margaret. Have a read of THIS

There hasn't been a fix announced yet, but to my knowledge, no one has reported this in S12. (which leads to another debate )

Hello jjn,

 I read the thread, and had a little trouble following it all.  I have Windows XP SP2.  And I have Studio 10 Plus, 10.7.  Does it mean that there's no way to get the volume where I want it if I shorten (cut) a CD song?  I don't want to upgrade to Studio 12 just to do that little operation.  Am I missing something?

Now I'm replying to myself.  The song is longer than my video so it has to be cut.  It looks like I can add the entire song again on the timeline beyond the end of the video.  Then I can do the math on paper, and figure out just where and how much I want the levels changed, and change them before cutting the song.  Then cut off the part I want and paste it in the video.  If I don't get it quite right, I have to start over and try to get the levels right before moving it under the video.  That's like working with my hands in a paper bag - can't see what I'm doing.  That's all I can figure out at this point.  Any other ideas?

 

Try converting the Audio track to WAV or MP3 and try to re-import and edit it that way.

Margaret,

Have a look at THIS, and read the third paragraph. I personally use the audio sliders for volume control, and have had pretty good luck. Just adjust the slider as your project plays along. The little round knobs above the sliders will adjust the whole audio track in one fair swoop. It takes a little practice, but it's less of a hassle than trying to get rid of the crazy handles.

It's already a WAV file in Studio.  Earlier, after reading the other thread, I opened the song in RepEditBurn and looked at converting it to an MP3 file.  It asked for choices that I didn't know how to make - Lame Encoder or Windows ACM Default?  I have no idea.  Do you?  Is there a better way to convert to MP3?

I've been down that road a time or two and usually deleting the clip and adding it back in solves the problem.  A few times, deleting the clip, then deleting the aux files and finally reloading the clip has solved the problem. (I did not see where you had tried deleting the aux files)

 

However, on two occasions, I've had clips that just would not work and in both cases I was trimming from both ends.  For those two, I ended up loading them into an audio editor, setting the lead trim where I wanted it, setting the trailing trim to a bit longer than needed and finally saving them back out as wav’s.

 

A real pain but it did work.

Jerry

I have S10.7 & am blessed with not having the Volume node prob. When you try to move the Vol node, do you have a dark blue or light blue speaker icon, when you select it? Hover mouse over icon until you get light blue & then left-click & drag.You only get a Dark blue icon when fixing a node (anchor point).

towbar:

Margaret,

Have a look at THIS, and read the third paragraph. I personally use the audio sliders for volume control, and have had pretty good luck. Just adjust the slider as your project plays along. The little round knobs above the sliders will adjust the whole audio track in one fair swoop. It takes a little practice, but it's less of a hassle than trying to get rid of the crazy handles.

That seems to take care of the problem.  Yes, it's a little tricky.  I'll make a note for future situations.  Thanks.

Towbar,

 Another reply about adjusting the volume.  I've been working with it, and noticed that with the audio sliders it's easy to re-play and change again and again.  Cool.

margaret45:

 noticed that with the audio sliders it's easy to re-play and change again and again.

It's pretty easy, but hard on your index finger if you are adjusting the volume of the whole song. You have to keep a firm grip on the slider, or it will slip right out of your pointer ! (?)

Anyway, that's why I mentioned the button above the slider, it's a global volume control. With a little luck, you can adjust the volume to where the majority is ok, then use the slider to fine tune only a few spots.

margaret45:

The song is longer than my video so it has to be cut. 

 Hi margaret45.

FWIW, I use 10.7 and luckily haven't suffered those problems (yet). I rarely cut or fade a tune or song off from the end of the video, I just let it play out against a black screen, usually for only a few extra seconds, but then I suppose it depends on what the project is.

You don't have to cut the music at the end. Good luck with the project.

Dan.

Problem is the interview video is 3:11.  The song is 4:49.  The song is muted through most of the video, but I want to use the end of the song at the end of the video and as it fades out.  So in this instance I do have to add a cut and paste.  The slider is working.  I had trouble manipulating the button.  That would take some practice.

Thanks, anyway, for the suggestion.

I don't want to get ahead of myself and type out something you don't want. (I hate typing).

If you forget about the audio levels for the moment, can you edit the timeline and music, and get it to your satisfaction ? If so, you could take that part and render it to a .wav file and add it back into the project. Since it would be the proper length, you could edit the audio levels the second time around.

Or, is the music muted at the beginning of the video? If so would it work to forget about the audio levels again, cut off the beginning of the music track to make the rest of the music fit the video,  and do basically the same as posted above.

What I'm trying to accomplish is to give you a music track that has not been cut, and is exactly the length you wish. Since it won't have to be cut the volume handles will act normal. It all would be done in two stages, and all from within the Studio program. The slider usually works good for me, but the volume control points will still act whacky with the beginning cut off.

Let me know if you're satisfied with your current situation.  Let me know if any of my post is interesting to you. Let me know if I've totally confused you. I'll proceed if you wish, just answer the questions above.

Good one towbar. Worth a try. Another thing to try is always delete and re add the song whenever things get crazy with the volume handles.

margaret45:

 Mike, I'd still like to know about rendering as an AVI file for my 3-min. interview project with CD music ,in regard to adjusting sound levels after a cut.

I'll give it a shot, just ignore things you might already know. 

Since the handles get crazy when I cut the beginning of an audio track, I have found a quick way to solve this problem. I work with mostly .avi files, so I have lots of hard drive space.  An .avi file can be used on the audio (music) track. So I edit my project, create a new music track from the timeline, delete the original music, and replace it with the new one. It's the perfect length, and doesn't have to be cut.

Forget about your audio levels on the music track, and edit to your liking. To edit the music track, you should lock the the main video track and the main audio track. This will just keep things in place up there. When you have edited to your liking, mute the main audio track. You will only want the audio (music) track to be heard while playing the timeline.

Create an .avi file from your timeline. This is your new music track. Delete the existing one and replace it with the new one. Now you have a full, uncut music track that the audio handles will work properly with. Don't forget to unlock and unmute the tracks that you previously did, you will be scratching your head later.

If harddrive space is limited, you can create the music track the proper way. Go to the settings in "create file", and change it to custom. Uncheck the "Include Video" box, and the file will be created as a .wav file. the .wav file will be very small in comparison to the .avi file. I tend to like my way because I don't have to change the settings and it's much faster.

For some audio work, I use a free program called Audacity. I mainly use it if I'm creating .mp3 files. But working all in one program tends to be easier, especially in this case.

BTW, I'm thinking that the lame encoder would be the choice for .mp3. That's just my opinion on that subject.  

towbar:

Create an .avi file from your timeline. This is your new music track. Delete the existing one and replace it with the new one. Now you have a full, uncut music track that the audio handles will work properly with. Don't forget to unlock and unmute the tracks that you previously did, you will be scratching your head later.

 

Mike,

How do you create an .avi file from the timeline?  Make Movie?  If so, how to you get it back into your video?  I followed you about muting and locking tracks, but got lost on the next step.

Thanks. 

margaret45:

How do you create an .avi file from the timeline?  Make Movie? 

Yes, that's the right place. Click the "File" tab on the left to come up with the file settings. Change the file type to AVI, and use the full screen DV setting. Click the create file button, and follow the instructions. Make sure you save the file in a place that you can easily remember.

In the edit mode, just open the video toolbox, click the little folder under the make movie tab, and you will see an explorer window open. Use this window to navigate to your file.

I type like I think, so I hope I'm being clear.

Hey everyone,

I'm really sorry that my first post to this forum is going to be so negative, but I just shelled out 100USD for Studio 12 Plus and within hours have encountered the volume handle BUG and numerous others.  A bug that has existed in 3 major releases of the product, has received this much forum discussion, is so easy to reproduce and still is not fixed speaks volumes about the quality of software engineering going on at Pinnacle.

Marc P., I recognize that you must have the worst job in the world dealing with crabby customers, but I also know that you don't have the answer.  I'd suggest that you go to your supervisor and elevate the priority of long-standing bugs in your development group and start motivating people to fix them.

Any software vendor that includes instructions like "Try reinstalling Windows when our render engine goes into an infinite loop" (eg Answer ID 6386) has either way overextended their product line so that they don't have enough competent engineers to support anything anymore or is just blowing smoke at their customers hoping they'll go away

I'll tell you what, Pinnacle Studio has the potential to be a Great piece of relatively inexpensive software if Pinnacle commits to spending the time required to fix the really annoying bugs.  I'm not inclined to spend anymore of my money with Pinnacle until they show some improvement.

 

 

 

 

Hi Stine, and welcome to the forum (again?)

I might be wrong, but I think you are the first person to report that the "Crazy Handles" bug has migrated to S12.

You clearly have read about this and know that some people get it all the time, and others struggle to reproduce it.

Can you give a way to reproduce this, say using the project that comes with S12? I think that's the only we can move Pinnacle forward.

 

I think this is the 1st report for volume handle issues in Studio 12 as I have not been able to reproduce it any way I could try. Would you care to share us your S12 crazy volume handle recipe?

I might be wrong, but I think you are the first person to report that the "Crazy Handles" bug has migrated to S12.

jjn, I don't think "migrated" is the correct word.  I am a professional software developer and I know how the process works.

Version 12 is simply a copy of version 11 which was a copy of version 10.... etc. Programmers make progress by adding features, fixing bugs, and redesigning existing aspects of the code.  This bug is incorrect code that has existed in three major releases and Pinnacle has been unable or unwilling to put the effort into squashing it.  A competent programmer would be able to examine the source code and predict how this failure occurs, reproduce it, and fix it with probably a day's work if he was allowed to.

Marc, many people have told you how to cause it.  I'm not on your testing staff.  I have my own bugs to fix.  All I can say is that it is persistent to the project.  Once the handles get screwed up that stay screwed up in that clip no matter if you close/open the project, delete aux files, reboot the machine or reinstall Windows.  Perhaps a data structure in the project file is corrupted?  Like a linked list of handles?

Having said that, if I happen to get a small test project in that state (not the one I'm currently working on) I will send it in.  The answer lies in the project data.

I'm very hopeful that Pinnacle will fix the bugs, because my sons and I are having a great time shooting and producing home movies with the Studio.  I'm amazed at how much professional video editing power one can buy for $100 these days.

jjn, I don't think "migrated" is the correct word.

I bow to your superior vocabulary

Version 12 is simply a copy of version 11

As Pinnacle have changed the audio mixer in S12 from S11, us mere mortals had hoped that in the process of the re-write that the code may have been (inadvertently) fixed. Studio 12 has been available for about a month now and no reports were forthcoming,