How to Insert only part of a file, like an audio subclip, into Multitrack?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 27, 2017
1 reply
5129 views

In other words say I have a one minute long Room Tone file. I just want to insert 10 seconds of it on a track of my choosing. Is there any way to do this, or do I have to insert the whole file on another track, cut, and then move?

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SteveG_AudioMasters_

Community Expert

If you open a file in Waveform view, you can place either markers, or marker ranges if you've made a selection, by hitting F8. You can either then right-click on the marker range, and insert just that into your multitrack session, but if you do that, in reality all you've done is placed the whole track with just your selection visible. To place just the section you want is going to involve creating a separate file of it, and probably the easiest way to do this is to make your selection, and select Edit>Copy to new (shift+Alt+C), and place the resulting file into your session. Clearly you will have to save it at some point, but when you go to close the session you'll get an option to do that.

I have to say though that I'd be very reluctant, especially with a file of room tone, to create a separate file of it, especially one that's only a few seconds long. I'd far rather have the option to be able to extend it slightly if I needed to, and if you want or need to use it again, you can use a different bit (or the same bit, I suppose) elsewhere in your session. In terms of resource usage, there's very little, if any, difference between playing a part of a file on your HD compared to a whole one - and all you've really ended up doing is storing part of an asset twice - if you see what I mean.

B

briandkatz1Author

Known Participant

Appreciate the answer. But I don't see how you can insert from the marker section into the multitrack session. I see there's an item in the context menu for it, but it doesn't work correctly and if the Multitrack Window isn't active, I can't tell where it'd be inserting. At least it wasn't behaving predictably when I tried. But at least now I know about marker sections! TY.

As for the rest of the answer, I think the complexity of it illustrates the problem. I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve all that. 'Cos right now it's just as easy to insert a full file onto a blank track, do my edits, and then move the result where I want to. And that's how I have been doing it. But I want to do it with less work, not more. In Premiere, I can do it by simply bringing the file into the source monitor, setting In & Out Points, and then dragging or other methods to put onto the timeline. Seems crazy to me that a dedicated audio toolset from the same vendor shouldn't be just as easy and intuitive.

SteveG_AudioMasters_

Community Expert

briandkatz1 wrote:
As for the rest of the answer, I think the complexity of it illustrates the problem. I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve all that. 'Cos right now it's just as easy to insert a full file onto a blank track, do my edits, and then move the result where I want to. And that's how I have been doing it. But I want to do it with less work, not more. In Premiere, I can do it by simply bringing the file into the source monitor, setting In & Out Points, and then dragging or other methods to put onto the timeline. Seems crazy to me that a dedicated audio toolset from the same vendor shouldn't be just as easy and intuitive.

I understand what you're saying and I agree with you in principle. You have to bear in mind though that Waveform editing in Audition is, and always has been, destructive - and that's the one thing that Premiere isn't. So as it stands, you couldn't use the Waveform view as a suitable 'preview window', as it simply doesn't function like this; not least because it isn't possible to be in Waveform and Multitrack view at the same time!

I think that one practical problem with it would be screen real-estate. It would have to be a view that people could turn off if they didn't want to use it - many people don't do audio on multiple screens, and wouldn't want any more clutter than they have presently. Premiere majors on pictures, so these get far more real-estate; sound in Premiere is just a badly thought-out addition to its primary purpose. In Audition, it's the other way around - pictures are just an additional nuisance to a soundtrack that probably doesn't need them anyway... (please excuse my prejudice - it is, though, based on being an ex-video editor from when it all happened with tape...)

Another reason that the facility isn't there is that a heck of a lot of audio editors are extremely conservative. Whenever anything gets changed significantly there are always masses of complaints, although these are generally finessed somewhat. What that means is that in this instance, you'd not get complaints about the inclusion of the new feature as such, but, as I mentioned before, how much room it took up. This, and variations of it, have happened so many times in the past that it's little wonder the devs are now very careful about what they change, and how.

So, is it a good idea? Yes.

Would I use it? Almost certainly.

Will it ever happen? Hehe!

Tell you what - I'll put it forward as a development feature request with a link back to this thread, and we'll see.

(now done)

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