Software recommendations for movie soundtrack editing

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m-Trak-Mike

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Hi All,

I'm embarking on a new hobby: Redoing soundtracks of popular movies, to overwrite their English audio tracks with the dialog of foreign voice actors, aka dubbing films. Of course many films already come with alternate language audio tracks, but the goal is to dub less-common languages (languages that never get put on any films except in the films produced in the native countries).

BTW, I know this is a tall order...not only must voices be recorded, sound effects and foley work will be required!

I have no experience with (or knowledge of) multitrack audio software. My PC is non-fancy, Windows with two gig RAM and a CPU that can do in excess of 1 gigahertz.

Question is, which multitrack audio software is good for editing film soundtracks? Obviously I'll need to be able to play a given video clip on-screen as I'm editing audio, e.g., to ensure lip movements are in sync with the newly-recorded dialog.

The desired multitrack audio software need not have any video editing capabilities, not even the ability to trim video lengths. Also it doesn't matter if the multitrack audio software is inflexible IRT the video format. For example, if the multitrack audio software only accepts video clips in WMV format, that's no problem, I'll make scratch copies of the video clips in WMV format.

Lastly, the multitrack audio software does not need to be able to export video, only audio. When the mixed audio track of a given video clip is done, I'll export it as a simple audio file, and then later I'll use my video editing software to overwrite the video clips' existing soundtracks with the newly-created audio tracks.

Thanks in advance!

- Mike
 
Hi Mike,
welcome to the funny farm! Reaper could be just what you need?...
Syncing Audio with Video in REAPER - YouTube

I have to say however that I do not think that computer is going to be powerful enough. Whilst it is true that recording even quite a few tracks does not take much PC power, running audio editing and video, even with a very light program like reaper, will.

For a single core machine, JUST doing audio work I would suggest the minimum required would be a 2G processor and 2G ram. For more intensive work look at double that specc' but in truth you really need something like my HP laptop (but don't buy a laptop!) which is now dual core (i3) and 8G ram.

I am also assuming you will use a USB interface? If so these need a fair amount of CPU grunt just of themselves. For a desktop machine fit a separate hard drive to keep just audio data on.

Dave.
 
Echo what Dave says - you need a lot more grunt in your computer.
 
And, if you intend to do anything with this, you MUST get the rights to do so -- otherwise you are infringing copyright.
 
The great thing about Reaper is that you can >try it out< to see if it does what you want.
No restrictions or crippling copy protection.

The demo is fully functional with only a nag screen at startup; the developers are trusting that if you fall for it you'll pay the measly license fee.

Even so, you'll likely need SOME kind of video editor if only to manage your clips.
I highly suggest Sony Vegas Studio (<$50) and it also does multi-track audio and uses audio VST plugins.

And as the others have mentioned, video take FAR more grunt and disk space than audio. You're likely to be highly disappointed when you start working with more than very simple projects.
 
Reaper looks like a great solution, and that $60 license is amazingly inexpensive given all the capabilities. Will definitely give it a whirl.

Already have Adobe Premiere 12 for the video, in fact I've already finished editing the first film's video segments, just need to do the audio now.

Ran Belarc Advisor and was right about the processor being at least 1 gigahertz... it's dual core 2.8 gigahertz. The computer is a desktop PC with a second hard drive for data storage (SATA, two terabytes).

Thanks everyone!

- Mike
 
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