These Avid Tips were inspired by Hershleder.com visitor Mark Stewart who works in Wisconsin as a Producer, Director and Editor at a major television station. Follow Mark's lead and submit your favorite tip today.

 
Mark sent me an email to relate that one of his favorite features is, "To import audio from a CD, just open the CD to view the files and Avid allows you to drag the track(s) right into a bin!"  Mark is absolutely correct. This great functionality is available in version 8.x and above, and makes importing both audio and graphics quick and simple (the system will utilize whatever current settings are configured in your Import Settings).

 
This also makes me think to alert you to some other things regarding audio:

 
1 – If you ever need to change the Sample Rate of audio, whether imported or captured off tape, this can be done easily by selecting the clip(s) in the bin, then going to the CLIP MENU in Media Composer or the BIN MENU in Xpress Pro and choosing CHANGE SAMPLE RATE. From there, the dialogue box is pretty straight forward.

 
2 – Before importing audio from CD be sure to first change a setting. Open your IMPORT SETTINGS (picture below). In the more recent versions of the software, there will be a tab that says "AUDIO." Click that tab to make those settings visible. Select the setting that states "Convert source sample rate to project sample rate on import." This will prevent having mismatched audio sample rates in your sequence. While Avid Media Composer and Avid Xpress Pro will allow you to PLAY different sample rates in the same sequence, it does NOT allow you to output a mixed sample rate sequence to tape (you have to do a sample rate conversion first).

 
3 – To make sure that you never go to do an output and then get caught having to change sample rates, my suggestion is when starting a new project, to set-up your AUDIO PROJECT SETTINGS to "NEVER" Convert Sample Rates When Playing. This way, any audio that does not match your project's audio sample rate will play as SILENCE in your Source Window and immediately alert you to the fact that it does not match the project and needs to be converted. This way you can convert it *before* you edit it in to your sequence.

 
4 – There is also another choice in your AUDIO PROJECT SETTINGS that is helpful as well. It is Show Mismatched Sample Rates as Different Color. This is good for finding the mismatched sample rate clips in your SEQUENCE. To do this in Avid Xpress Pro, just select "Sample Plot" from the Timeline Fast Menu. In Media Composer you will find the Sample Plot selection in a sub-menu of the AUDIO DATA selection in the Timeline Fast Menu. If there are mismatched sample rates in your sequence, one rate will display as black and the other as white.

 
5 – Be sure to check out the great additional audio tools available to you in both Media Composer and Avid Xpress Pro. These include the Audio Punch-In Tool, Audio EQ Tool and the Audio Suite Plug-Ins. I use the EQ Tool and Audio Suite pretty frequently.

 
In the EQ Tool, in addition to creating my own custom EQ settings, I use the Tape Hiss Filter and the "Telephone" presets.

 
In the Audio Suite, I love the "Time Compression/Expansion" plug-in. There is no alteration of pitch either. So, I use it most often to speed-up Voice Over without worrying that it will end-up sounding like Mickey Mouse. On the other hand, there is Pitch Shift which is great for adjusting music. In addition, since there's no time compression or expansion you can make people sound funny and still have their dialogue stay in sync. And there's many other useful plug-ins in the Audio Suite like a 4-Band EQ, various reverb, echo and flanger selections as well as a compressor, limiter and more. You can check in your documentation or the Help for more details on the different effects.