-Due before lab today (upload to Blackboard), Written Assignment #2: What I Hear
-Your edited Audio Portrait of a Person is due before next lab (November 6).
-Upload your finished piece to Soundcloud and submit the link through Blackboard. (How do I upload to Soundcloud?)
-Be ready to present it to the class for feedback, and to give feedback to others. This is an important part of the process, please be here for it.
-Today: Audio Editing.

Further sound piece examples:

Falling, from Inventions for Radio: The Dreams (Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange, 1964)
Kits Beach Soundwalk (Hildegard Westerkamp, 1989)

Audio Editing in Premiere:

1. Often you'll record fairly quietly, to be sure your audio doesn't peak. In order to see and hear what you have, you may want to adjust Gain to start (right-click on the audio file or select and hit CMD-G). Watch out that this doesn't cause anything important to peak, though!

2. To reduce background noise, try some Audio Effects: DeHummer or DeNoise can be great, but less is more. In the Effect Controls window, click Edit. You can drag to reduce DeHummer amplitude, or turn down the Amount to 10% or 5% in DeNoise. Sometimes two 10% reductions can sound more natural than a single 20% reduction. Experiment and listen!

3. Under Filter & EQ, the Parametric EQ can be great for removing specific pitches of sound. Adjust the frequency range this the L and H points, and cut or boost specific frequencies with points 1 - 5. Adjust the "Width / Q" values to narrow or expand the effects of your adjustments.

4. Under Audio Transitions, the Constant Power crossfade can be helpful to smooth two lines of dialogue together. Just drag the effect onto the transition to deploy. You can also click and drag the edges of the fade to make it longer or shorter. SHFT-drag to adjust only one side of the fade, asymmetrically.

5. Useful Hotkeys:
-If you need to move all clips after a certain time at once (to open or close a gap in the interview) hit A to switch to the Select Forward tool. Hit V to return to the usual arrow cursor.
-To place a crossfade quickly, select any two clips adjacent you want to fade between and press CMD-SHFT-D. Remember to change the length by dragging the sides of the fade larger or smaller. You can drag just one side at a time by holding down SHFT while dragging.
-to close a gap between two clips quickly, just select the empty space with a left click and hit DELETE.

Youtube is full of audio tutorials for Premiere, and they're all very different, since Premiere offers so many different ways to do similar things, and everyone has different goals they hope to achieve with their editing.


TUTORIALS

-Here's a step-by-step guide to the audio editing process.

-Here's a look at close editing for interview timing and word flow from a professional editor. This is a good look at the kinds of small adjustments you may find yourself making as you go. He does not explain what hotkeys he is using, but they are mostly the ones I list above

-Here's a quick tutorial on EQing and boosting your audio to make it sound punchier. He's also using the Audio workspace, which I find a bit clunky, but which you may like, with a different way of adding and organizing your effects, and demos both the Parametric EQ and a handy multifaceted effect called Dynamics. The Limiter here is especially useful from preventing sound from clipping if there are just a few pops or louder sounds but the general level is correct.

More sound sources:

After a little further digging, it turns out that the old Free Music Archive is still free. Here are 80,000 searchable tracks that are public domain or free under non-commercial Creative Commons Licenses.

Other free Sound Lists to Try: 1 2