sound
 

hi all, i am currently using after effects for compositing when i
have a sequence of files but i was wondering, when i add sound
to an animation should i stick with after effects or is something like adobe premiere a better choice.

ta.

Either will do the job but Premiere is somewhat easier for this kind of thing. You can have 99 audio tracks (maybe more nowadays, not sure) and managing clips, cross-fading etc is easy... A separate wave editor, like sound forge, is also a handy complement...

Premiere is strictly speaking a long format video editor; used for trimming clips and sequences and adding transitions. It's also a good tool for for editing sequences to audio. Premiere has decent tools for tweaking audio however, there are more powerful programs that are better suited to audio production (Pro Tools, Logic, etc.) I tend to see video editing and audio production two separate and distinct disciplines and they should be handled accordingly. My two cents of course.

After Effects, as the name implies, is more for post production. Often used "after" a sequence has been edited and using only a small section of that sequence (short format). Though it could be used to edit in a sort of klunky way. The power of After Effects is in the ability to composite layers of clips (diffuse, specular, shadow and reflection passes for example) and/or use plug-ins to achieve special "effects". Another powerful feature is its' ability to key out unwanted backgrounds and composite this over the desired background (think blue/green screen). You can edit to audio by using the peaks of the audio waveform but generally the audio is not massaged in After Effects.

Final Cut Pro is a sort of hybrid of these two methods. You can edit according to professional methods and add special effects using layers and After Effects plug-ins.

Hope this helps.

I have to agree with you dexter10. From the original question I got the impression that Premiere or AE were the only two choices here. As a hobbyist musician I can't recommend either of them for serious audio recording/editing/mixing/etc but for a regular Joe they'll do the job.

In the past I have used Steinberg's Nuendo and Cakewalk Pro Audio to record and edit my own music. Both of them are quite nice. Also one popular program is Cubase. I have couple of friends earning their living making music and I've visited few production sound studios with them too. It is my belief that Pro Tools is the most top-rated of these.

...

Heh...don't exclude Logic Audio, either. ;) If you're talking about composing.

Ok, Videowise, basically it's like this...Premiere you can add audio and do basic editing. In, After Effects you have more editing control than in premiere. You could also check out Sonic Foundry's Vegas, as well...which is kinda like their version of AE...heavily geared towards audio (they make sound forge, after all)...supports surround sound, etc.

Like KB, suggested, if the music portion is the primary concern, you'd be better off with something like Nuendo, Cubase, or Logic which allow you to work with video....though from some of the user forums for both Cubase and Logic, at least, there have been quite a few problems.


EDIT: I should've read Dexter's post better....he said it all.