[yrret]

I think the only one you haven't mentioned is Sony Vegas. Its as much a
multi-track audio editor as it is a video editor. Its major drawback is its
never really developed a useful way of organising edits. Gets real
frustrating if your editing a long-form anything. But its cheap.

I agree that Avid is probably what your after.

"andrew.zey" wrote in message
...
Hi Everybody,

I'm looking to start a video project which will be synced to
recordings of classical music that will have to include the ability to
mix voice, music, ambiance, narrative, and sound effects.

I'm looking for the best video editing software which will have
capable audio mixing either built in or integrated in the suite (Like
Soundtrack Pro in Final Cut Studio or Adobe Premiere's built-in audio
mixing). This is important as the music is tightly synced to the
video, so the layout must be done first in the video editor, then
exported and polished in the audio mixing software. I must be able to
retain clip positions from the video editor.

I've tried both Soundtrack Pro 3 (as part of the most recent update of
Final Cut Studio), and Adobe Premiere CS5. I've run into significant
problems with both:

Final Cut Studio [3.0] / Final Cut Pro 7 (FCP) / Soundtrack Pro 3.0
(STP)

1. FCP Doesn't allow convenient sub-frame editing. It can be done, but
very awkwardly
2. FCP Limited to AIFF files, as WAV sometimes has serious drifting
problems due to mis-identification of SMPTE framerate.
3. FCP & STP have undefined meters (don't specify which algorithm is
used). Both ignore peaks which are detected in WaveLab 6 running on PC
4. STP Inability to pan submix busses and master mix.
5. STP Inability to nest/group busses (so I only have 1 level of
grouping available that would allow panning)
6. STP Inability to copy&paste any effects or automation data
7. STP is counter-intuitive, as it requires at least 1 sub-mix, which
cannot be panned!
8. STP each AUX bus has to be mapped to a submix bus
9. All of the FCS only supports AU plugins, not MacVST's.

Points 4-8 are really a deal-breaker with STP, as it makes it
extremely clumsy and awkward to get any serious mixing done.

Adobe Premiere CS5 (AP)

1. Random audio stuttering and skipping (playhead moves smoothly and
predictably, but the audio that is being played back skips and starts
playing from random parts of the clip that have no relation to the
position of the playhead). This holds true using AIFF files on Mac OS
X 10.6.4. I will experiment with WAV files to see if I can avoid this
problem.

2. AP doesn't have traditional panning controls. Each stereo track has
to be split into mono channels, and the volumes keyframed separately.
This makes it very awkward to see where the combined sound is in
relation to center.

3. AP doesn't allow vertical zoom of clips in timeline.

4. AP also has undefined meters algorithm.

I haven't yet tried Adobe Soundbooth CS5, but my look at the previous
version CS4 was very disappointing - it looked like a program for
novices.

So what is the most common software / suite for video editing and
audio mastering / mixing on PC AND Mac amongst audio professionals?

I am on a modern Mac, so I can do both Windows and Mac. The tool will
determine the platform.

Thanks so much in advance,

Andrew