Animated Text Sound FX Needed

[drtalk]

ATTN MODS: PLEASE PLACE THIS POST IN THE AREA YOU FEEL BEST SUITED

I'm looking for a sound effect that is quite common, but so far, impossible to find.

The animated text effect is the same one used in countless films. This is where you see text "scroll" horizontally across the screen as if you were watching someone type each character one at a time sequentially. Nero has a text effect they call "Typewriter" that does not too bad of a job producing the visual effect. The sound usually accompanied by this effect is a sort of electronic chirping or very high pitched beep. This sound, at least in film, seems to be perfectly timed with the text as it is added on the screen. In other words, a sound fx for each character and no sound where spaces are placed. This is the best I can do at explaining what I'm after. I'm hoping someone out there might be able to help me.

If it helps, the searching I've done on the net seems to point to a sound effect category known as "telemetry". Once I had that I was able to narrow down my search drastically. However, even though there are several telemetry fx available, the most common one we hear in movies is no where to be found.

One other option is to manually create the audio file. In theory this is not a bad idea. But practically speaking, you begin running into headaches when you soon learn that you need to time each individual sound perfectly with the video of the text being scrolled.

Any thoughts?

[zoobie]

yep
time each individual sound perfectly with the video
I think they call this editing...

[drtalk]

yep
time each individual sound perfectly with the video
I think they call this editing...

You think they call this editing? What kind of smart ass remark is that? Unless you've got something actually useful to say, I guarantee no one is interested in your brainless posts.

[redwudz]

zoobie could have elaborated, but that's basically one way to do it. With your video on one timeline and your audio on another, you adjust the audio to fit the video. Since there is silence between the sound effects, not that hard to move them around. You can create animations with sound the same way. Or if you know the timing of each effect, you can create and edit them in a audio editor to set the timings, then add them to the video.

You will need a decent video editor to do this, maybe one of these: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-editors-advanced

But you would be better off to find the effect that someone has already worked out with the audio included. If you don't find what you want, you may have to use a video editor to create the whole effect.

Did you try a search for ' video effects, scrolling text ' or ' video effects, scrolling letters '? I'd find the video part of the effect first.

[Nitemare]

If you want it perfectly synchronized, you'll have to edit it yourself. It's a pain, but you can't fake perfection.

If using this method, I recommend an advanced editor with multiple audio tracks. Sometimes the text effects are so close together you can't squeeze the sound effects onto a single audio track. Alternating between 2 tracks is usually easier than discovering that even zooming the track doesn't help with overlapping sound effects.

As mentioned before, you could just do a series of effects beeps and edit the sound file to be as long as each section of text being written. Theoretically, if the text characters are coming up in equal lengths of time, the correct # of equal beeps would correspond closely enough with the appearance of the text to be acceptable.

Count the characters (including spaces) such as: AUTOTYPE TEXT APPEARS HERE --that's 26 characters... I'd use an audio editor and make a 26 second clip with a beep every second for the first eight seconds, then skip a beat, then 4 more beats, skip, 7,skip, and 4 more beats. Then I'd resample the whole thing to be the same length of time as the video effect. This should bring the beeps close enough to the text to make due.

I recommend the 2nd method. You'll find that just having a sound effect will sell that shot. If it's imperfect, most people won't notice.

Everyone HERE would... but we're editing geeks... normal viewers like Aunt Jane and Momma won't catch it.

[drtalk]

Hey Redwudz....good to see ya again!

Thx for the reply. Thx to you too Nitemare! I too am an editing geek. Years as a DJ, and especially producing spots in radio where you have to be dead on has stuck with me...but I love it anyway! LOL I pretty much figured that since the sound fx is so elusive that I'm going to wind up having to do it myself all the way down to the frame level. Since I posted, I did come across one file that's actually not too bad. It's meant to be looped and is random enough that people wouldn't notice if it is applying to each individual character. Then another idea hit me; the sound I'm after is actually very much like the default plain Jane ring of a cell phone...sort of that "chirping" sound I mentioned. That could easily be edited down to a single little chirp and placed where I need it.

I did originally search for the video end first Redwudz. Came up with next to nothing except a few actual clips from movies. Obviously I don't want the text they provide but I suppose I could grab the sound. I also thought about a Flash animation. But to be honest, I haven't a clue how to animate flash. I do have Swish Max2 but so far have found it very frustrating. In time I'll get to learning it since making these types of animations from scratch would be ideal.

Thanks again you guys! If you think of anything else please let me know.

[Nitemare]

edited my answer above... did it while you were posting... sending this so that you won't miss the edit... a decent idea, I think.

[drtalk]

edited my answer above... did it while you were posting... sending this so that you won't miss the edit... a decent idea, I think.

OH SWEET IDEA! That's absolutely perfect Nitemare, thank you! I use Sony Sony Forge as my audio editor so doing this will be a walk in the park. Now if we can only keep this trade secret to ourselves!! LOL!

Cheers!

[drtalk]

If you scroll down to the 2nd last feature in this title effects pack for Avid, it features the EXACT thing I'm looking for. First, I don't own Avid, Second, it's $190 just for these text effects. Think I'll go the home made route! LOL

http://www.videoeditsystems.com/Casablanca/titleFX1.htm