Power Editing with Mass Updates

Attributes Power Editing

There will come a time when you want to set the same attribute value (or several values)or checkmark(s) on all Sound Items or a specific subset of Sound Items. You could do it the brute force way by selecting one Sound Item at a time and setting the value. Or use the Mass Updates method and do it quickly with a few clicks.

The following Tools menu items provide power editing productivity aids for doing mass attributes updates on ALL Sound Items (or a selected set) with one operation. You need to understand the concept of Default Attributes before using these operations. The basic concept is, you set the value of an attribute in your Default Attributes. Then you can apply that value to many Sound Items in one operation. Most of these operations require that you Refresh the SoundList after the operation by clicking Actions -- Refresh List (or toolbar button).

You will follow these basic steps to do a mass update.

Basic Steps

1. Set Default Attributes  - The Default Attributes will be used as the source values for the mass update operation.
2. Select Sound Items  - Select a set of Sound Items that will be the targets of the mass updates.
3. Do Update Operation  - Each Update menu item (listed below) will operate on a specific group of attributes. You will be prompted to select which attributes within the group should be updated.

Warning! There is NO UnDo function for Mass Updates operations so use them carefully. These operations can change a lot of attributes in a big hurry.
Tip - Save before using - It is recommended that you Save your list before using these (or better yet, make a backup copy with Save-As). Then if you make a mistake you can always exit without saving the changes, then re-Open the sound list and resume editing from that last save point.

Selecting Sound Items for Mass Updates

First, you select Sound Items you want to do the mass updates on. Any subsequent Attributes Updates from the menu items below, will use this as the target list. The default is ALL Sound Items until you make a selection list. Some list edit operations (ex. Cut or Paste sound item) will invalidate a Restricted Selection. Selection reverts back to ALL in this case. To be safe, always use View Selection before doing mass updates.


• Select All: for Mass Attribute Updates  - Select entire list (ALL Sound Items). This menuitem is highlighted (checked) when ALL are currently selected.
• Restricted Selection: for Mass Attribute Updates  - You are prompted to make a Restricted selection set of Sound Items for mass updates. This menuitem is highlighted (checked) when a Restricted selection is in effect.
• View Selection: for Mass Attribute Updates  - Shows the current set of Sound Item selections for mass updates.

Tip - Sort before selecting - For example, if you want to make changes only to your announcement Sound Items, sort the list on Category before making this selection. That way all the announcements are grouped together in the selection list and you can do a range selection (shift + mouse click).

Pick Which Attributes to Update

Use the following menu items to do mass updates to the selected set of Sound Items (see selection technique above). Each Update menu item (listed below) will operate on a specific group of attributes of the sound item. You will be prompted to pick which attributes within the group should be updated. You will be able to update one or multiple attributes in a single operation. The values of the Default Attributes will be used as the source value for the update. A check box will be set or cleared according to the value of the Default Attributes. Numeric or text values will be copied to the target sound item.

For example, if you pick Update Play Modifiers Attributes, you are prompted to pick the Attributes to use for update from the Default Attributes (see Figure 1). Here we have picked the following Attributes to update Pre-Delay: Enable, Pre-Delay: Value, Post-Delay: Enable, and Post-Delay: Value .

Mass Update - Play Markers Attributes

Start, End and Fade Markers - Allows for setting one or more of the following attributes: Start position and enable, End position and enable, and Fade In and Out markers attributes from the Default Attributes values. When Fades is selected, fade markers are replaced with all fades contained in the Default Attributes. If Default Attributes contains no fade markers, then fade markers are cleared for the selected sound item.

The marker postion can be a special case since each sound item is generally a different length. When the postion in the Default Attributes is a higher value than the length of the selected sound item, the postion is set to the full lenght of the target sound item. This applies to fade marker positions as well.

Mass Update - Play Controls Attributes

Play Controls - Allows for setting one or more of the following attributes: Volume, Volume scroll speed, Pan, Pan scroll speed, 3D Effects , FX Effects attributes from the Default Attributes values.

Mass Update - Descriptors Attributes

Descriptors - Allows for setting one or more of the following attributes: Name, Description, audio Soundfile attributes from the Default Attributes values.

Mass Update - Play Modifiers Attributes

Play Modifiers - Allows for setting one or more of the following attributes: Loop, Delay, Delay Time, Multiple Play, Number of Multiple Plays, Preemptive and Output Group. attributes from the Default Attributes values.

Mass Update - Classifiers Attributes

Classifiers - Allows for setting one or more of the following attributes: Act, Scene, Page and Category. attributes from the Default Attributes values.

Mass Update - Sound Item Length

If you edit an audio file in an external audio editor and thus change it's file length, you need to reset the Sound Item to match the new size. The End-At marker position is reset in this process. Fade markers are not deleted but should be repositioned manually based on the new sound timing. If you do not resize the Sound Item the Time field will likely be incorrect and markers positions may end up out of bounds.

Why is this manual step required? It is a performance trade off so that Sound Mill does not have to calculate the audio file length everytime you select a sound item. It is assumed that editing an audio file will be an infrequent event.

About Quick Markers

To better understand Fade Markers, first review the related information About Volumes and About Speed Settings.

A common operation for music files is to fade-in and/or fade-out volume at the beginning and end of the audio file respectively. Quick Markers was designed to do this in a few clicks. It is also flexible enough to achieve other repetitive adds and moves of markers.

Using Marker Guides

Guide Positions are used for most of these operations. The Guides are shown in Figure 2 -- the two (blue) vertical lines at either end of the marker placement ruler. The Left and Right Guide Positions are set in the Options -- Markers tab . The Marker Guides are defined as Time values (in minutes:seconds, mm:ss). They are used as follows:

•   Left Guide - Positions a marker at the Left Guide Position from the start of audio. So if the Left Guide is set to 20 seconds, the marker is placed 20 seconds past the start of audio. (Factory default: 0 seconds)
•   Right Guide - Positions a marker at the Right Guide Position which is the Right Guide time value from the end of audio. So if the Right Guide is set to 10 seconds, and the audio is 3 minutes long, the marker is placed at the 2min:50sec point. (Factory default: 10 seconds)

LG Left Guide; SM Start-At marker; FI Fade-In marker; FO Fade-Out marker; EM End-At marker; RG Right Guide.

Mass Update - Quick Markers

•   Add Fade Markers - Adds fade markers to the selected set of sound items as described below.
•   Add Both, Fade-In And Fade-Out - Adds a Fade-In and a Fade-Out marker as described below.
•   Add Fade-In - Adds a Fade-In marker at the Left Guide Position. The values of the marker (Target Volume, Fade Speed, and Enabled state) are taken from any Fade-In marker in the Default Attributes (or factory default values for Fade-In if there is none in the Default Attributes).
•   Add Fade-Out - Adds a Fade-Out marker at the Right Guide Position. The values of the marker (Target Volume, Fade Speed, and Enabled state) are taken from any Fade-Out marker in the Default Attributes (or factory default values for Fade-Out if there is none in the Default Attributes).
•   Set Sound Item Initial Volume for Fade-In - Sets Sound Item's initial Volume from Default value. The Default value can be changed in the Options -- Markers tab. Typically on Fade-In of music audio, you want the sound to start at 0% (silence) and rise up to the Fade-In target volume. This give a quick way to assign the start Volume to any value.
•   Move Marker to Right Guide Position - Moves the marker type that you select to the Right Guide Position (if found in the Sound Item).
•   Fade-In, Fade-Out, Start At, End At - Selects the marker type to move.
•   Move Marker to Left Guide Position - Moves the marker type that you select to the Left Guide Position (if found in the Sound Item).
•   Fade-In, Fade-Out, Start At, End At - Selects the marker type to move.
•   Delete All Fades - Delete All Fades (Fade-In and Fade-Out markers) from All selected Sound Items.

Factory default values for Fade Markers are:
Fade-In marker: Positioned at 0, Target Volume 100%, Fade Speed 10.
Fade-Out marker: Positioned at 10 seconds from end of audio, Target Volume 0%, Fade Speed 10.
Right Guide Position: Positioned at 10 seconds from end of audio.
Left Guide Position: Positioned at start of audio (0 seconds).
Sound Item Initial Volume for Fade-In: 0%

Note: If there are multiple (two or more) Fade-Ins or Fade-Outs in the Sound Item, the Quick Markers operations will operate on the first marker in the time line (left to right, closest to the start of audio).

Power Editing Example

Let's say you want to add a two second delay to several Sound Items. Follow these steps.

1.  Select any Sound Item. Check the Post-Delay checkbox and set the Delay Value to two seconds. These are located in the Play Modifers group (see figure 3).
2.  Now click the Save as Default Attributes button on the Find toolbar. This saves the attributes of the current Sound Item as the current default attributes.
3.  Next select which the Sound Items will receive this delay value. Click Tools -- Restricted Selection: for Mass Attribute Updates and select several sound items from the sound list.
4.  Go to Tools -- Update Play Modifiers Attributes . The operation selection dialog pops up.
5.  Next select these two operations Post-Delay: Enable and Post-Delay: Value (Ctrl + mouse click to do multi-select). Then click OK. These two attributes will be set on the selected Sound Items from to the default attributes values.

That's it. The target sound items should now have the desired Post Delay. You may have to click the Refresh List button on the Find toolbar for some types of changes to appear.