Audio analysis and ambience beds

Reelcraft uses the usefulweb audio engine — the same one behind Soundscape Atlas — for two jobs: measuring what a clip sounds like, and putting a quiet ambience under it.

1. Analyse a file on this device

Select an audio or video file in the library. In the inspector on the right, the Audio analysis section has a button Analyse the sound. Press it.

Reelcraft decodes the sound in your browser and shows:

• RMS level, Peak level and Crest factor,
• Clipped samples — samples at full scale, a sign of distortion,
• Spectral centroid and the Strongest frequencies,
• Decoded by — Audio engine (WAV, exact) for WAV files, otherwise your browser,
• a spectrum chart and a waveform overview.

The values are also stored as measurements of the file (Audio RMS level, Audio peak level, Clipped samples, Spectral centroid, Strongest frequency), so they appear under Measurements and in the report. Nothing is uploaded.

Try it with Sample media: sample-episode-loud.wav reports 281 clipped samples, sample-episode-quiet.wav none.

2. The same numbers as a recipe step

For a whole season, use a recipe instead. The Podcast season mastering template contains Audio analysis (spectrum and levels) with one step, Audio Spectrum Analyzer. Run it on several files; the queue measures each one on the server without changing it.

For WAV files the recipe step and the inspector give identical numbers — both call the same analysis function. Other formats are decoded by ffmpeg on the server and by your browser locally, so the values can differ slightly.

3. Open a recording in Soundscape Atlas

For audio files the inspector also offers Open in Soundscape Atlas. It hands the file to Soundscape Atlas in a new tab, where you can look at it in the Sound Lab or use it as a layer of a soundscape.

4. Put an ambience bed under B-roll

The Vertical social clips template has the recipe Ambience bed under B-roll with the step Ambience Bed. Its settings:

• Ambience — Rain, Wind, Stream / water, Campfire, Room tone with hum or Evolving drone,
• Bed level (dBFS RMS) — −32 to −38 keeps a bed well under speech,
• Fade-in (s) and Fade-out (s),
• Room reverb on the bed — for example Open forest to push it back,
• Original sound — Keep it, bed underneath or Replace it with the bed,
• Seed (optional) — the same seed gives the same bed on every clip.

Run the recipe on your clips. The picture is copied unchanged; the new sound is AAC in MP4 or Opus in WebM. The output appears next to the original in the library. If the bed comes close to the original's level, the run notes say so — lower Bed level and run again.

The step needs MP4/MOV with H.264, HEVC, MPEG-4 or AV1, or WebM with VP8/VP9, and clips up to five minutes. Convert other videos first with a Universal Video Converter step in front of it.