Improving Audio In Screenflow Using GarageBand
Screenflow is a great screencasting application. But it doesn’t offer much in the form of audio editing. In this post I will show you a simple method for editing your audio in GarageBand and bringing it back into Screenflow.
A little background on this: I have been using this method for awhile with Screenflow and Garageband. Last week we wanted to get Trevor going creating some screencasts, so we purchased a Screenflow license and Trevor got started creating some videos. I whipped this lesson up in ScreenSteps to show him how to improve his audio.
Setup:
Before doing this you want to make sure that you have finished editing your video in Screenflow. This is the last thing you do before you publish your screencast. In this tutorial we are going to:
- Export our video
- Open it in GarageBand
- Edit the audio
- Bring it back into Screenflow
Export Video
Adjust Settings
Video size and quality doesn’t matter. Just make sure the audio quality is good. I probably should export the audio as AIFF here but AAC seems to work fine for me.
Open GarageBand And Start a New Project
Select Movie
Drag Your Movie Onto GarageBand
Drag the movie that you exported from Screenflow onto your GarageBand project.
Select Sound Track
Select Info
Apply a Default Setting
I just use Male Narrator. It applies just a bit of EQ and compression.
Perform Any Other Edits
At this point I usually quickly go through and cut out any pops, clicks or other noises. GarageBand makes this very simple.
Export Audio
We are just going to export the audio, but to do that we want to select Export Movie to Disk…
Select Expert Setting
Then click Export.
Set Format and Save
1. Set Export to Sound to AIFF
2. Click Save
Add Audio to Screenflow
Drag the audio file you just created onto your Screenflow project. A new track will be created.
Delete Audio
You are now going to delete the original audio from your Screenflow project. If the audio is merged into your video recording then you will first need to detach it. Right click on the clip and select Detach Audio.
Select audio and delete.
Position New Audio
Now just position the new audio file from GarageBand at the beginning of your project. Everything should line up fine and your audio will sound much better.
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December 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Thanks much for this. I too use GarageBand for my audio tracks in screencasts, but I basically record the entire script and edit it using garagebands excellent features like you described here.
I then save it as AAC, and then bring the file into screenflow and proceed to match the video editing up with what is already a perfect audio.
I will try your system too when the project requires it.
December 22nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Great post, Greg. You’ve done a really nice job of explaining the process step-by-step. Thank you. We must be on the same wavelength, as I just posted a blog article (written by Chris Beiting) on The Screening Room about his workflow using Garageband and ScreenFlow. He has a little different process, but it’s interesting to see all the ways to do this. I will link to your blog post from my blog as an additional resource. Thanks!
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
@Turtleknife -
I almost always do all of the recording in Screenflow for the following reasons:
I guess the main thing is, I don’t like having my audio set in stone before I start recording video.
@lynn – That is really funny. Chris’ article has a lot of other information in it as far as recording setup which is really good (I need to pick up a pop filter).
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Hello,
Thank you for this article.
I generally put music in my screencasts. What would you do in that case ? Record the screencast, make the manipulation with Garageband and add the music after reimporting the sound track ?
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
@Laurent- It depends on if your music is one continuous audio file or if you are going to need to edit it. If it is one big file, just turn the volume down on the music file when you do the initial export from Screenflow.
If you are having to chop the music up then I would probably do that all in GarageBand. With Garageband you can easily mute entire tracks so you could then export two separate AIFF files to bring back into Screenflow. That would make it easy to replace the music later if you wanted to.
December 24th, 2009 at 4:00 am
Thanks for this. Your post is beautifully presented and impossible for someone not to follow it. If only all music tutorial posts were like this!
January 1st, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Thanks! Just the thing I needed!
January 8th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Thank you so much! This was a great post. Someone suggested recording the voice over directly in garageband and then move it over, but this is a much better approach!
January 8th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
@Mitchell – I have done both and most of the time I prefer this method. Especially because the ripple delete function works so much better in Screenflow than it does in GarageBand. I just find it much easier to edit out my mistakes in Screenflow.
November 4th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Is there an actual way to do ripple deletes in Garageband? I would love to start using it again, but removing ums and pauses is a multiple click nightmare.
November 4th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Johnny- I wish there where a way to ripple deletes in Garageband but it doesn’t seem to be possible.
October 13th, 2011 at 5:57 am
Hi
I have screenflow 3.0.1. Adding the GarageBand audio back into Screenflow was not as simple as you describe. I couldn’t create a new track by just drag & drop. So I deleted the existing audio and then dropped the new GBand version in its place.
Thanks for the useful How To.
The resultant audio quality is much improved.