It’s been a year since Fast Multimedia released its MPEG2 editing system, six-o-one, and now it’s time for some improvements. Fast answers that need with an upgrade to Fast Studio that's included with each six-o-one package, called Fast Studio XL. That’s good news, too, because with this XL version comes new features that will make your editing life easier. Read along for a guided tour through many of these new enhancements, and along the way you'll find undocumented tips and techniques from Fast Multimedia’s finest designers, editors and developers.

At the top of the list of new features is a group of enhancements that show that Fast seems to have taken a cue from Thoreau: Simplify. For example, in the software's previous iterations if you wanted to modify anything, you needed to click around until you got to the control panel. Now you change any parameter by simply right-clicking where you would like that change to take place -- a context-sensitive menu pops up offering to change any setting you choose.

Another ease-of-use enhancement is a waveform display that’s big and easier to work with – it fills the source window.  Take a look at the graphic to the left and you’ll see that now this bigger waveform display works with stereo wave files. In the  past it was split into two separate tracks, but now one stereo wave file takes up only one stereo track. Look how you can see each individual track in the widow, where at the top you see a one-second display and below you see a representation of the entire piece of music.

What’s the big deal with that, you say? For example, many times when you’re editing sound bites, it’s great to easily see the breaks in the audio track, and to be able to scrub the audio, making it a snap to add or subtract words. If you’re a Fast user, launch Fast Studio XL and play along. If you’re not, stay with us and you’ll get a good feel for this software and how it works.

To call up this new waveform, right click on the shot you’d like to edit in the project window. Under Properties, deselect Video (audio will already be selected). Load the clip into the source viewer by either double clicking, or right clicking and selecting Send to Source Viewer; or there’s a third way to do this -- drag and drop the clip to the timeline. Then you’ll see the waveform in the source window, ready for editing. Or you can just see the waveform in its picon view in the project window. Or, right click and select Open and you’ll see the much-bigger Clip Viewer with the waveform inside.

But wait, there’s more! A fine enhancement is called global audio adjust.  Now you’re able to group tracks for editing, so if, for example, you need to lower the sound level of a music track and a sound effects track because they’re fighting with your voice over, either drag across the offending tracks or control-click them and then any modifications you make will affect only those selected tracks.

Here’s one more quick tip: Speed up your audio fades by control-clicking on the rubber band (volume line) of a track and a fade will be automatically be placed on the timeline from wherever you click to the end of your timeline.

And hey, if you’re unhappy with what you’ve done, just right click and select “undo” and the clip is reset where you had it before without affecting anything else on the timeline. This is an object-oriented undo feature that’s not available anywhere else.

Next: Working With Containers