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Audio Engineering

I. Fixing in Nexus

1. Basic Fixing Steps

  1. Make sure the Nexus Media Tray is installed - it can be found in the Software Center app on your Windows machine

  2. In Google Chrome, go to the Nexus website: nexus.npr.org

  3. To open up the rundown for the upcoming show; there are two ways:

    i. Click the "Home" icon in the top right corner, choose "Rundowns" under the Quick Links menu and choose the appropriate Rundown

    ii. Click the green plus sign and navigate down to "Rundown"

  4. You can double-click on a Story in the Rundown to open the associated card, OR

  5. Search for a Card ID (intake number):

    i. Click on the search icon in the right hand corner

    ii. Type in "card 1234567" and hit enter and the card with that ID will open automatically. You must type "card" and not only the numeric number.

  6. Navigate to the "Assets" subcategory in the opened Card and find the associated MTE project you've been assigned to fix

    • Click on the 3 dots to the right of the MTE project and select "Open in MTE"

  7. MTE remains the exact same as before, except for the first time you save a project

  8. Do not fix the original project. Instead, save a new project using the original project name plus "_Fix Your Initials"."Do this by saving the database project as" (Ctrl + Shift + S). After saving this way once, you can continue to save normally using Ctrl + S

    • You will be prompted on the Nexus webpage to name the Project and any saved clips.

2. Using the "send to iZotope" feature

  1. There are two ways to use iZotope with Nexus:

  2. The "send to iZotope" feature

    i. Once you have clips, or panels saved in the Card Assets, click on the 3 dots to the right of the corresponding clip or panel

    ii. Click "Open in iZotope RX"

    iii. The audio file will open in RX as long as it is saved as Linear audio file (our Support computers should already be doing this)

    iv. The file name will be a series of seemingly random letters and numbers. Save the file locally onto your PC, then drag it or import it into a card in Nexus. Saving directly from iZotope to Nexus does not work at the moment.

    v. If you've added your fixed iZotope file into your MTE project and realize you need to make additional changes to the clip or panel, you can easily make changes as long as the file is still open in iZotope. First you must save and close your MTE project since the file cannot be overwritten while it is open in two places, then you can make the additional changes in iZotope and re-save and it will overwrite the corresponding audio in your MTE project.

3. Exporting and importing audio files

  1. Once you have clips, or panels saved in the Card Assets you can either bulk convert/export, or just export one at a time

  2. To bulk convert export: click and hold Shift to highlight multiple audio files, use Control if you want to select files that are not next to each other

  3. To the right of the files, click on the 3 dots next to any of your selected audio files.

  4. If you click "Download Assets" you will get an automatic download and you will not get to choose the names of the files.

  5. If you click "Convert and Export Assets" you will get an additional tab and will have to choose an email address to send the files to. Before sending, toggle the "Convert audio before exporting" option on, assuming you want the files converted. Next, click "Queue Export Job". You will receive an email with zip files containing your audio files.They will have the same file names that you labeled them in Nexus, unlike when you use the "Download Assets" feature

  6. Once you have fixed your files in iZotope and saved them locally, you can directly drag them into the Assets of the corresponding Nexus Card, and then open them in the MTE project. Coming soon, it will be possible to save files directly in iZotope that will then be updated in Nexus.

4. Renaming audio files directly in Nexus

  1. In the Assets tab, find the audio file you want to rename and click the 3 dots to the right of it

  2. Click "View in Asset Detail Pane"

  3. At the very top of the pane, click directly on the name of the file and you will see a blue outline around the title, you can now type in your new title for the audio file and hit Enter once you're finished

5. File swapping

  1. File swapping is replacing a clip (or panel) in MTE with another file to change audio AND preserve editorial cuts

  2. Once you've finished and saved the fixed source file, drag it directly into the Assets of the corresponding Nexus Card

  3. Click on the fixed audio file so it's highlighted. To the right, an additional pane will appear with some action items

  4. Click on "Show more details..." (written in small blue text) under the Technical Metadata information.

  5. Next to the title "Asset Meta Id", you'll look for the small gray icon indicating "copy" next to a long file name. Click on the icon, and the name will be copied to your clipboard

  6. Make sure the project in which you want to add the swapped file is closed. Then, open the desired MTE project. Notice the dialog box that opens, and pause before hitting "OK" on the "load project screen"...

    i. In the Clipboard list, find the file you'd like to replace and right-click the arrow icon directly to the left of the name, select "Replace Media File", and paste (Ctrl + V) your copied broadcast file name into the "File Name" bar, then hit "Open"

    ii. The arrow will then turn orange and you can hit "OK" to load the MTE project with the new, fixed file overwriting the original

II. Driving and Nexus

1. Opening a Rundown on the ATC, ME, WE, and ST32 Hub TVs

  1. On the computers outside of the studios (by the line editor desks), navigate to the system tray where you can find the Nexus Media Tray icon (lower right corner of the screen in the task bar).

  2. Right click on the icon

  3. Select "Open Nexus (as rundown)"

  4. Navigate around as desired or directed for production.

  5. Make sure the current Workspace is the Single/Maximized workspace: At the top of the screen click on the current workspace icon, and click "Edit Current Workspace" and select "Single/Maximized," or on a keyboard hold down W, then L to shift between workspaces until it's the correct one.

  6. Click the green plus sign, then click on "Rundown"

  7. Find the Rundown you're looking for

  8. To center the Rundown in the middle of the screen, click on an icon that looks like a box in the right upper corner.

2. Opening Nexus on the Turbo machines as the studio user

Note: though it is possible to log into Nexus via Okta on these machines, it is best practice to Open Nexus as Studio, to ensure all Nexus Line Producer rights are in place for show driving.

  1. Navigate to the system tray where you can find the Nexus Media Tray icon (lower right corner of the screen in the task bar).

  2. Right click on the icon

  3. Select "Open Nexus (as studio)"

  4. Navigate around as desired or directed for production.

  5. Any files saved to Nexus when logged into a shared account like "studio" or "record" get saved to "My Assignments" for that account. (For example, when recording using the Turbo Backup PC) Below are SOP and BOOTH recording instructions. Updated 8/23/23.

3. Opening MTE to record

  1. To record, you must open MTE via the MTE icon in the system tray FIRST.

    i. Right click on the Nexus Media Tray icon in the taskbar, then navigate to "Open MTE"

  2. Open up Nexus https://nexus.npr.org and find the Cards you are looking to save your recordings in by typing in the search bar "card 1234567" and hit "Enter"

  3. NOTE: If you are recording on a shared computer, such as a SOP or Studio, using the "Studio" or "Record" group username, your recording will be saved to "My Assignments," NOT the open card. When you are finished recording, go to My Assignments and move the recording to the proper collection. This step is planned to be eliminated at some point, but it is still the case as of 8/14/23.

4. Editing teases and clips from Raw Audio

  1. Navigate to Raw Audio either from the Nexus Home button or from the green plus sign > Browse > Raw Audio

  2. Dragging and dropping audio files into Raw Audio does not work, you must first add the audio into a card.