-
Working with audio components in a multicam clip, not sure on the best workflow.
I’m attempting to assist someone on a FCPX project they’re working on and I’m a bit stuck on the best workflow from where he’s at now to the end.
What they’re doing:
Project is a 2-camera multicam of a speaker with Q&A. Speaker was mic’ed w/ a lav going into channel 1 on the camera and a shotgun for the audience on channel 2. 2nd camera had used onboard audio for sync purposes and was otherwise disabled. At this point he has done a fairly detailed pass on camera-angle switching.The audio has some significant problems. Lav audio was recorded way to low and there is a high digital-sounding noise floor. I’m not a fan of Apple’s noise reduction and would like to export the audio for external processing and sync it back up. This approach requires the edit to be locked, which is fine. But, getting to that point I’m unsure on a workflow.
At this point he has expanded the audio components, deactivated the shotgun for all clips except where questions are being asked and deactivated the lav on those. He wants J-cuts throughout with fades to ease the transition between mics. There are no fade handles in component editing, only expanded (why?), so then those clips have to be switched to expanded audio to create the fades. Then, I presume we would export the project audio with the dual mono and tweak each and sync back in.
Is there a more logical way to go about this without disrupting the multicam edit he has already committed to?
What is the best route to take for exporting the audio? As I understand it, you can’t assign roles to audio components, so is it a simple stereo or dual mono audio export of the sequence?
Thanks and apologies on throwing my muddle at you,
Nick -
1 Reply
-
Nick,
I’m not entirely sure exactly what you are asking but let me address a few things.
[nick ring] “What is the best route to take for exporting the audio?”
You might not have to. See below.
[nick ring] “The audio has some significant problems. Lav audio was recorded way to low and there is a high digital-sounding noise floor. I’m not a fan of Apple’s noise reduction and would like to export the audio for external processing and sync it back up. This approach requires the edit to be locked, which is fine”
Actually you don’t need to lock the edit, and you can still sync it back up.
For noise reduction like this I have edited the entire audio clip length, done the fix in my DAW, and then brought back the fixed audio and added it as a new angle in the multiclip. That way the edit doesn’t need to be locked. You’ll need to switch to the new audio angle, but use the timeline index and view active angles. Unfortunately you can’t filter by active angles, but you can select all clips at once with command click and then you can make a change to all in the inspector at once.
As an aside, I have found the logic plugins pretty decent in FCP X. So many times I’ll add some filters, etc to the audio in the angle editor and that often does the job. Of course some AU noise reduction plugins don’t work in FCP X, so of course doing something external would be the only option.
[nick ring] “There are no fade handles in component editing, only expanded (why?),”
Couldn’t tell you why Apple made that decision, but you can manually add them with option clicking to create keyframes. Then you can copy and paste that fadein to other components with the Paste Atrributes > Volume.
[nick ring] “As I understand it, you can’t assign roles to audio components”
Actually you can. Just select a component in the timeline or the angle editor and then use the inspector to set the role.
Since you didn’t state your familiarity with FCP X. Let me know if any of this needs further explanation.
——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up