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Editing clips NOT in a project
Hi, I imported several clips into FCP 10.1. Thinking I may want to use the clips in multiple projects, I thought I would make edits of the clips before importing them into projects. I right-clicked and opened individual clips in the timeline without opening a project.
I changed the names of the clips (retaining three digits of the orig filenames so I would know what they were). I adjusted primarily the audio and added a hard limiter effect in addition to the automatic audio effects.
Now when I import the clips into a new project the audio is totally off (way too loud). I’m confused. Are you only supposed to edit clips when they are already in a project?
Thanks a lot, Bob
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3 Replies
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Bob,
Quite often, the effect of hard limiting is not unlike normalizing a signal. You’re essentially squashing the dynamic range of everything.
I suspect that’s what’s happening to you.
Audio is the most complex alchemy that an NLE does, since the typical user is constantly adding, cross fading, dipping, and combining multiple audio streams into their finished mix.
Even something as simple as a cross fade is pretty complex when you consider that you might be cross fading from a mixture of both mono and stereo signals, such that the additive balance issues become pretty complex.
I’d go VERY easy on making too many “global” audio adjustments upstream.
Better to tune your levels specifically for whatever the final mix will be.
My 2 cents.
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Just edit the clips in a Project. Copy and paste the edits to new projects if you need to reuse those edits.
Jeremy
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Thanks to both of you for valuable insights. Seems like the best thing would be for me to reimport the clips and only edit them within projects. Bob
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