• Apple Final Cut Pro

  Audio missing from *some* imported clips

  Posted by Steve Roberts on December 17, 2019 at 8:14 pm

  Some of my imported clips (MOV and MXF), optimized and proxied, are missing the audio in FCP 10.4.6.
  OS10.14.6, MacPro late 2013 trashcan.

  As near as I can figure, once I detached and deleted audio from a timeline clip, the audio was deleted from the source in the browser.
  – it seems that clips where I did not detach/delete audio are fine.
  – selecting in the browser, using “analyze and fix” (only checking “analyze and fix audio problems”) did not restore audio.
  – I cannot hear audio from the clip when playing or skimming in the browser,
  – no audio is with the clip if I drag (or Q) it into the timeline,
  – no audio info shows up in the Inspector for the browser clip
  – relinking to the file in the library does not restore the audio in FCP,
  – relinking to the file on the original drive does not restore the audio in FCP.

  However, the original MXF (or MOV) file in the Finder, whether in the Library or on the original drive, DOES play audio if either is played in good old QT Player 7.
  So the source clip is unchanged, but FCP does not recognize its audio. Or something.

  (I have trashed the FCP prefs, but haven’t upgraded yet. Still in the process of backing up the library.)

  Any ideas? Thanks.

  Steve Roberts replied 6 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Joe Marler

  December 17, 2019 at 9:13 pm

  I faintly remember seeing something like this once but I don’t remember the cause or solution. It’s common to accidentally have volume muted but the audio components should still show up in the inspector. They shouldn’t be missing.

  It’s odd that changing the timeline would have any effect on clips in the browser, since the timeline internally exists as a separate SQL database inside a project folder containing CurrentVersion.fcpevent.

  This implies it is not a project problem but an event problem, which has a separate CurrentVersion.fcpevent file containing a separate set of five SQL tables.

  Have you loaded any XML files? What is the background of the .mov files? Are they direct imports from a camera?

  If the MXF media was somehow not imported properly, e.g, copied out of a folder tree and imported, maybe it is missing some metadata that made the media fragile to failure. Sometimes media imported incorrectly can work for a while then exhibit odd behavior due to lack of metadata. E.g, it could be used for clip spanning, color profiles, etc.

  You could try creating another library and copying the event to that library. Another troubleshooting method would be create an event XML, create a new library, then load the event XML. This would force the creation of new databases for the media.
• 

  Steve Roberts

  December 17, 2019 at 9:51 pm

  Thanks for replying so soon, Joe. Yes, it’s odd!

  (FYI: I’ve used Premiere since 4.1 and legacy FCP, but After Effects is my main app, since 1996. Apologies in advance if I ask n00b questions because I’ve just picked up FCPX recently.)

  No, I haven’t explicitly loaded any XML files, though I imported entire folders, which included those files.
  I imported the files directly from the hard drive given to me by the videographer, choosing to copy to Library, and create both optimized and proxy media. I checked those in QT Player: they both have audio, though I haven’t checked all the files.
  The original drive contains MOV files from a Nikon, and MXF & XML & BIM files from a Sony.

  I’ve exported an XML from the event, created a new library, and imported the XML.
  No change: still missing audio from the same clips.

  Now, my original library is about 6TB. Will copying that library duplicate that 6TB package? I’m afraid I don’t have the space for that.
  Maybe I should move the original (copied) media from the library, because FCP doesn’t use it. If so, how would I do that without buggering things up?

  Thanks, Steve

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