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English guide track and separate M/E tracks (music and effects)
Here’s one for you gurus. I shoot and edit in FCP for a sports-related web site. I got a fairly good handle on post production but I’m no guru. We’re about to secure a deal with an foreign company for rights to use all of our media. The require “English guide track and separate M/E tracks (music and effects)” I assume that means they want all of the separate sound tracks to allow for editing of material. (Am I right?) How would I prepare a deliverable and what would that be? Could I use soundtrack pro? Any help would be appreciated.
Thank you!Cheers!
Craig -
9 Replies
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Basically they want a mix minus the English VO/commentary. They use the voice track for guiding the translator, record new VO and drop it in. All music and effects remain in place and can be mixed as necessary. Typically, you’d merge all your tracks into three tracks (6 if stereo): VO, music and effects. You can do this in FCP by exporting sets of audio tracks as aiffs and then import them to replace the multiple tracks. That would leave just the 3 or 6 tracks of audio. I’m sure their delivery specs will be fairly specific about the technical specs they want.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.5 QT7.5.5 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870
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We have found that the requirements vary from foreign company to foreign company. Most often we export the audio as follows.
Full Mix Mono (for track 1)
M&E Mix Mono (for track 2)for foreign companies that need more than just basic audio and have the ability to retrieve such audio we also export when requested:
Nat Sound Mono (for track 3)
Music Mono (for track 4)Remember to check the mix of the M&E tracks if you are mixing stereo music and mono FX down to a Mono audio track to make sure one does not overpower the other.
hope that helps,
Victor
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The typical deliverables for international distribution are-
Music (stereo)
FX (stereo)
Dialog (mono)
Narration (mono)The tracks should be undipped (ie where the music & FX dip under narration, the dips need to be removed so it plays balanced without narration. Old fashioned deliverable contracts still ask for those separate elements to be on a DA-88 tape, but argue for delivery as files as this is what audio and picture post people need to reversion or revoice.
Unfortunately the way to achieve these deliverables is to use bus mixing, where all the music elements are on tracks assigned to a music master bus which is then dipped around the dialog & narration. Same for the other elements so your final mix comes to dedicated master faders for each element. That is also the way to record those separate stems for delivery in one pass.
FCP is not designed for bussing and I haven’t looked at Soundtrack Pro for a while so I am not sure about its capabilities. Exporting and using professional audio editing and mixing software is going to make life a lot easier. Few people in editing seem to understand the requirements of post audio so if you are able to sub contract the audio it will save you a world of pain.
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Beware the term: “Fully filled M & E”. This means that they expect to receive an M & E track that “fills” in all sound FX EXCEPT the dialogue. For a typical “reality” show, this simply isn’t practical. Taking out the
dialogue often results in NO AUDIO. Therefore, some foreign distributors expect you to “foley” all of the background sounds back into the mix. This can take days of effort for a one hour show, and obviously cost a lot of money.So. Make sure your distributor is NOT expecting to see “fully filled” m & e. If they are…. get ready for a major headache and a big hit to the budget.
Mark
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You guys have been such a great help! What’s a good book to learn FCP on the sound side?
Cheers!
Craig -
Hello Everyone,
I have the same issue. I have cut 44 1hr outdoors shows and we are working with a company to get us to international market. Her exact words were“Scripts are needed for translation into another language as are separate M/E tracks. If you get a deal where you need scripts, there are companies that do this. Separate M/E tracks can also be done, though not as easily. ”
I have 1hr AIC and ProRes .mov files with 2 channel mixed audio. Is there any way to get around this with what I have ?
I am scared 🙂
Mac 3.2Ghz 20TB Macbook pro Pnyrn 2.5 4GB 10TB 2009 LOWA Award 1st place Broadcast Sportsman’s Paradise
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You need to get back to the sequences from which the AIC & ProRes versions were made. Then you can separate the dialog/VO from the mix. Otherwise, you’re in trouble unless you foley all the fx and reacquire the music. That’d be an even larger job.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.3, Motion 4.0.3, Comp 3.5.3, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.3)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
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Due to lack of HDD space beck then, I couldnt keep the sequences. It seem like I am in trouble. Plus they want me to cut the 1 hr shows down to 30 min. The vide andaudio is mixed in two tracks so there is no way separating those I believe. Maybe I can cut them down to 30 min and lower the volume on everything and cut a new music as a 3rd track. I will go ahead and learn how I can export out with 4 track audio/ 1 video out of Final Cut. You guys are awesome. I learn so much from Creative Cow and the people with huge hearts wanting to share their knowledge. When I first signed up for Creative Cow, I didnt even know how to conform and print to tape HDV. Now, I am doing whole a lot better:) Still need to learn my audio though:)
Mac 3.2Ghz 20TB Macbook pro Pnyrn 2.5 4GB 10TB 2009 LOWA Award 1st place Broadcast Sportsman’s Paradise
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Thanks to you all. I saw some horrible grammar and misspelling in my post. I extremely apologize.
I will go ahead and reduce the mixed audio track 1&2 and find the exact music/s and FXs and cut them frame by frame then layer them as AIFF. Make sure to keep the levels sane as well.
I like getting scared on this one. It was pretty powerful. One of the guys here I adore is Bob Zelin.Mac 3.2Ghz 20TB Macbook pro Pnyrn 2.5 4GB 10TB 2009 LOWA Award 1st place Broadcast Sportsman’s Paradise
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