• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  Audio Drift in FCP – Just dandy in ProTools – HELP! – Searched

  Posted by Justin Case on September 23, 2009 at 3:02 am

  Long Story Short::::
  
  We did post-sound in ProTools HD. After dropping the rendered .wav into the FCP timeline, the audio drifts out of sync!

  1. We exported from ProTools a L and R mono that pair into stereo in FCP. The Protools session was set for stereo and mixed in stereo. Above problem^

  2. We exported from ProTools a single .wav which FCP shows in the timeline as a L and R mono split reporting back/playing in stereo. Still, above problem.

  3. The audio is synced just fine in Protools. We exported different versions, with 1% pull up and pull down. Again, the above problem.

  Everything seems to be dandy on the Pro-Tools side. I have also used Protools before and have dropped it into FCP just fine with no issues with sync.

  Now I have a drift problem. By the end of the 15 minute short film, the sync is about 1-2-3 seconds off.

  I attempted the audio speed adjustment in FCP to set at 99.9% but no shift in the audio occurs. I check the setting and it had reset itself. The highest percent it seems to register is 94% in terms of slowing it down, and then it is again still out of sync and now distorted.

  In theory, there should be no issue! I have had a professional sound designer in the industry mess with ProTools and it’s settings to no avail.

  *Then again, remember all is well inside ProTools. The imported video in the program syncs just fine with the Sound Edits/Dialouge etc.*

  Every sound professional so far – 4 – does not know what the true issue is and end up all having different theories. So I’d like to conclude it being something within FCP;

  What is my solution? As far as I know, all the sample rates are fine?– or is that impossible?
  
  *Current Specs and Workflow

  Raw Footage HVX200 – 1080/50i – some 720p @ 25fps

  Mac 10.5.8 Leopard
  2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
  4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

  Media pulls from 1TB 7200 rpm Hardrive FireWire 800*

  FCP v. 6.0.6

  Thank you in advance!!

  Tamas Erdosi replied 16 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Michael Gissing

  September 23, 2009 at 7:44 am

  There have been heaps of posts about wav file drift in FCP. try exporting a stereo aif file from Protools and drop that into your sequence. I suspect FCP is trying to be smart with wav file metadata and it gets itself confused.

  I drop stereo aifs from my Fairlight into FCP 6.0.6 all the time without sync problems @ 25fps
• 

  Tamas Erdosi

  September 23, 2009 at 8:37 am

  I had the exact same problem about a year ago.ProTools as audio software and FCP for all the rest.
  We always used it this way before that issue and we still use it regularly now.Apart from that specific problem that time everything is always fine.
  That time the solution was to use the same computer with ProTools and FCP installed and it was perfect.When we used the editing computer it was outofsync in FCP.Superweird.
  I think, it is something in FCP project itself.I never tried but maybe you could try to export an XML from your FCP project, close the project, import the XML then save it as a new project.I don’t know it helps but maybe it’s worth to give it a try.

  Tamas Erdosi / http://www.tamaserdosi.eu

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