4 channel Audio export for post

[Tom Wolsky]

Go to sequence settings>audio outputs and set up the four export tracks the way you want them.

Right-click in the patch panel next to the audio track to assign which track goes to which channel.

Export>Audio to AIFFs.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”

[Michael Gissing]

Are you sure the audio post house wants that? Most professional audio post facilities would ask for an OMF if they were going to do post sound.

[Mark Spano]

Concur. OMF or bust. No professional (or even semi-pro) audio facility wants AIFF track stems when they could have an OMF. The difference is that with AIFF track stems, the audio editor only has access to the audio in your timeline (no handles) and it’s consolidated to one big chunk. OMF preserves the individual edits and offers the ability to include handles for every clip.

[Jesús Rojas]

Hi Tom, see i’m very desperate here, cause can’t export 4 channels from final cut. See i have a 23.98 fps sequence, and 4 stereo tracks from the audio house. So they ask me to delivery a final product with the following specifications:
4 tracks (1:Voice Over, 2:Off Voice, 3: Músic and 4: Ambience and effects)
Also they wan’t 1920×1080 60i with puldown 2:3)

I’ve already try to export the tracks doing all the steps, Sequence Settings: audio outputs: 4 outputs. Then in the sequence assigning each track to the right channel. But the problem is that when i do that, som sound desapear. I open the sound mixer and the sound it’s not thre. Then when i export it some how, one of the tracks mix with another and i reimport the clip to a finil cut sequence, the clip has 4 channels, but to has all mixed up, and the other two are empty.

And I don’t know how to do the pulldown thing.

Please I need your help. Thank you

[Mark Spano]

If you are given stereo tracks and you need to sum them into the discrete channels you specified, then I would set your Sequence Settings / Audio Outputs to 4 channels, DUAL MONO. That way each channel can be addressed without the need to worry about panning anything, and it will save you some headache when trying to assign things. Make your sequence have eight tracks and drop all of the audio onto the tracks. Then figure out which tracks you want to go to which outputs. Once you’ve determined this, you can right-click on the audio track and assign it to the output desired. You can assign more than one track to go out the same output. Use the Audio Mixer’s output meters (should now show four meters to indicate the four outputs) to see the result. If you are summing two tracks to an output, you may have to lower the level of each track by 6 dBFs so that proper summing (with no overmodulation) can occur. Once you have the correct output assignments, right-click the sequence in the Browser window and choose Export to QuickTime Movie. Do not use QuickTime Conversion – that will fail. In Export to QuickTime Movie, use Current Settings / Audio and Video / Self-Contained. This will give you a QuickTime at sequence codec which has four audio channels as you mixed them. Open it in QuickTime Player and hit Cmd-J. This brings up the Movie Properties window. Here you can isolate each audio track and hear what is assigned. This is how you can double-check your work.

Once you have this file (1080 / 23.976p / 4 audio channels), you can put it through Compressor to add the correct pulldown. Create a setting in Compressor that uses Video Settings: (your sequence codec), 29.97, INTERLACED, Top Field First. Audio Settings: PASS-THROUGH. In Frame Controls, turn it ON, and set Resize=Fast, Output Fields: Top First, Deinterlace: Fast, Retiming: Fast. In Geometry, make sure the output is set to 100% of Source. Leave everything else set as default. It will take some time, but the output file of this compression will be a 1080 / 29.97i / 4 audio channels version of your master, with proper 2:3 pulldown. You can check the pulldown by going into FCP, setting up a sequence with a 59.94 FRAME RATE, and dropping this 29.97 FPS file into the sequence. When you step through frame by frame, FCP will show you basically what your file has field by field. The pattern should be 2 duplicate fields, followed by 3 duplicate fields, over and over.