Allow FCP X to ‘auto-fix’ sound when importing old footage?

[Tom Wolsky]

Correct on import. You can switch off what doesn’t work for you.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Simon Ubsdell]

I hate to disagree with Tom who is usually right about everything but in this instance I personally would absolutely not correct audio on import for a number of reasons.

Firstly you really don’t want to be adding unnecessary background processes if you can avoid it as they can dramatically slow your work down in FCPX and are generaly best avoided wherever possible.

Secondly there is no obvious advantage to processing more than you need to – you will save far more time processing your (far shorter) edited clips if you need to.

Thirdly the audio processing tools are very crude, in particular the “background noise removal” which will almost inevitably give you highly undesirable audio artifacts, and should only ever be used with extreme caution. (Also note that this is probably the slowest of the three processes and hence the biggest waste of time if you are processing all your audio rather than just your edited clips.)

Finally, it is always the best practice to make any audio corrections “in place”, i.e. within the context of your edited piece and in relation to your other audio elements whether music or ambience or sound effects.

As a side note, it is far better to learn how to use the EQ and compression tools (which are genuinely excellent in FCPX) to get the best audio results rather than relying on “automatic enhancements”.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Tom Wolsky]

Interesting points. Here’s my take.

First, analysis of audio is a ineligible background process and will not slow you down to any extent. It happens as fast as the media is transferred into the Event folder. It’s not at all like video analysis, which is very slower and processor intensive.

Second, the speed of analysis makes the difference between a shot clip and a lengthy clip not worth the trouble of having to analyze individual items, plus doing an analysis on a single, long clip that’s cut up into pieces is quicker than doing it on the individual pieces.

Third, while I wholly agree the background reduction is a bit excessive, it’s a simple matter to select multiple clips and reduce the amount a little.

Fourth, while the EQ tools in FCP are very good, they are very time consuming to use, when a simple, small correction is all that’s warranted. Furthermore there is no good way to apply audio corrections to multiple clips easily, especially if done later in the production process.

Finally, have the audio tagged for potential problems that’s worth having a closer look at is very useful.

So take your pick.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP7,” “Basic Training for FCS” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Coming in 2011 “Complete Training for FCPX” from Class on Demand
“Final Cut Pro X for iMovie and Final Cut Express Users” from Focal Press

[Simon Ubsdell]

Thanks for your reply, Tom – all good points but I’m not sure I entirely agree.

My experience is that the analysis time is not negligible – although as you say much faster than video processes. A test I just performed on a 19 minute clip took 75 seconds for the audio analysis to complete. Quick but not that quick especially if you have many hours of audio rushes.

I would however accept that there probably isn’t a huge difference between the time to analyze a whole clip as against analyzing just the edited component parts.

On the background reduction issue, I think this is a terrible tool that just shouldn’t be there. Essentially it’s a very crude version of the Logic/STP noise reduction filter with no controls over the noise sample – it’s never going to be a good solution. You’re always going to get the nasty, flangy, digital artefacts (which are in many ways worse than the offending noise!) in some form or other and the Amount slider is just going to make it more or less offensive. Have you been able to get decent results out of it?

I think my point about EQ and compression is more a please for editors to try not to look for the automatic fix for audio – there really is no such thing, yet. There possibly never will be. Intelligent use of dedicated tools with adequate controls is always going to be better – and time spent learning and using them is always going to pay off in the long run. But maybe that’s a counsel of perfection in an increasingly flawed world!

I do take your point about the desirability of flagging audio issues but I don’t think this is really what happens in any kind of useful way – there is no feedback as to what the analysis is trying to fix and where, so from that point of view the flagging has limited value.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com