Anyone on here cut a feature in FCP X?

[Steve Connor]

[Steven Gonzales] “I’m curious about audio on the feature. Did you use camera audio, or did you sync separate audio?

Every feature I’ve done had post sync due to dual system sound, even when it was a video shoot and there was also a dummy camera audio track.

“

We had separate audio record that was mirrored to the F3’s inputs, I had some post sync to do when there were some issues with the input settings on the camera, it was easy to sync in FCPX

Steve Connor
“Sometimes it’s fun to poke an angry bear with a stickl”
Adrenalin Television

[Marcus Moore]

That’s a very important question and one that can be hard for people to wrap their heads around.

When you put specific kinds of audio onto specific tracks, you’re really assigning them a kind of metadata, but a kind that isn’t tied to the media itself. Track 1-4 is DIALOGUE because that’s where you put it.

The new idea that FCPX proposes is that the media ITSELF is tagged as what it is, DIALOGUE, AMBIENCE, MUSIC, ETC.. FCPX assigns these roles automatically on import, and I’ve personally never found it to be wrong. HOWEVER, if you wanted to tag a music track or dialogue as AMBIENCE for example, you can. And if you need to be more specific, you can create custom roles, and even sub-roles- “Dialogue Nina” or “Sound FX Gunshots” and so on.

Now here’s the cool part… When you export to OMF via X2Pro, all of this Role data gets pushed out, so that when your audio engineer opens the OMF in ProTools, all of your Role data is already there. No more long emails explaining your track structure!

So, why did they do this? Or better yet, why is this a good thing? Well, because in FCPX’s Connected Clip and Magnetic Timeline structure, all of the audio elements need to be able to shift around when possible collisions occur. If you remove 1 second from the end of a shot in a complex edit, you don’t have to worry that Gunshot on TRACK 12 is going to over-right the start of Ricochet that right behind it on TRACK 12. Without tracks, you as the editor no longer have to micromanage moving around dialogue within Tracks 1-4 when conflicts occur. Connected clips and a trackless timeline are an interdependent concept that work together.

Now, that said, I do think there is a problem. Right now VISUAL ORGANIZATION in the project timeline is not great. Everything is green. What I would love to see is media organized BY ROLE, either with soft lines or with the audio elements custom colour-coded, so that all DIALOGUE is kept together and easy to spot in the timeline. I suppose you could call this a track, but I’d think of it more as a “Channel” or “Lane” for each Role group. All the audio elements are free to move around in their lane to adjust to editorial changes, but they stay together as a group. Here’s a rough image to illustrate what I’m taking about.

10.0.5 supposedly has some big audio improvements coming down the line, so hopefully we’ll see some improvement in this area.

But I assure you, audio without tracks is possible. It surprised the hell out of me!

[Richard Herd]

Whoa! How did you change the colors of your audio tracks?! Wait, did you do that?

Color coding is huge, though, and I sent it to apple too.

Also it’d be great if I could control click the little link-line and move it.

[Marcus Moore]

This is only an illustrative image that I mocked up.

You can easily move the connection point of your connected clips (audio or video) by clicking on the clip where you want it while holding down the CMD+OPT keys.

[Richard Herd]

[Marcus Moore] “down the CMD+OPT keys”

THANK YOU!!

I have been looking all over for that piece of information. I don’t have X in front of me right now, but will that retain the Audio clips current location?

[Marcus Moore]

Yup. The audio doesn’t move at all, even if you move your connection point to another primary storyline clip. This way you can put your connection point where it makes the most sense.

For instance, a car pass sound effect gets linked at the moment of the car passing. So regardless of whether you shorten the head or tail of the shot, that exact moment will always stay in sync.

[Richard Herd]

Awesome!