Apply Audio Compression to a Sequence?

[David Roth weiss]

Like any other filter in FCP, apply it to one clip, tweak to your best ability, then copy, and paste that attribute to all other clips.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Raven Plenty]

Thanks for your lightning quick response. The downside to that method is that if I decide to change the filter setting, I have to copy and paste all over again, and that actually adds a second copy of the filter rather than updating the existing filter attributes. Any further insights? Thanks again!

P.S. Please let me know if you think this is more appropriate for the FCP Basics forum.

[David Roth weiss]

[Raven Plenty] “The downside to that method is that if I decide to change the filter setting, I have to copy and paste all over again, and that actually adds a second copy of the filter rather than updating the existing filter attributes.”

Lighting here… Yes, this is a possible downside Raven, but the solution is to remove the filter in question from all clips, using the reverse of the previous technique, then reapply the new setting across all clips again after making new changes to one clip. I know you’d probably already figured that out, but that is the only technique there is.

[Raven Plenty] “P.S. Please let me know if you think this is more appropriate for the FCP Basics forum.”

You’re cool here with this one… Trust me, using te audio filters in FCP is hardly basic. Now, if there was a pain in the butt forum I direct you to that one.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Raven Plenty]

Next question… Is there a way to remove one type of filter (eg. Compressor/Limiter) but preserve other filters (eg. EQ) from multiple clips in the timeline? I see that I can right click the selected clips, choose “Remove Attributes…” and then select “Audio > Filters”, but that removes ALL audio filters.

Over to you David (et al)…

[David Roth weiss]

[Raven Plenty] “Is there a way to remove one type of filter (eg. Compressor/Limiter) but preserve other filters (eg. EQ) from multiple clips in the timeline?”

Remeber the part I said about this topic being appropriate for the pain in the butt forum… The bottom line is, FCP is really limited in this regard, and there is no way to selectively remove some but not all filters from all clips in a project, unless you do it to one clip and then copy that clip to all others. In other words, you could remove a selected fileter or filters from a clip by highlighting the filter in the viewer and hitting backspace, but no way to do the same to multiple clips simultaneously unless you remove all the audio filters and then paste back just the ones you haven’t deleted from the single clip you’re copying from.

BTW, this is one reason why there are professionals with ProTools who are still making a living.

Hope this helps…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Raven Plenty]

In summary, in order to globally change the Compressor/Limiter settings to all clips in the timeline, I must make the change to one clip, copy (attributes) from that clip, remove all audio filters from the remaining clips, then paste the audio filter attributes to those clips. Sheesh! Room for improvement sez me.

Thanks very much for your help though. Cheers.

[David Roth weiss]

[Raven Plenty] “Sheesh! Room for improvement sez me.”

In theory, you’re supposed to be processing audio in STP or another specilaized audio app. FCP is not really setup for hardcore audio processing, but I know yur frustration.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Michael Gissing]

Actually Dave, the reason why there is need for audio post pros (many who use systems other than Pro Tools) is that all video editors are clumsy inaccurate tools for audio editing, processing and mixing.

Firstly good audio editors have dedicated controllers, not the clumsy interface common to video editors. Secondly, we need the 2000 edit points within each frame for accurate dialog and fx editing. Thirdly we need proper processing tools like EQ and dynamics which FCP et al simply don’t have. Thirdly we have to bus pre mix stems for deliverables and again, FCP doesn’t know about bussing. STP is a baby still and again is a slow and clumsy system compared to serious audio tools like Fairlight.

And for Raven, if you set up a compressor on one clip and then drag the filter to a bin, you can then highlight all in the sequence and then drag and drop that filter to all the clips. That will stop you copying other filters that are already applied using David’s alternative method. If you don’t like it, then undo should clear that global paste.

The fact that audio questions are often considered a pain in the bum, is that it is a specialist task, just like editing and requires experience and a totally different tool set. It also needs FX libraries, quiet rooms and decent monitoring. Personally I find that using FCP to online & grade reminds me of the need for Apple to talk to the makers of dedicated controllers (like the Fairlight Xynergi) to add a proper ergonomic editing interface. I showed the FCP interface to the Fairlight engineers and they were horrified at simple things like how FCP jogs (or rather doesn’t)

[David Roth weiss]

[Michael Gissing] “Actually Dave, the reason why there is need for audio post pros (many who use systems other than Pro Tools) is that all video editors are clumsy inaccurate tools for audio editing, processing and mixing.”

I said, “one reason” I never said, “the only reason, or the best reason…”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Raven Plenty]

Michael, thanks for the suggestion but it has the same effect as dragging a filter from the filter palette onto clips…it still just adds another copy of the filter in addition to the existing clip filters. (i.e. If I already have a Compressor/Limiter filter in a target clip, it just adds second Compressor/Limiter to that clip.) I was hoping for a way to update the filter settings on multiple clips. Thanks though.