audio

[Richard Herd]

Try COMMAND-T.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

An Audio-only crossfade still is difficult (impossible) to do standardly in FCP X… Unless you first detach the audio (I’m not sure if it’s possible by only expanding the audio).

Luckily, Alex4D, made an audio-only crossfade available for free on his website:
https://alex4d.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/fcpx-transition-sound-only/

[James Ewart]

which is ridiculous…I have to expand all tracks and then manually pull audio across and adjust the built in keyframe thingy…is this better??

We are not talking broadcast here are we…for the web it’s fine.

J

[Bret Williams]

Yes it is a bit ridiculous. You can operate like 7 if the tracks are broken apart, but then unlike 7 there’s nothing keeping them in sync or telling you they’re out of sync. So it’s best to keep them together whenever possible. It’s not an excuse, but I’ve found having to adjust the two clips separately has made my audio work cleaner. I can let one track go a little longer, or fade quicker while the other comes in earlier or fades longer etc. As well, you can adjust to the 1000th of a frame or something like that. That really helps clean up stuff. So, once again, FCP X has more power, more control, but at the same time is quite ridiculous that it doesn’t have basic 101 features like audio cross dissolve (or drop shadow).

[James Ewart]

I suppose that makes sense…just boshing in a cross fade is a bit clumsy and certainly not something a dubbing mixer would like much…I do like the concept of having 8 frames one side and maybe 12 the other of an audio cross fade…much more accurate…but wait…I never did that in 7 …must be possible.

I’m going to take a look

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

I sent feedback to Apple about this a couple of times:

what they should do is:

the current system of expanding audio (NOT detaching! Just expanding!) and then being able to do J & L cuts, together with the magnetic timeline works brilliant and often with a lot less headache then it used to be in FCP 7.
BUT
what I hate about the implementation is that you always have to double click the clip, or click everything in the timeline, and expand then. If you do the last, the problem is, once you add more new clips to the timeline, you have to expand them again, etc.
You have to do a lot of clicking, where, in FCP 7, you just could have your audio and video unlinked and just go ahead, without first clicking everything.
Premiere Pro works in the same way as the current FCP X does, and I hate it, to be honest.

So what I suggested to Apple was:
if you go to the menu VIEW – Expand Audio/Video – FOR ALL, make it as such that it expands it for your complete timeline INCLUDING every new clip you put on the timeline (or replace or whatever) after you have pushed in that command. You would have all the benefits of cutting J & L cuts with the magnetic timeline, you still wouldn’t go out of sync (like you potentially would with detaching audio) and you only have to do one menu-command to be able to make J & L cuts in your complete timeline.

Let’s hope they listen to the feedback…

[James Ewart]

or having detached audio at least still be able to slip and move into sync. Why did they dump that feature?

I know there’a workaround…Shift F (Match frame) an then drop it in all over again but that starts to feel like an old liner system. Back to the source…I mean COME ON APPLE! We should not have to do that.

I await the updates with interests because I am still not sure they re not going to dump this and leave us all high and dry.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Not ‘or’.
Both should be added. They are long due, especially the sync-markers…

[Bret Williams]

Expand all and collapse all are commands btw. You just have to map them yourself. I mapped mine to shift E, and shift cmd E.

Still, 7 is so much simpler for J and L cuts. And adding an audio cross dissolve. I’ve gotten used to X, but it’s still more movements. But other things are quicker