Audio editing in FCPX

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Herb Sevush] “As opposed to doing an audio overwrite edit in any other nle. yes, i can see how that’s a great leap forward.

nobody said there weren’t workarounds, just that for something this basic you shouldn’t need a workaround.”

You see it is a workaround, I see it as how it works.

We will never agree.

You are adding an audio clip to the timeline, I am adding a audio + video (or just audio) clip to the timeline. Really, it’s kind of the same, but we won’t agree on that either.

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Charlie Austin] “But as there are no tracks, trying to make sense of it in those terms is a fools errand.”

that is incredibly true Charlie, and there is almost no answer left.

You guys really are where you are. Run with that baby. Run Charlie run 🙂

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Charlie Austin]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “You guys really are where you are. Run with that baby. Run Charlie run 🙂
“

I’m not sure what you mean, but sure, whatever you say… But I’m telling ya Aindreas, despite your entrenched disdain for the X timeline, if you ever get to LA, I’d be happy to show you how it works. I felt just you you do at one point. I was wrong. It’s easy.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Aindreas Gallagher]

[Charlie Austin] “I’m not sure what you mean, “

no worries – sure just enjoy the thing 🙂

https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics

[Jeremy Garchow]

It’s about as crazy as Pr’s multichannel outputs. What takes a few clicks in fcpx takes a whole new sequence, some trickery, a few layer order operations, and setting up a new export preset and a trip to AME.

Adding another layer of a/v to knock something out of sync (or more accurately, adding another instance to move out of sync) isn’t that crazy is it?

[Charlie Austin]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s about as crazy as Pr’s multichannel outputs. What takes a few clicks in fcpx takes a whole new sequence, some trickery, a few layer order operations, and setting up a new export preset and a trip to AME.

Adding another layer of a/v to knock something out of sync (or more accurately, adding another instance to move out of sync) isn’t that crazy is it?”

I give up… It’s like trying to explain evolution to a creationist.

I’m cutting a thing in 7 today, and the sync audio alone, cut from a 4 channel (2x stereo) master, spans 6 tracks to avoid clip collisions and do some basic J/L cutting of the production DIA and FX. Red sync markers all over the place, despite the fact that nothing is out of sync, just overlapped. Little waveforms that give no indication of my levels. Every time I want to cut something, or move it, i need to spend a few seconds preparing the timeline to do so, Targeting, moving clips etc. Something as simple as wanting to shorten a shot and pull everything behind it up results in clip collisions using the ripple tool, (which i never really used and now I know why). So just use the track select tool to select everything and drag it around, being careful not to overwrite anything. etc. etc. etc.

All this would sit happily self contained in the primary in X. Yeah. Bananas.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Herb Sevush]

[Jeremy Garchow] “We will never agree.”

Oh don’t be so downhearted. We might agree. Sometime. On something. Once or twice even.

[Jeremy Garchow] “You are adding an audio clip to the timeline, I am adding a audio + video (or just audio) clip to the timeline. “

I’m doing an insert edit. One of the most basic elements of editing, the name comes from the on-line linear days it’s so old and basic. Any NLE can do it, including X from what I understand. I’m betting that if I looked in the X PDF manual “insert edit” will be listed as a feature.

You are having to create a match, then do an edit, then move something under the primary, if I get your description right. I’m sure it’s very quick when you get used to it, but it’s not basic to X, it’s not a single keystroke sort of thing, there’s no shortcut key for it, I doubt that it is even described in the PDF manual. It is the very definition of a “work-around.”

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Tony West]

I still think there must be some confusion on the terms. Maybe some pictures would help.

This is what expand audio components looks like.

This is what detach audio looks like (I almost never use this)

And this is break apart clip items. This looks just like most NLEs that have tracks. anybody could just work in this mode if they wanted. It’s not gonna come out of sync even if I pick up that video clip and drag it down the timeline. That audio will go right with it.

Now, the guy wanted to cover a cough with room tone. You could just cut that right in there in this mode. I still would do it the first way I described, because if you just cut some room tone in it may sound cut in, but that’s just me.

[Atilio Menéndez]

That does indeed look like most NLE’s with tracks, but it’s quite different!

1. Overwriting part of a connected clip or overwriting audio. Whether you expand audio components, detach audio or break apart clip components – it all makes no difference. There is no way to IN ONE STEP overwrite a part of an connected clip, be it audio or video, or to overwrite just the audio of a clip. It’s always a TWO STEP process where you have to remove or mute the part to be replaced and attach the new one. It’s perhaps not terrible, but it’s such a basic procedure that it really should be improved, IMHO. Still, I personally like not being able to overwrite audio in one step or dealing with potentially disorganized audio clips way better than playing Track Tetris.

2. Keeping sync. If you care about the audio and video of a clip staying in sync, then it’s better to NOT detach audio or break apart clip components. A reason why there are no out-of-sync markers is that if you detach or break apart (which are virtually the same) the program assumes that you do not care about sync, since these functions are intended precisely to move the audio independently from the video. Now, by design everything still does stay in sync, you drag the video around and the audio follows, but in practice you can inadvertently bump things out out sync – a small slip of the mouse on a connected clip is all it takes! If you care about sync, it’s better to do the editing using the expanded audio components, which is precisely why they are there in the first place. That being said, I still think there should be a quick way to lock connected clips in place, but it’s really not a big deal if you don’t detach everything.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

Go Charlie!

Everyone here also doesn’t mention how you can use the Inspector to easily mute channels, and have them stay contained.

And I can only vote an extra +1 to what Charlie and Jeremy are saying here. Once you work with it, in *most* cases X is faster then a track-based NLE. You really have to get used to it, but it pays off.
There are a couple of things where X is slower, but like Charlie, I notice that I’m much more frustrated in 7 (or any other track-based NLE) missing things that X has, than the other way around.

You should work with this software. A lot. Force yourself to do it the way X does. And yes, once you wrap your head around it, this takes time as we are all used to years of working in a different way. Our muscle memory needs to change. Once it does, I really don’t enjoy editing in 7 anymore, although I did it for years and thought it was the greatest NLE out there.
And, again, like Charlie said, a lot of this sometimes seems convoluted, and one of the reasons is that it uses a lot of new terminology. But once you see it all in action, you can do most things a lot faster, and with much more fun than other NLE’s.
Like others, I missed sync-indicators in the beginning. Now I don’t anymore. I think my brain is wrapped around how stuff works in X.
I used to look at X and *think* in track-based terms, and saw everything as work-arounds. Now I look at X in its own terms, and I work faster (and with more joy) then any other NLE. And I’m not a saint, I make the mistake if I look at track-based NLE’s now. I think: why don’t they have the magnetic timeline? Why do people in track-based editing do so much work-arounds to do what I can do much more non-destructive and faster in X?