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audio flexibilty
A while back I read a thread here about some “younger users” not used to traditional NLEs putting their audio “above” the video in the timeline. Reading this opened my eyes a bit – almost a epiphany. Why is the audio where it is in traditional NLEs and Legacy FCP? I guess Apple must have been asking themselves all these fundamental questions when they set about FCPX. Certainly I had never questioned it – just accepted it as how it had always been.
But then again why? The traditional system keeps things nicely organised visually in the timeline does it not?
But audio and video can sometimes get so very far apart “geographically”. So yesterday I had some titles on about v5 (I would love for there to be a number to describe layers). I was having trouble lining up the audio effects to go with these titles because they had dropped in way down in the audio “area”. So I simply started dropping the effects on top of the titles (v6 if you will). Super easy to line up and looks weird to start with in the timeline but the simplicity of flexibility of being able to put audio where you want is a truly wonderful thing and makes me question why it was ever any other way now.
I’m probably pretty late cottoning on to this but thought I’d share.
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12 Replies
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When I have sound effects that coincide with a clip that is also a connected clip (not in the primary) I keep the audio clips in line above the primary. It is much easier to move them around as I can grab them all at once(sound and video). It would be great to be able to attach and layer more than one connected clip to another, but allowing us to put any clip anywhere does keep the organization a little more logical.
Sometimes, I work with the primary storyline at the bottom of the widow and everything above it, but fcpx doesn’t allow me to add audio clips above the primary with a shortcut, and the primary storyline likes to be “center weighted” in the project window so it can sometimes be a little funky, but depending on the Project, I do like working that way.
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“I do like working that way”
Me too Jeremy.
A shortcut would not be a bad idea. I find there is a limit to how many I am able to retain in my ever shrinking brain.
So the command would be Connect clip to Connect Clip?
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Or allow layered secondary storylines.
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Or allow compound clips to be opened up on the timeline like Avid has since, well probably since they’ve had nested clips. I’ve always thought that was very slick how they did it. I’d use compounds a lot more if I could edit them in context.
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I know I’m a little’ behind the game’ here and one of my problems with the updates sometimes is I find myself thinking ‘but how did I do this before?” But isn’t ‘break apart clips’ for compound clips in the timeline a newish feature (I’m probably wrong here am I? In any event Bret In what way does that fall short of your needs? I’m not with you.
Cheers
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Yes that has always been there. That’s just breaking apart the compound. In Avid you’re expanding it to see and edit the contents in context with the rest of your sequence. Like a motion group. You can close up a group so it’s just one layer, or open it to reveal a multilayered composition.
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I know I’m going to appear like a complete banana here but I can break apart the CC within the contact of the timeline. I’m just not up there with you Bret!
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If you break apart a compound clip it’s gone. You’ve blasted away the compound clip and just returned it back to a bunch of clips. This process usually screws things up quite a bit if you have a complex CC. In other apps like Avid or Motion you can see and edit the contents of the compound (nest, sub master, group, whatever) right in the timeline of the main.
For example, if I take 20 layers of graphic titles flying around and turn them into a compound ( and then likely add effects and transitions to the compound itself ) then I decide to change the timing inside the compound to better fit changes in the main main sequence, I have to open up the compound, move things around, then go back and see if I guessed or estimated correctly, repeat. In other apps likeAvid you can open up the compound within the main sequence without leaving it. In X it would probably look like opening up the animation parameters. It would be like a secondary with multiple layers.
My point being that Jeremy and others request secondaries have multiple layers, but if we could just expand open compounds, then we already have what we need.
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Compounds in the context of the timeline would be great too.
The problem with compounds is that, sometimes I don’t need them, they create more clips to manage in the browser, 7toX doesn’t like them, and all clips within a compund assume the a/v Role of the compound.
There are times where I just don’t really need them.
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Nor me.
I am just forced to make little compound clips all the time because when I put together a little sting or title with sound effect in the timeline, the only way I can “link” them together is to make them a CC. I’d much rather link them together some other way by connecting them to each other. How about a ‘link’ command? It does puzzle me that somebody out there in Apple land thought we would always find it useful to attach stuff to the Primary Storyline.
As an aside …
It took quite a while for something I lobbied for “Override Connections” to be introduced and here I must hang me head in shame – I almost never use it!
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