audio how to

[Bill]

Depending on how you mixed it on your timeline it may be an easy task or it could be a nightmare. I know it is not much of an answer but it is the best I can do with the information provided.

[Boco007]

I actually said that wrong. They need the music, effects and dialogue on track 1-2 left and right. They need music and effects only on 3-4 left and right. On some sections I have up to 20 eccects tracts but most all are grouped together. I have my dialogue on tracks 1-4 and my effects on the middle tracks and my music on the last 4-6 tracks.

[Gunleik Groven]

FCP isn’t really good for audio-mixes.

Easy way would be to ask the sound dude/girl that did your mixing for these 2 sets of tracks directly out of his/her/their sound suite. Would be pretty easy. Then you should do the “Copy of sequence – delete original audio – re-import” thing mentioned in the end.

If, on the other hand – you have done the mixing in FCP only, you’ll have to mute relevant tracks and create two mixdowns through “export audio”.

Haven’t tried this route myself, but if you remember to “nest sequence-mixdown audio” before you export it sorta should work.

Then make a copy of your sequence, take away your original audio from the copy and re-import the two stereo-pairs.
Finally you’ll have to route the different tracks to the appropriate tracks on the tape given that you have the right deck/soundcard solution.

I’ve never done mor than two tracks in DV-CAM.

Best of luck

Gunleik

[Bill]

This is called a Mix Minus… very common in the post world. If i were in your shoes and this is being totally mixed in FCP I would do duplicate the sequence create a mixdown lay it of stereo to 1 and 2 then in your duplicate delete your vo tracks do another mixdown and insert the audio on 3 and 4. The other approach is to export an omf to protools do your mixdown there and lay to tape from protools. good luck

[Gunleik Groven]

OMF’s are read fine by Cubase & Nuendo, too + I guess Logic and Digital Performer..

Best way to go, though.

Gunleik

[Bill]

you are correct i should not limit the options to a single software vendor.

[Frank Nolan]

If they have asked for an M & E, then that is what they want, not a mix minus. What you deliver can mean the difference between your movie either being accepted or rejected for foreign. To clarify, a mix minus is just basically your stereo mix, minus the dialogue but what happens to all the production sounds when the dialogue tracks are muted? For instance one actor is talking to another while walking into a room (footsteps), opening and closing a door (SFX), putting a set of keys down on the table, putting a pan on the stove etc, etc. (foley). On the other hand an M & E, as well as being the mix minus the dialogue, all the production foley, sound effects and ambient sounds that are in the dialogue tracks are then added back into the mix from foley artists and sound effects libraries. So if you didn’t have foley done for your movie and all the production sound effects split out from dialogue or duplicated from a library, if that wasn’t possible, then you could have a problem if they want an M & E. Now if you did have all that done in your tracks in FCP and you have the capability of laying back 4 tracks of audio in one pass, then you can quite easily do your layback wiithout having to do two passes. The simplest way is to route all your tracks to Channels 1 & 2 out. Then duplicate just your music, foley and effects tracks and route them to 3 & 4 out. Before you layback you will need to remix the M & E tracks to compensate for the lack of production sounds so you can just mute your original tracks while you do this.

[Bill]

i guess it all comes down to what they really want. which is still a bit unclear. but thanks for the long version of defining mix minus and M=E