Audio Mix in FCP

[Shane Ross]

Well, your editors need to start paying more attention to audio. The main reason I was able to go from one of 6 editors on a show to being the LEAD editor on those shows was my attention to audio. Making sure that all the levels were right and sounded good. Other LAZY editors just cut picture and figured that the audio guys will deal with the audio, but didn’t take into account that we need good sounding audio for the network and producers so they can make notes.

On one show, we were told to make the rough cut audio sound like a finished full mix. Why? Because the network was constantly getting distracted by the poor audio and giving us stupid notes like “we need better music” (is was all temp anyway), or “the VO needs to be louder, the music softer, I can barely hear the interviews”…and they weren’t giving us constructive notes like “Act 3 has a problem here…but if you moved that section to Act 5, then things make more sense.”

So, #1…get your editors to pay more attention to audio and mix it better when they cut. This really takes barely any more time than they already spend.

#2 – I think that FCP 6 has some sort of normalization…or FCP 7 does. But I never use it, so I can’t say for sure. I prefer to do my mix manually. Someone will know.

#3…get those editors to do a better mix. Seriously…this needs to be mentioned more than once.

Shane

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[Alex Rawnsley]

You’re preaching to the choir there Shane…thanks for your response. It’s been a 2 year battle, and whilst we’ve made some headway, I still get stories that are at -6 all the way through (as opposed to -12 for us) and I get reporters up at -6 with interviews at -18. It’s frustrating as hell for our audio folk.

Thanks for the tips on the audio, I was afraid that there wasn’t anything, but after 2 years of trying, I had to ask 🙂

[Colin Mcquillan]

Perhaps after 2 years of trying to fix the issue perhaps it’s time for new editors…

In the Modify tab select Audio -> Apply normalization gain
Have them apply this and set to -10 for primary channel, -25’ish for BG. This will give a ball park but will still need to be tweaked as it adjust the highest peak to the set parameter, so if there is a spike in the audio, the spike will be set to -12, and the overall amplitude will still be too low.

Colin McQuillan
Vancouver, B.C.

[Victor Perez]

I totally agree with Shane. A good editor knows how to push the buttons, A great editor knows how to take the time to finish the show. Its great fun to piece something together, but sometimes it can be dull getting everything right and finish a project. Storytelling, Timing, Video Levels, Audio Levels… are all as important.

There must be one or two of the 6 at your facility willing to go the extra mile. Quite possibly the most important productions get funneled and finished by them. Kind of an on-line off-line thing. The best attitude is to stay positive. In this economy we all need to go the extra mile. There are many editors out there willing to show off their abilities to a new employer.

hope that helps,

Victor

[John Pale]

Okay….it does sound like your editors are being lazy, if you have explained to them that the need for the audio mix to be decent so that people can review the cuts without distraction…. but let me take the other side of this, just in case… ’cause I have been there….

Are you sure you are giving your editors adequate time to actually get this done? Depending on the complexity of the timeline and the quality of the sources, even getting a decent rough mix can take a bit of time to do. I have worked with enough producers who want to go to tape/dvd 2 seconds after the last edit was made, and looked at me like I was nuts when I suggested that I do a pass for audio. Though I try to mix a bit as I go, I prefer to run through the piece concentrating only on audio after the cut is more or less visually locked. If you don’t get that opportunity, some stuff might get missed, levels might be inconsistent, especially if lots of changes are getting made in a non-linear fashion.

That being said…it does sound like your editors are not doing their job…and if they need more time to make the audio right, its their responsibility to point that out.