audio mix

[Mike]

Has anyone actually used the limiter/compressor in FCP (I’m using FCP 5)?
I have tried, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. I have Pro Tools on
another machine and I understand what I’m doing there, but I’m looking
for a quick way to get compression when the quality doesn’t matter much.
Since there’s no visual feedback, I can’t tell if it’s really limiting the peaks.

[Gary Hughes]

I’ve not used it. I just don’t like the lack of a gui. But, you could tell if it’s working by looking at the main meters in fcp. Just watch where the average is and where the max is, then turn off the filter and compare the same place in the same clip. If you don’t see a difference, then it isn’t doing much if anything. I’m sure it works, but without the gui, you may have to make more drastic changes than you think you might.

You still won’t have a gui, but most any audio units compressor/limiter will also work in fcp. If you just don’t get what you want from the ones it came with, try some demos.

Here’s another tip. If you have Sound Track Pro, use FCP 5’s “Send To” feature to send your sequence to sound track. Then you have 2 choices.

1. You can add a compressor and or limiter to an entire track or bus or master so that everything gets effected by one setting.
2. If you need more control (and you probably do), in STP, you can right click on each clip individually and choose “open in editor”. It will open the full length of the media in a separate STP window and you can add effects to it there. When done, save it. IMPORTANT NOTE: This is destructive, which isn’t a problem if you understand that and know what you’re doing.

Hope this helps,
Gary