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Audio workflow guidance needed!!!
Sorry, may be a bit of a read, but a couple of years ago, I took on a major project for a final student film. It was too much for me then, and ended up having to make a piece based on this larger film, and get the grade and graduate.
However, I cant go on to work on any other projects that may spring into my head w/ this thing still hanging over me, so I have to “finish” it. Its a documentary, that I did by myself, and knowing what I know now, I did everything in the wrong order… nevertheless….
Right now, all I have is the audio, but I am stumped on how to get started. I edited the linear story w/ the camera audio attached to the clips, so obviously, I need to sync the .wavs that I have. The problem is, w/ it being a student film, I recorded the audio lower than ideal….
so, which of these seems like the correct flow of steps, or can anyone suggest a better order
PLAN A
-listen to wavs in audacity, locate quotes/bites needed for film,
-amplify them in audacity
-import new wavs into FC and sync w/ video
-send whole soundtrack to soundtrack pro, remove hiss*PLAN B
-Import whole interview wavs into FC, listen from canvas and sync w/ video clips that way
-send to soundtrack pro, (AMPLIFY**) remove hissObviously plan B seems less work intensive, however, I am not tech savy, hate staring at a computer screen, and have no designs to go into editing, so..
some factors I should mention-
* there are about 5 different interviewees, all recorded under different circumstances, w/ different levels, and different degrees of amplification/noise removal needed. I would think that a blanket effect will not do them justice, so sending the giant mix of them over at the same time doesnt seem good. I seem to remember, the last time I did this, having to go into the main chunk, and find an apply different effects to each person’s audio. Perhaps there is a better way to go about it.** I seem to not be able to amplify in soundtrack pro. yes, i am aware of process>adjust amplitude, but any time I try that, it does NOTHING!
This film will end up being about 45 min long. For the class, I put together a 10 min cut, and somehow, actually got a fairly hiss-free and level sound……. I just cannot, for the life of me, remember what steps I took to do it!!!!!
Any feedback would be EXTREMELY appriciated, as I really need to put this behind me and get on w/ my life..
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3 Replies
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Let me take a shot at this. However I’m not sure I understand about your audio situation. Did you record double system sound, and therefore have video as well as audio for the interviews? If that is the case I would actually tackle most all of it in FCP X but leaving the option to send it out for someone else to tweak the audio.
1. Import your footage and sync wav audio to video as synchronized clips. Disable your camera audio and apply Modify > Auto Enhance Audio to just get your WAV audio in the ballpark for editing.
2. Create an audio role for each interview, and assign it to your WAV clips. (just in case you need to export as stems)
3. Put each Synchronized Clip inside a Multi-Angle Clip (just select in event browser and choose, “Create Multi Angle Clip” it will copy the synchronized clip into one angle of the multi angle clip.
4. Now use those “master” multi-angle clips of the interviews to edit your project. You won’t do any switching just normal splicing and trimming.
5. When you are ready to sweeten/repair the audio, you can go back to your master multi-angle clip for each interview and apply filters, etc. to try to get the audio for each interview to be the highest quality you can. Since they all live in multi-angle clips all the changes you make to the master clip in the event browser will be reflected wherever you used the clips.
Since FCP X has most of the stock logic plugins you could probably get help from anyone with audio mixing experience as they will know how to work those plugins. (You could also bring the WAV files into a DAW like Soundtrack or ProTools and clean up the entire interview track, then resync them by adding the repaired audio to the angle editor. In that case you would need to change the audio angle for each interview clip by selecting all clips of one interview in your timeline and in the inspector changing the audio angle. )
6. Tweak the levels for each interview further in your timeline to ensure the levels match as best they can interview to interview.
7. Group the entire timeline into a compound clip and add a brickwall limiter such as the Logic Limiter included in FCP X. Export.
8. Get some sleep and move on to another project.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque -
Thanks much!
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BTW. I realized also that you could just use the global “Relink Project Media” once you get the WAV files tweaked instead of having to put them in a new angle and then having to change all the angles.
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T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque
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