Automatic Duck is FREEEEE!!!

[Michael Gissing]

Free OMF export is one down on my list. However if it gets broken on the next version of FCPX with no Duck support……

So on my list we still have output via proper card (Kona3 in my case).

I would still like a way to XML to Color but that will be solved by moving to daVinci 8.1 soonish.

[Pedro De la fuente]

Yeah Auto Duck is a sweet idea, just wondered if there is a troubleshooting guide. Basically my OMF exports makes a mess of my audio clips positions. All audio goes to 1st frame of the video although the soundtrack (music) remains intact. No way I can get it mixed. Anyone having issues?

I have striped down my audio files from fx or equalization in will to make the omf as light as possible.

Let me know if you guys are having similar issues.

http://www.pedrodelafuente.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Pedro de la Fuente] “Basically my OMF exports makes a mess of my audio clips positions. All audio goes to 1st frame of the video although the soundtrack (music) remains intact. No way I can get it mixed. Anyone having issues?”

I haven’t yet had much of a chance to work out all the issues with PEFCP 5.0 but it does seem that it’s not altogether reliable.

I haven’t had your problem of clips being misplaced but I have noticed that detaching audio results in translation errors, and also that multi-track audio doesn’t seem to get handled accurately either.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

[Simon Ubsdell] “I haven’t had your problem of clips being misplaced but I have noticed that detaching audio results in translation errors, and also that multi-track audio doesn’t seem to get handled accurately either.”

Looking at this a bit more it does appear that detaching the audio will mess up the clip’s source reference. Non-detached audio does appear to be fine, but detaching audio seems to make a complete mess of things – clip in and out durations and sequence position are correct but the source audio is from another place altogether.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has been using AD successfully with FCPX – and what if any are the workarounds one needs to be aware of.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Pedro De la fuente]

Ok, I have dedicated good part of my day trying to work around this issue. Auto duck was failing to place the audio clips correctly when I was exporting my project. Thing is, my project has many detached audio files as it is a Voice Over lead piece (meaning the audio is not contained in a video file). Also I have quite a few sound fx and a music bed. I tried to optimize my project by stripping all the audio adjustments and equalization I have done and left my project “naked” of any adjustments. Didnt work. Then I tried to replace all my video by gaps as I had some color correction and thought this could be the cause of my problems. Still no success. I tried using Project X27 to get the project into FCP7 as a work around. That way I could export an OMF…
It didnt work at first but by speaking to the guys that developed X27 (by the way they were incredibly helpful) we found out that if I lifted all my clips from all the secondary storylines I could then open the xml in FCP7. Thats not ideal as by doing that you loose all your cross fades but I have someone mixing the audio and that person would recreate the cross fades anyway.

Gregory (the guy at X27) said that the bug is on the way FCPX creates the xml. This is a bit worrying (although not confirmed) as one would expect that Apple new XML support would be ready to go.

I have tried to export an OMF using Auto Duck using the same (free from secondary storylines) project and by the html report document it seems to have worked (at least not all the clips start at 00:00:00). I cant confirm Auto Duck worked as I dont have an OMF compatible software such as Pro Tools on my machine.

Situation is not ideal but at least I have managed to create an OMF by which my sound team can work from.

I know this is a long email but perhaps it will be useful to people having the same issues I did.

All the best,
P

http://www.pedrodelafuente.com

[Simon Ubsdell]

Thanks for sharing your experiences – it doesn’t look as though many people have yet worked through the issues with Automatic Duck, at least from what I have read.

I would beware of trusting what the HTML file tells you about the export as it didn’t seem to correlate very closely to what had actually happened in the few cases I have run.

For the record I have been using AAF rather than OMF but I will try afew more test cases to see if there are any advantages (fewer drawbacks) to one over the other.

Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

Just wondering, what is the source of your files. Do they have tc?

Was AutoDuck updated to support 10.0.1 before moving to Adobe? Roles did change a few things as did the event and project structure.

Jeremy

[Pedro De la fuente]

I have ended up using Project X27 xml translator to open my project in FCP7 and then export an OMF. Just seemed more reliable this way. I find that Auto Duck might work with very simple projects. Like I said I couldnt confirm if it works as I went the FCP7 route.

What do you mean by source of the files?

You can create an XML from FCPX or an AAF/OMF using Auto Duck. TC would be the same as your project.

http://www.pedrodelafuente.com

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Pedro de la Fuente] “What do you mean by source of the files?”

What was your video/audio source, ie, what’d you shoot it on?

Just curious.

[Pedro De la fuente]

Shot on Canon 5d mk2 and audio recorded on Tascam Dr100. Working with the H264.

25fps
Audio 48khz/16bit

http://www.pedrodelafuente.com