Can FCP do sub frame audio edits?

[Martin Baker]

You can’t do actual cutting at sub-frame level but you can set audio keyframes and slip the clip to 1/100 frame accuracy.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
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Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each

[Samuel Frazier]

Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. I’ll do some more research as I’m a newbie here (just finished rough draft of 1st FCP project). Practically speaking though, do you find it a usable workaround, or more of a hastle?
Thanks again!

[Jeff Handy]

FWIW, I do most audio editing in an audio editing package – not FCP. To date, I’ve been using Peak. However, with the new Suite, I’ll likely be moving to Soundtrack Pro soon. The advantages just appear to be too great to ignore.

[Samuel Frazier]

Thanks, Jeff, I appreciate that. The problem is I’m used to doing all audio stuff along with the video (sub frame edits, compression, 5.1 mixing, etc) in the nle. It’s a real advantage. Just wish I had some of these programs (Peak, Logic Pro 7, Soundtrack Pro) to experiment on and see if it would work for me.

[Martin Baker]

Yes, the capability that’s there is useful enough, certainly preferable to not having any subframe ability at all. I mix and finish audio for all my projects in FCP and find it OK but it would be much better if we had a mixer with track fx, sends, buses etc.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
________________________________________
Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each

[Samuel Frazier]

Thanks again, Martin. Yeah, that’s the hard thing. I come from a program that does all that you mentioned and I guess I’ve come to take it for granted.
Maybe I’m alone in this, but where I’d like to see FCP go in future releases is in the audio direction and address things like you mentioned. I just don’t hear many other people talking about it.

[Martin Baker]

Out of interest, what NLE were you coming from? I’ve always found that audio is something that the majority of editors aren’t that interested in, so it doesn’t produce much buzz or feature requests. With Soundtrack Pro out now, I think that’ll start to change.

Martin
Digital Heaven, London UK
________________________________________
Ten Final Cut Plug-ins for just $10 each

[Samuel Frazier]

I’m sorry, I don’t mention it as when I do it seems people ignore me from there on. It’s Vegas and Sony now owns it (and part of why I’m concerned about its future). Does all I mentioned (5.1, buses, filters on tracks, buses, automatic mini fades on audio cuts to avoid the pop from not cutting on a cross, lots more). Version 6 just came out and added VST plugin support. Has great integration with Sound Forge if you need super fine tuning. Noise reduction is a good thing to do there for example. Just send you audio clip to SF, do your work, save it, and a new version (or “take” as they call it) of the clip will open back in Vegas. Press ‘t’ to cycle through any takes you’ve made of clips. Lots of people also make 3rd party plugins to speed along audio work like ‘scripts’ that automatically lower or ‘duck’ music during VO. This is more of a rough in, but saves a lot of time.
Also, Vegas’s default is to have external video preview through firewire and audio via the soundcard. You can also add an external firewire sound card and everything stays in sync. If it ever goes off, it’s no problem to get back in sync. This setup is much more accurate and less noisy than the firewire out to my camera then to my speakers deal that I employ with my Mac Mini right now.
I’m currently playing around with different edls and AAF export import b/t Vegas and FCP to try to setup a good audio workflow, but I haven’t had much time to experiment lately.
Guess I believe in the saving that audio is 70% of the visual experience so I don’ understand why audio isn’t discussed a lot more.
Anyway, I guess this is my gripe about FCP and something that I know can be handled better.
Please don’t boycott me!!