-
can I mute one audio track while previewing clips in FCP?
I’m entering the postpro phase of a film in which wireless lav mikes were used. When one of these lavs would go dead, they d create satanic glitches on the audio track to which they were assigned, overpowering the other three (presumably) good tracks. It’s so abrasive + makes it difficult to preview clips. If I know there is a chunk of the shoot where, say , every clip has the same track ruined by a bunk lav, can I just perform a mute on that one track on all of them while they are still in the browser window so I can preview them without getting my ears torn off? Is there some other approach that I’m not thinking of besides drag every clip to the timeline and keep the one offending track muted?
Lavs suck. Someone please invent a better system :).
-
7 Replies
-
Lavs are great, you just have to spend the money for good ones or hire a boom op.
Hit option-6 to bring up the audio mixer. You can mute tracks there.
You can turn off each individual track with the little green orbs on the left of the sequence.
YOu can disable a clip in the timeline by hitting control-b.
You can bring up the audio waveform (option-apple-w) and look to see when satan is breathing fire and edit it out.
You search the comprehensive FCP help and you’ll find all of these features.
Jeremy
-
Green “Orbs”? Sounds like a scary UFO!
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
True.
Green speaker icons, or green balls, but that just doesn’t have a proper ring to it.
-
heh-heh….
I think the proper name for them is “Track Lights”.
I had to learn all this stuff in writing my book and for the FCP manuals I wrote at Apple (FCS 1). Not to mention teaching. You can’t tell the students to click on the tweedler, next to the thingy. What’s funny is that if you see a FCP tutorial on YouTube, that’s exactly the lingo they use. Just hilarious.
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
Ha. Thanks so much for the various tips. I was praying for some overarching “off” switch for one of the tracks that could preempt any type of previewing or dragging to timeline. Popping the audio mixer is helpful though and makes for a quick mute option before my eardrums start bleeding.
Green orbs! My official term was dingledoodads.
-
Rereading the post: he wants a way to mute one channel or the other while previewing in the Viewer. I don’t know of a way to do that in the Browser or Viewer with a Stereo Pair.
It all starts with the way you capture the clips. You should always preview the audio on tape first. If the audio is good on both channels (boom, lav), then capture both as mono. If there is bum audio from one mic or the other, capture good audio from one channel or the other.
Logging and then capturing your takes individually is the way to go with any dialogue intensive project.
Already captured? No way I know of to do it in the Browser. Try putting all the clips in a dummy sequence, then Modify>Stereo Pair to remove the pair. Unlink then select the clips with the bad audio the Track Forward tool > Delete. Drag the modified clips back into a bin.
Anyone else?
Good luck.
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
Just for previewing the clips in the Viewer, simply bring up the audio mixer window (Source: Auto) and click on the little speaker icon at the top of the offending track to mute that channel. You can turn off the bad track and listen to the three other tracks without the distraction of the bad channel. When editing into the timeline simply don’t enable the bad track and the other three will be added to the timeline.
Don’t know of a way to do it in the Browser, but you can at least preview the clips in the Viewer without having to hear the Satanic Track. Seems easy or did I misunderstand the problem?
Tom
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up