Dear Apple – Is there an Audio Master Bus?

[Andrew Richards]

The best place way to get your feedback to Apple is with this form. They do read them. I’ve already put one in asking for pretty much the same feature, so the more who ask for it the better.

In the meantime, have you thought about making compound clips out of your audio? It might be a little cumbersome, but it would let you apply filters and effects to your audio in aggregate.

Best,
Andy

[Jon Smitherton]

Can you see the audio waveform in compound clips Andrew? – this is the reason I didn’t nest in FCP7.

Cheers,
Jon

[Andrew Richards]

Yes, but as a composite. It only shows the discrete channel waveforms in the Inspector Audio tab (where you can scrub them individually) or when you break the compound clip into constituent tracks (and even then only when they are flagged to be treaded as mono tracks, stereo or 5.1 in the timeline is also shown as a composite waveform).

Best,
Andy

[T. Payton]

For you quick turnaround job I would recommend this.

1. Lock your picture.
2. Position your layers of audio as best you can that resembles ‘channels’. VOT, MX, SFX, etc.
3. Great compound clips for each “channel”. Rename the compound clips in the inspector so you no what is going on.
3a. So you can focus on audio only, set the timeline to only display audio and switch the view to just show the alpha channel.
4. Apply, EQ, Compressor, Level Adjustments to each compound clip as you would a channel or bus. One fantastic benefit of the way FCP X displays waveforms is you can “see” the audio levels change in the timeline as you apply effects. You can create a decent audio mix just by visuals.
5. Select the entire timeline, create a compound clip if it and apply a master limiter. etc.

Because of the way compound clips work you can always edit each individual element by just opening the compound clip in the timeline. You can also always break apart the compound clip to get back your individual clips, but doing so looses the effects you put on the compound clip.

This actually works really well. Apple could just make a few tweaks such as having a true channel mixer and not require to make a compound clip but instead mark the audio to a channel/bus, and then I think FCPX could do 95% of the audio sweetening that I normally send to ProTools/Soundtrack/Logic.

Here is a rather poorly done walkthrough of this I did on the day FCP X was released, but you will get the point.

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——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[David A fenton]

Exactly, a virtual mixer with tracks assigned via clip tagging would be righteous!

[T. Payton]

A virtual mixer on an iPad app would be even better.

What we need is a FPC X ipad control app that would switch from audio mixer with faders, to color control surface, to multicam switcher depending on what you are doing.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Jim Giberti]

I wouldn’t be surprised if this weren’t exactly the types of apps we’ll be seeing for X on the iPad. It certainly would make Apple a lot more forward thinking than they’ve been getting credit for.

[T. Payton]

I hope so. Perhaps Apple could get some shine back if they make the apps for the iPad themselves and set the bar high. It’s actually crazy that they didn’t do that in the first place when you consider what an amazing job they have done on some apps like Apple TV remote and Garage Band (I would say iMovie too, but I might get flogged.)

There is a TON of potential in FCP X, and I’m just a guy on the sidelines. Surely they thought of this stuff and just couldn’t implement it in time.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Jon Smitherton]

[Timothy Payton] “Apple could just make a few tweaks such as having a true channel mixer and not require to make a compound clip but instead mark the audio to a channel/bus, and then I think FCPX could do 95% of the audio sweetening that I normally send to ProTools/Soundtrack/Logic.”

I agree – which was my point. The only thing is with the compound clip – say if you were doing a fast mix for client approval then decide to do the audio in Protools – you would have to undo all the compound clips to give handles for the OMF or you would have to save a copy in another timeline. Also you can have big reverbs or delays that extend past clip boundaries wouldn’t be a problem any more. I think it’s justifiable to add this feature due the demise of Soundtrack Pro.

Jon