Editing with nested sequences… good or bad idea?

[Joshua Pearson]

… Or a new way to export an OMF or AAF or XML that “looks inside” nested material and allows Resolve/Smoke/Protools etc. to recreate the cut with original audio and video clips WITH their automation, not a single mixed down audio track.

[Alex Udell]

No…I know what you mean exactly.

I hadn’t thought it thru when I made the suggestion…

Alex Udell
Editing, Motion Graphics, and Visual FX

[Andrew Kimery]

Out of curiosity Joshua, why did you go with merged clips instead of using the multicam route to sync and ‘join’ your outboard audio with your video? I’ve never used merged clips in PPro, but I keep reading lots of bad things/limitations about going that route.

Also, you mention 8 channels of audio. Are all the channels unique or are some of the channels empty or redundant?

[Joshua Pearson]

I guess we could have made a mulitcam clip with only one camera angle ( and many audio tacks).
I realized though that some of this material IS gong to be mulicam (two camera) with nine unique channels of audio (i listened to them… lots of mics going)… so this defeats my whole idea of “collecting” all those unsightly audio channels into one nested clip, as multi cam clips ONLY edit ALL the audio channels into the timeline. Wah wah.

[Andrew Kimery]

If I’m understanding you correctly you want to be able to hear all 8 (or however many) audio tracks in the timeline, you just are trying to find a way that you don’t have all 8 audio tracks in the timeline taking up space. Correct?

I’m pretty sure when you make a multicam you have the option make it a mono or stereo channel output so even though the multicam will have 8 tracks, when you edit it into a timeline the 8 tracks will be mixed down into a single track. I feel like I’ve accidentally done that before.

[Joshua Pearson]

Yes, that’s exactly what I want… I will test.

[Jerome Raim]

I’m trying to see if I can downmix to stereo but can’t figure out how:

I select 2 video elements (dual mono each) and one audio clip (3 mono)
I first tested as stereo, then tested it as auto:

These are the two multiclips that were created:

I cut them into a timeline with standard audio tracks:

In theory, the way to have 7 channels downmixed to stereo would be right click on the multiclip → Modify Audio Channels and link all channels to output 1 & 2. But I don’t see any way on how to do that.

Additionally, I’m confused between the (possible) discrepancy between the number of channels in Modify Audio Channels and the number of channels in the multiclip’s sequence settings.

Jerome Raim
Post-Production
JeromeRaim.com

[Joshua Pearson]

Can’t figure it out.. Do you remember how you did it?

[Andrew Kimery]

Off the top of my head, no. I’ve only done it by accident. If I have time later I’ll mess around and see if I can intentionally recreate what I did.

[Jerome Raim]

OK, I figured out how to downmix multiple audio tracks to two tracks. For anyone who needs to do it, here are the steps:
1. Create your multiclip
2. Open it in timeline
3. Open the audio track mixer (not the audio clip mixer)
4. Depending on your audio setup, it will either look like this

or like this

5. Map all audio tracks to 1+2.
For stereo pairs:

For mono:

Your multiclip will still have x number of audio channels, but all of them will be empty except for 1 & 2.

Jerome Raim
Post-Production
JeromeRaim.com