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FCP X Design Influences
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Yes Bill – right down to the brand of strings used. There are sounds and techniques used by the best players which can only be accomplished by using certain guitars, with certain strings, with certain techniques.
Example? Think of the Chris Squire’s bass sound on many of the Yes albums. Couldn’t have been achieved without the Rickenbacker bass and round-wound strings, plus the combination of a Marshall 100w head and Ampeg SVT heads playing through the Ampeg cabinets with 8 ten inch speakers. And that’s not even getting to the stage micing!
https://www.chrissquire.com/technotes
Now think of just about any of the Beach Boys songs (Help Me Rhonda, Sloop John B, California Girls, Heroes and Villains, the ill-fated Smile project), and you’re talking Carol Kaye, one of the most prolific studio bass players in history! None of the sounds she produced could have been created on anything but a Fender P Bass, with flat-wound strings, and muted very carefully with a piece of felt used in sewing, and played with a pick (not her fingers).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Kaye
That should give you an idea of how microscopic the discussions and preferences of musicians (pro and amateur) can get. It would be as if editors discussed the type of plastic used in the keys of their keyboards! You know, it does make a difference! :>)
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Tony West] “Steve, when X first came out, Apple really got taken to task for that single viewer (I had to get used to it myself) “
I liked it straight away, it pairs well with the skimmer. Single Viewer in PPro feels slightly less effective.
Didn’t Speed Razor also have a single viewer or am I imagining it?
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[Steve Connor] “Didn’t Speed Razor also have a single viewer or am I imagining it?”
Not sure about that, but Vegas uses a single viewer and at various times, Avid Media Composer and Xpress used single viewers. Also DPS/Leitch Velocity (now owned by Harris). In fact, the original Media Composer layout was a single viewer for the timeline and then individual pop-up windows for source clips. That’s still an option today. However, I believe the toggle of source or record video in the SAME viewer window is unique to FCPX.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Tony West] “Steve, when X first came out, Apple really got taken to task for that single viewer (I had to get used to it myself) But did they partly have laptop editing in mind when they did it, and wanting to make that canvas bigger on that small screen?”
I was one of those moaning as loud as I could and by the time they introduced dual viewers I had got used to it.
I hardly ever use two unless I need to match something specific.
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[Joseph W. Bourke] “That should give you an idea of how microscopic the discussions and preferences of musicians (pro and amateur) can get. It would be as if editors discussed the type of plastic used in the keys of their keyboards! You know, it does make a difference! :>)
“; )
Yep. I do wonder, however if this is direction by retrograde analysis. IIRC, from my music theory classes, things like the Picardy Third were essentially POST ANALYSIS discussions. The composer wrote the piece not knowing there was a RULE involved – because the rule hadn’t been invented. It was only when the church folks decided that ending in a minor key made the composition “devil’s work” that composers decided to get around it by resolving to a major for the close – so the priests would get off their backs.
Carol Kaye herself (who I admire greatly) in the Wrecking Crew biography that Tommy Tedesco’s son did talks about playing the socks off the bass part in a song that was a modest but not a smash hit. For the largest part of the audience, her brillianace in that line was nearly lost – because if the documentary hadn’t been made, I could NEVER have heard the line.
The point is that I sometimes wonder if great work BECOMES great work, often not because it’s really superior work, but rather because time and circumstances cause us to look at it closely enough to post-analyze what’s great about it.
Which says it’s not the tool NOR the artist that actually makes it great – it’s the perception of the audience driven by marketing and era and context that makes things great.
Scary thought. But I do think there’s more than a nugget of truth in it.
I think that Clapton riff I referenced in “Do what you like” from the Blind Faith LP is one of the finest guitar licks ever recorded anywhere. But it’s buried in a morass of self-indulgent jamming such that most people don’t even know it. Not like Carol Kaye’s bass line in These Boots are Made for Walking – which is also brilliant – but popular enough to have risen from “what she did on that Tuesday” to the symbol of transcendent talent it deservedly is today.
(And I’m still not convinced that whether she’d strung her bass with flat-wound or round-wound strings would have made that huge hit more or less of a huge hit.)
Fun to blather about it, tho.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] “Which says it’s not the tool NOR the artist that actually makes it great – it’s the perception of the audience driven by marketing and era and context that makes things great.
Scary thought. But I do think there’s more than a nugget of truth in it. “Now apply that thought to Apple design 😉
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
I agree with you totally, Bill. Carol Kaye, by all accounts, played bass on something like 10,000 cuts, pop stuff, rock stuff, movie sound tracks, and whatever was paying on any given day. The fact that she was an immense talent, able to contribute in almost any genre of music, didn’t improve upon songs which were bad to begin with. Although the bass part on “These Boots…” was great, the song was pap. Only a musician, or someone with a good ear for a good bass part, would pick up on it.
The marketing aspect of the music industry is legendary, and, from a musician’s point of view, depressing. Those who have “the look” have always been sellable, regardless of talent (Monkees, anyone?). Those who have talent, but not “the look”, are often relegated to the support roles in the industry – the studio players, song writers, sidemen (and women) who don’t fit the latest visual model.
And of course as you said, what becomes a classic relates ultimately to sales volume. I don’t know whether you remember classical albums in the fifties and sixties, but the marketing back then, trying desperately to popularize the classics, was to put a glamorous, semi-nude model on the album cover. Music publishers even tried this ploy with jazz albums for a long time. What seem to survive the test of time are the pieces of music we connected with when they were fresh and new sounds, as well as those which were so well written, arranged, and played, that they still sound good to new generations of listeners.
The reason that a lot of good music dies these days is that the music segments now are so narrow, that some stuff just never gets heard by a wide audience.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Bill Davis] “(And I’m still not convinced that whether she’d strung her bass with flat-wound or round-wound strings would have made that huge hit more or less of a huge hit.)”
Fun to blather about it, tho.
I don’t think Joseph is trying to convince you one way or the other, but just trying to illustrate that the debate itself exists. That’s basically this musical digression in a nutshell. There is never going to be 100% agreement on anything subjective but some people will still argue about it as if their opinion is somehow more valid than the differing opinion of the person across from them. Musicians, editors, IT professionals, mechanics… it doesn’t matter. Splintering into different camps and vying for a winner just seems to be part of human nature. Or at least a deep part of American culture that thrives on definitive outcomes (black/white, good/bad, winners/losers). The ambiguity of a tie (or of not ranking things at but just enjoying them each on their own merits) doesn’t seem to sit well with a lot of people.
-Andrew
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You’re correct Andrew. Another way to illustrate this is with tools. I’ve used Sears Craftsman mechanics’ tools for many many years. As a matter of fact, several of my tools were my father’s tools, and some of his were his father’s. I’ve never had a problem with them, and if I were to, I could return the broken socket or whatever to Sears for a replacement.
A friend of mine who is a lineman by trade said “Craftsman tools are fine, but my life depends on my tools not breaking, so I use Snap-On.”
Neither right nor wrong – just perspective…
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Oliver Peters] “However, I believe the toggle of source or record video in the SAME viewer window is unique to FCPX.”
Isn’t that the default on Edius? I haven’t got it on my system currently to check but I seem to recall back in the day that was the way it was. In fact the first time I used FCX I thought it felt very much like Edius in its default single viewer, tracks locked, ripple mode.
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