FCP’s poor handling of mp3 files

[Jerry Hofmann]

MP3 editing isn’t supported in FCP… it’s not that it should but doesn’t do well, it’s that it’s not supported.

Jerry

[Zander]

for this reason

mp3’s are about as high quality as 8 track to cd’s

they are highly compressed versions of teh original aiff’s .wav style formats.

they are so highl compressed that fcp (and for that matter most audo and editing software) don’t like them, and while you can use them, it sunds horrible, this is not the nle’s fault, this is just what happens when it fits the sound to a proper cdec.

al you need to do to check this out, is ake 10 mp3’s, convert them to aiff and compare them to eacher other as far as size.

there’s a big difference.

i use compressor, and just drag my wanted mp3’s into a window, and it renders them to aiff’s and bam we’re good to go

Aaron Zander
student editor at brooks institute of photography
12″powermac g4 1.25gb ram, 1.5 GHZ macosx 10.4.6 1.3tb external space
finalcut 5.0.4 adobe cs2 afterefects 7pro
currently working on BombIt: World WIde Graffitit

[Tom Adams]

Jerry,

thanks…that’s what I thought…so, I guess my question was more general…:

WHY doesn’t FCP support mp3 editing. Haven’t a whole bunch of other editors found this to be an annoying little missing feature?

it just seems logical that it should support editing mp3s. thanks for the reply…

Regards,

Tom Adams – Director/Owner
Reelife Documentary Productions
“cool digital video stuff…not boring or dumb”
info@reelifeproductions.com http://www.reelifeproductions.com
Williamsburg, MA, USA

1.4Ghz DP mirrordoor G4
OS10.4.3, FCP 5.0.3
Panasonic DVX100a & EZ1

[Jerry Hofmann]

It doesn’t support it because it would be MPEG files trying to be mixed with aiffs, and all I frame video so figure it would take way too much computer overhead to mix the two in the same sequence.

FWIW though, MP3’s are pretty awful audio… AA for short, and you’d be a lot better off quality wise not using them at all, but getting the original audio and working with those files or tapes.

Jerry

[Ben Oliver]

i agree that mp3 files are usually pretty poor audio files, and re-rendering them to AIFFS is annoying.

when i used vegas video, i never had an issue mixing anything in the timeline, whether it was audio of different compresions, framerates, heck, i even used an MPEG1 video file, live in the timeline, with all my dv material once.

it also annoys me that apple can’t figure out how to allow me to see the audio waves, while i edit, without redrawing them all the time. please fix that, its a great help to us editors, to actually SEE the audio waves as i cut!!!

[Jeremy Garchow]

[ben] “and re-rendering them to AIFFS is annoying”

It’s so east though. Select all of your mp3s, right or option click and open with compressor. Select them all and choose form the settings menu > audio conversion > 48k16 bit or 24 bit or whatever you are going to use then click submit. It’s fall down easy.

I do this with stock tracks from cd converting them from 44.1 to 48 all of the time. It takes seconds out of my day.

Jeremy

[Aaron Neitz]

Here’s another angle:

If we have a commercial to cut, we may pull up to 60 tracks to audition. Chances are these are mp3’s coming from our massive iTunes library.

99% of these get shot down within 10 seconds of playing them back for clients. It’s a waste of conversion time, human effort, and disk space to convert 60 tracks to Aiff just to get the boot.

Wouldn’t it be great for Apple just to allow you to drop an Mp3 into a timeline and then render it as 48k without clicks and pops? Compressor can do it – so what gives?

[Jeremy Garchow]

I have a solution for you. If we are doing what you are doing and we know we are going to listen to a ton of tracks, then I have my g5 audio out hooked to my audio monitors and my mixing board. I hit play in iTunes switch quickly to FCP and hit play. i can then do a down and dirty hot mix with the audio out of FCP and iTunes through my studio monitors. It works wonders. No editing, dragging, or converting.

Jeremy

[Ben Oliver]

but dude, re-rendering them always makes my itunes a MESS!!!!

if vegas video can do it, so can FCP!

and if your already converting an MP3 to AIFF, then the loss in quality is already there, sooooo.

[Jeremy Garchow]

You don’t put them back in iTunes. Use compressor, not iTunes. You can set an destination you want in compressor.