Future “Multichannel audio editing tools” – What is it?

[Oliver Peters]

Since I was one of those that heard it “from the horse’s mouth”, I can assure you that there was no further clarification. If you’ve tried to do any editing of multichannel audio attached to a single source clip, you know that it’s impossible without breaking apart the clip items. My guess is that a fix or improvement for that is part of the answer.

Second, I questioned the product managers in the very beginning about the lack of a mixer panel. They told me they could have built one in if they had really wanted to, but that they hoped to solve this more elegantly using metadata. I’m not sure what that means, but my guess is an expansion of Roles. I personally hope they add some sort of “send to Logic” function and improve audio that way.

I’m in the camp that hates how audio is handled in X. I’ve been on a big X editing job the past few days and had to bounce over to FCP7 for a simple VO change on an old spot. It was refreshing going back to 7 (for audio). On the same X job, I had to send OMFs to the ProTools mixer. So I used Xto7 to get to 7 for the OMF. After the translation, the audio portion of the 7 timeline was a disaster. Missing audio, wrong tracks, incorrectly linked media, you name it.

IMHO, I hope Apple means a “do over” when they talk about improved multichannel audio editing tools.

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Bill Davis]

OTOH perhaps they will fix mullti-teack audio handling in a similar fashion to how they “fixed” multi-cam video handling.

Creating something entirely new that is easier and much more intuitive to operate than what it replaced?

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Jeremy Garchow]

I would be happy if you expanded audio (control-s) it would show you all of the available audio tracks instead of the mixdown.

This way, the a/v would stay together, no reason to break apart and ruin it all.

Jeremy

[Oliver Peters]

[Jeremy Garchow] “no reason to break apart and ruin it all.”

Did I mention in the other thread that “break apart” also blows away your video effects, like color correction. 🙁

– Oliver

Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

When I came from Premiere and started using FCP, one of the things that I found of the best interface changes was the simple fact, that in FCP you had one button unlinking audio and video on your timeline.

In Premiere Pro (and to my knowledge, this is still the case) you had to right click every clip, and click: unlink. Yes, you could select a group of clips and then do it, but every time you added a clip on the timeline afterwards you had to reclick, etc. …

In FCP it was one button. Making J and L cuts afterwards was no problem.

Now, with FCP X in essence, making J and L cuts is even easier in the sense that you have a trackless timeline that moves clips under/above if you extend audio only. But I was very surprised and disappointed that it reverted back to a behaviour like that in Premiere where you should click all the clips in a timeline to get audio and video separated. If you add a new clip after that to the timeline… have to click again.

I mailed Apple my feedback. I told them that they should have a button that you could break apart the video and audio of the project, and it would do that for every clip you add. Then it’s still in sync, but it reduces a LOT of the clicking.

That in combination with maybe Jeremy’s proposal (to have it all the multi channels apart, but still in sync) would be very flexible. And markers if you are going out of sync (overdue!) if you do want to break the link between video and audio.

I’m curious to their audio tools. Personally, I think the idea of Roles and the metadata in comparison with tracks is genius, so if they are thinking in the same innovative way for audio mixing, I’m getting very curious!

[T. Payton]

Mathieu – I assumed you tried “View > Expand Audio/Video clips > All” right? Seems like you could assign that to a keyboard combo too.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque

[Andy Neil]

[Mathieu Ghekiere] “I told them that they should have a button that you could break apart the video and audio of the project, and it would do that for every clip you add. Then it’s still in sync, but it reduces a LOT of the clicking. “

That would be a disaster unless they also added sync indicators.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Bret Williams]

In 7, the button in the timeline doesn’t unlink all the audio, it just turns off linked selection. A toggle accessed by the option key. Works the same way in CS6 from what I can tell so far.

And I generally dislike how the audio gets moved out of the way in X. I don’t want to double up my audio tracks when I’m doing a j or l cut. I want to roll one bit of audio out, and roll the other back. Usually a simple hear it see it, or see it hear it kind of thing. With the R tool, simply option drag the audio cut. Or select it and press play, etc. There is a way to to it in X. Shift + will let you roll the audio only of a clip where the audio / video is connected and you can roll it with <>.

[Mathieu Ghekiere]

@T. Payton: Yes, but once you add a new clip in the timeline after that, it has the audio together with the video again.
That’s what bothers me, and I send feedback to Apple. If you would choose ‘FOR ALL’, and then keeps them all apart even if you add clips to the timeline afterwards, it would work more logical.

@Andy: I’m talking about breaking apart the audio and video, and not detaching it. In FCP X, these are 2 separate commands, and the first keeps your audio in sync. With the second it’s possible to have your audio out of sync. In that case we indeed need out-of-sync markers! What if you have to edit something that you know is all 3 frames off? FCPX makes this a lot less intuitive then FCP 7.

@Bret: in FCP 7 you have a button on the button bar: unlink audio and video. Once you do that, ALL the video and audio will be unlinked after you pushed that button.
In Premiere you don’t have such a command for your complete timeline. I think you’re not getting my point, I’ll try to explain better:

in FCP 7, if I push the button BEFORE EDITING, all my audio and video is unlinked. I can then BEGIN editing in the timeline and have freedom to make easy J and L cuts.. It’s always off in my case.

In Premiere (and FCP X now, unfortunately), I have to first put my clips in the timeline. THEN I have to unlink the audio and video. Why do I mind the difference? Simple:
In Premiere (or FCP X), if I add for instance, 10 clips. And I select those 10 clips, unlink audio and video, make J and L cuts. If I then add new clips to the timeline, I have to click AGAIN on those to unlink video and audio. And again and again every time I add clips afterwards where I want to unlink video and audio.
In FCP7, it’s one button, one click to link or unlink, for the complete timeline and every clip I add afterwards.

[T. Payton]

I hear you in regards to that feature request of a “auto expand all”.

FWIW I have done a lot of J&L cuts in FCP X and find it works really well for my workflow at least. My biggest feature request would be a keyboard command for adding a fade instead of having to drag with the mouse.

——
T. Payton
OneCreative, Albuquerque