Help me appreciate FinalCut

[Alfred Guzzetti]

For most sound editing exporting to SoundTrack isn’t necessary. You can do a huge amount of sound editing in FCP.

ALFRED GUZZETTI

[Mark Maness]

[Jimwww] “I capture an entire DV tape as a file and break it apart in FCP. I only cut the video in FCP because even normalizing sound is reserved for Soundtrack. “

You are aware that FCP can make the indiviual clips for you when you digitize. You can select DV Tape detection and it will create the maker and subclips for you. Then you could normalize the entire clip and the subclips will have that normalization applied to them.

Why do you need to normalize anyway? Is the footage audio that low? If so, there are other ways to the same thing as a normalize in Soundtrack right inside of FCP.

[Jimwww] “When I’m finished editing the audio (if Soundtrack does not crash and I don’t loose all my individual clip’s audio project references ), I export the audio file from Soundtrack as a single audio file which I lay down as the replacement track for my FCP project. I suppose this work-flow makes sense if you are expected to outsource to a professional who will only be looking at audio and will do it as a final step. “

That sounds logical, indeed, but it will be very time consuming for to do this. That is why I mentioned the above.

[Jimwww] “But what do I do then, if I make a change to the video edits in Final Cut Pro. From Soundtrack Pro’s perspective, do I need to recreate the entire project and loose all of my non-destructible edits, just because I’ve added some video here and there or tightened something up? “

No… If you apply your normalize to the entire clip, your subclips and their time changes won’t affect your audio clips.

_______________________________

Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com

[Walter Biscardi]

[Jimwww] “I capture an entire DV tape as a file and break it apart in FCP. I only cut the video in FCP because even normalizing sound is reserved for Soundtrack.”

You should never capture entire tapes. You log and capture what you need. FCP creates on very long file and “breaking it apart” in FCP does not create individual clips. The underlying file is just one long video. If you take any of the “broken apart” clips offline, you’ll take the entire tape offline.

At the very least, turn on Start / Stop detect and have FCP create all individual clips for you. Nobody I know captures entire tapes for editing no matter what NLE they’re running.

[Jimwww] “OK so now I export the whole project to Soundtrack pro. I now need to create an audio project for every single one of my 100 audio clips because I want non-destructible editing. I guess there is no way to automate this process?”

That’s because you created one long file, you don’t have 100 audio clips. You have 1 clip that you’ve taken into Final Cut Pro and edited. You can automate this process by properly logging and capturing individual clips, not the entire tape.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Glenn Chan]

To get your audio into an audio editing program, try OMF export. From what I vaguely remember, certain things like crossfades and volume levels may not stick. I haven’t used FCP+Soundtrack recently enough to know if there is some specific export option that is better than OMF. Add 2-pops to check sync. 2s before and after your program, have a frame of bars and tone.

Once you’re done editing, you mixdown your tracks to a stereo file.

To get the level of audio features that Vegas has, you’ll need to do something like an OMF export. FCP can do simple audio editing like adjusting levels + crossfades + a few effects.

2- Appreciating Final Cut:
Personally I like Vegas a little more than FCP. Where FCP is stronger is that:
-Editing: You can search clips (i.e. including marker names), the general editing structure makes slightly more sense
-Formats: FCP has better hardware support (i.e. lots of manufacturers make capture hardware), panasonic MXF support. Higher bit depth and can work in Y’CbCr color space (although particular combinations are buggy). More people understand online/offline workflows with FCP.

[Jim Waterwash]

You got my heart pumping again!

Its true that I neglected FCP’s audio features because I bought FCP studio which came with Soundtrack.
But I found that when I add an audio filter to a clip and then modify an audio parameter while FCP is running, its stops playback. How can I tweak the effect to hear what my changes sound like in real time?

Jim

[Walter Biscardi]

[glenn chan] “To get your audio into an audio editing program, try OMF export. From what I vaguely remember, certain things like crossfades and volume levels may not stick. I haven’t used FCP+Soundtrack recently enough to know if there is some specific export option that is better than OMF. Add 2-pops to check sync. 2s before and after your program, have a frame of bars and tone.”

You don’t need OMF with Soundtrack. You just Export > For Soundtrack.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Jim Waterwash]

I think I’ve just grown used to having more control of my audio and because it was available, I’ve been using that control. As normalization goes, I typically normalized on a clip by clip bases. It was just a check box in Vegas. Often the environment changes around the camera so I found normalization by clip can give me finer control of my peak volumes and pull out conversations that normally would get lost. Amazing the things that can be heard by tweaking audio…

Yea, I am aware of the auto detect of Timecode stops. I suppose in the right conditions, I could apply a normalization to several clips at once.

Thanks for that.
Jim

[Alfred Guzzetti]

Double click on the audio clip in the timeline and open the filter tab in the viewer, then add your filter. You can switch the filter on and off by checking its box in the filter tab. To hear the change you have to stop playback momentarily, but you can stop and start very quickly and hearing the change is easy.

ALFRED GUZZETTI

[Jim Waterwash]

I did export the entire FCP project to soundtrack.

It is easy to get it there, but my confusion is in getting it back, making changes in FCP and then how to re-edit without having to reapply my non-destructive audio sweetenings within Soundtrack, now that my FCP project has been modified.

To clarify some things in your other posts, I did in fact figure out that I needed to break the file into smaller files and did so using the media manager’s magic. I do understand that most professional editors never copy an entire tape into their hard drive. With dropping hard drive prices, I decided to reduce the wear and tear on my camera and I passed on having a $500 dedicated deck just for input.

I’m becoming aware of a lot of the methodology that exists in traditional film-making. I’m just trying to better separate and understand tradition vs. efficiency. My main reason for switching to Final Cut was because it seemed an industry standard. Just trying to understand this standard…

Thanks for your help.
Jim

[Walter Biscardi]

[Jimwww] “To clarify some things in your other posts, I did in fact figure out that I needed to break the file into smaller files and did so using the media manager’s magic.”

That’s good, though I really don’t recommend that method. You’re essentially recompressing all of your video into new files. It should be lossless, but it would still be better to capture all clips individually.

[Jimwww] “I decided to reduce the wear and tear on my camera and I passed on having a $500 dedicated deck just for input.”

Depends on how much you’re going to be working whether or not you should get a deck. Your camera is still running and you’re still wearing down the heads. VTR’s are made to be beaten up with playback and shuttle. If you’re doing a lot of work, you might want to consider a deck, though if you’re working with DV, the Sony DSR-11 is the way to go and that’s around $1,600.

[Jimwww] “I’m just trying to better separate and understand tradition vs. efficiency. My main reason for switching to Final Cut was because it seemed an industry standard. Just trying to understand this standard…”

Efficiency definitely comes from methodology. Most people starting out think it’s a waste of time to log, capture, then start editing. But since you’re watching the footage as you log, the moment all the of the footage is in the system, you’re editing. Using your method, you capture everything, then shuttle though, break the clips apart, use Media Manager, render, then you’re ready to start editing. In my mind that’s a very inefficient workflow, especially since you probably don’t need everything that’s on the tape.

Logging allows you to weed out all unecessary material so you’re just left with anything that’s useful to the project. This is one thing that editors who never cut linearly will appreciate. As you said, hard drive prices are dropping so it’s easy to just capture entire tapes. In my world, it’s more efficient to have logged and captured before wasting any drive space with useless material.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters