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How do get avid to consistently respect track configuration from source to timeline when placing multiple clips at once?
I’m trying to sync video and audio using plural eyes and Avid. Typically I place a day’s shoot of 5D material on to the timeline with the standard configuration of tracks with 1 video and 2 audio channels assigned v1 to v1, a1 to a1 and a2 to a2.
Then I lay the audio, but this is where things get annoying. I have external audio clips which over the course of the day have different numbers of tracks. For most of the day it’s 2 channels of audio but sometimes it goes as high as 5. I want to lay them all at once but when I do so avid simply assumes the first clip in the bunch (which is always 2 channels) is the track configuration I want to use for all clips being laid and simply ignores any audio channels beyond channel 2 when placing the clips on to the timeline.
This happens even if I first click on a 5 channeled clip and explicitly assign channel mapping a1 to a3, a2 to a4, etc until a7 on the timeline thus mapping the 5 audio channels below the first 2 from the 5d’s onboard mic. It simply turns off the patching for those extra 3 without ever asking or informing me it’s going to do that.
Therefore I’ve been manually placing each multiple channeled clip in individually, but that opens a whole new even weirder problem. I have my 5 tracks mapped a1-5 from the source to a3-7 on the timeline but immediately after laying one clip with that configuration Avid automatically swaps my configuration so that the last two channels of the source get mapped to the first two patched timeline channels, that is a4 and a5 from source get patched to a3 and a4. Though the clip I’ve just laid is correct, it means the next one will get jumbled unless I switch this back to the correct configuration before I can manually lay the next 5 channeled clip which is very frustrating and I can’t for the life of me figure out why it would do that or why anyone would ever want it to.
So, how do I first – make it just lay all clips from the bin in to the timeline with the patching I choose prior to doing so (ignoring additional tracks if they aren’t present in the source but using my chosen mapping when they are); and second – when manually laying multiple channelled clips with a specific patching arrangement, keep that arrangement in place for all subsequent clips unless it is otherwise changed by me.
That second one in particular I’d really like to know because it’s just so baffling why it would ever do anything else.
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3 Replies
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Try selecting all your audio clips and choosing AutoSequence with the option/ALT key. This will create a sequence for you in whatever sort order you have them in the bin. DO the same for the video clips and combine sequences (edit one sequence into another. Easiest would be to to inset video sequence into audio only sequence. On that sequence, in the timeline, insert audio track holding down option/ALT and you can select 1, then 2 pushing the others to 3+. Send to PluralEyes.
Michael
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Huh.. didn’t know there was more than one way to auto sequence. I’ll try this out the next time I need to do this.
Since that pretty much solves it it’s academic now but, any idea WHY it would swap the channels around like that? Specifically when you place one clip down and then load another in to the source monitor to place next, why would it swap the position of the last two tracks with the first two tracks from whatever the previous patching setup was? That’s so specific and weird.
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well hopefully I’m understanding your dilemma correctly. It has been a request before, and discussed for a long time that the source monitor have track settings that override the source when clips are loaded. That would help somewhat in this scenario.
AutoSequence won’t do any track mapping but will create a timeline that contains all tracks of all clips. From there, you can insert audio tracks that will bump down existing tracks – this is done by holding down option/alt when selecting new track in timeline. So even though you have an A1, inserting an A1 will make existing A1 an A2, and so forth and so on…
Michael
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