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Hypothetical
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Saddens me the that the two decent options from Softimage are now almost defunct.
Times are a changing 🙁
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[Bret Williams] “Tracks equate to channels. And this seems to be the biggest hurdle of this software for some and their workflows, especially regarding export to XML/ProTools.”
Roles are tracks when it come to ProTools. Now, I realize that you need to spend $150 to do this which seems to make peoples heads explode, but X2Pro makes outputting a beautifully split AAF a breeze. Assign Roles well, and it takes about 3 mouse clicks to do it. Way faster than prepping for a mix in the timeline IMO, particularly if you have lots of audio.
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
How does it deal with if I have 10 of the same role stacked upon each other? Like SFX? I suppose it would just make 10 tracks with that role. That would be OK.
How does it deal with channels that are turned off in the inspector, but not turned off in audio components? I know that was a problem with earlier versions of Xto7 xml. If you didn’t turn off channels in audio components, they were still there in the xml, even though they had been turned off in the inspector.
Anyway, that’s great that roles work with ProTools. I don’t send to ProTools much. Once in the last 2 years cuz we had a sweetening budget. I’d like to have a mixer of sorts where the tracks are all organized like they would be for the ProTools folks. BUT I don’t want them organized that way for editing. As others have mentioned it was a real nuisance having to scroll down and figure out what track the connected audio is on for a piece of video, etc. I definitely like having the audio and video combined and collapsed wherever possible. But a little mini protools-like mixing mode would be cool. Like I said, like DaVinci. Import, Edit, Color, Output. Instead of Color, we’d have an audio room. And heck, a color and fx room would be cool too.
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[Bret Williams] “How does it deal with if I have 10 of the same role stacked upon each other? Like SFX? I suppose it would just make 10 tracks with that role. That would be OK.”
It just stacks ’em if they’re the same, but if you make sub roles (mono fx, LF FX, whooshes… whatever) you can choose to keep them on separate tracks, and define their order in the AAF. Or just fit all FX into a group of tracks, your choice.
[Bret Williams] “How does it deal with channels that are turned off in the inspector, but not turned off in audio components? I know that was a problem with earlier versions of Xto7 xml. If you didn’t turn off channels in audio components, they were still there in the xml, even though they had been turned off in the inspector. “
If they’re off in the inspector, they’re not included, if they’re muted in components, they’re included but volume is set at -96, or whatever all the way down is. Xto7 deals with this the same way now FWIW.
[Bret Williams] ” But a little mini protools-like mixing mode would be cool. Like I said, like DaVinci. Import, Edit, Color, Output. Instead of Color, we’d have an audio room. And heck, a color and fx room would be cool too.”
I’m with ya there. Or a Role Mixer… Be interesting to see what appears. If history is a guide, I think the next release will probably just be fixing bugs and implementing Library stuff that wasn’t quite ready last time though.
What’s always intrigued me is the un-changeable checked “Final Cut Pro” selection at the bottom of the Window menu. If that’s the only choice, why even have it?
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “do you not find the system whereby there are no global timeline markers a bit irritating?”
Not really, I always place the music track in a secondary attached to a slug at the start of the primary, this keeps the track in a fixed position, if I need markers I apply them to the music track.
[Aindreas Gallagher] “Also – and I should check this really, but that if you blade during playback, it always blades all tracks?”
You should check – it doesn’t do that!
[Aindreas Gallagher] “but i guess ymmv.”
It does
[Aindreas Gallagher] “do you not find the system whereby there are no global timeline markers a bit irritating?”
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Charlie Austin] “Or a Role Mixer… Be interesting to see what appears. If history is a guide, I think the next release will probably just be fixing bugs and implementing Library stuff that wasn’t quite ready last time though.
“See, I don’t see a role mixer happening. Sure in the special window I was talking about which would be similar to ProTools. But the reason they haven’t come out with a mixer so far (role or not) is simple. It won’t work. A mixer is based on tracks. Left to right on the mixer, top to bottom on the sequence. If you did a role mixer, how would that work? You’re trying to mix fx, and some are at the top above video, some are down at the bottom. Everything has the potential to be a mish mash. So for a few seconds top to bottom the fx might be in one spot on the mixer if it relates to a top to bottom track matching (which it clearly can’t because there aren’t tracks) or the fx on the mixer have no relation to where the fx are in the timeline.
That’s why I think you have to have a separate mode where everything has been visually grouped by roles top to bottom so they can match up with specific channels on the mixer.
Hell, it’d be cool if there was a simple toggle that suddenly put you into this “mode.” Perhaps horizontal movement is restricted. If it was a sort of toggle, then maybe a role mixer would work for simple stuff, but when it gets complicated, you hit the toggle and you can’t edit video, but you see your audio all organized by tracks/roles.
Yes, it’ll be very interesting to see what they do. My guess is they’ve tried a few things and if they can’t do it right, they’ll leave it to 3rd party export as they have for now.
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[Bret Williams] “If you did a role mixer, how would that work?”
Exactly the same as a tracked mixer, it would adjust the level of the Role rather than the track, then it doesn’t matter where the clips are.
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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[Bret Williams] “See, I don’t see a role mixer happening. Sure in the special window I was talking about which would be similar to ProTools. But the reason they haven’t come out with a mixer so far (role or not) is simple. It won’t work. A mixer is based on tracks. Left to right on the mixer, top to bottom on the sequence. If you did a role mixer, how would that work? You’re trying to mix fx, and some are at the top above video, some are down at the bottom. Everything has the potential to be a mish mash. “
I totally agree, if it worked like a tracked mixer does now. But say it treated Roles like Logic Track stacks:
https://logicstudiotraining.com/wiki/index.php/Track_Stacks
Maybe a separate window would be involved, or maybe it’d just happen under the hood. But I could see a Role being treated either like a track stack, or an “invisible” compound clip, which you could mix, effect, whatever.
Or, you just click the “Logic Pro” selection in the Window menu and all your stuff is right there, in tracks, ready to mix… I guess we’ll see at some point. Or not. 😉
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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~ -
[Aindreas Gallagher] “It’s odd you should say that – I do find FCPX incredibly inefficient vertically as a timeline. Even the guy on FCPX grill made the point that the timeline was very vertically bloated. Also the fact that you can’t do a true overwrite of a connected clip etc – it always felt a bit stupid and skyscraper-ish as you just keep pressing Q, and it keeps heading higher.”
I’d say my experience is based in the real world as opposed to theoretical discussion. It probably depends a lot on how many tracks you use. I tend to be Primary A-Roll, B-Roll Secondary, Lower Thirds, Music and the occasional audio effect. For this type of editing it is better vertically than FCP 7 without question. One track for stereo. Audio combined with video. It always makes it vertically as small as possible when clips don’t overlap. And in fact, some overlapping clips can occupy the same space with J and L cuts. None of this was possible with FCP 7. If you had an overlapping stereo track, you had to create two new audio tracks.
Like all editing programs, if you’re sloppy it gets worse. Nothing about FCP X requires you to be sloppy.
I’m not sure that I want to get in the weeds on music editing. But, yes it’s much easier for me. It’s not music videos, it’s editing music to fit documentary-style editing. There are so many more options than a track-based system. And once you know how to work it, it is very efficient.
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[Brett Sherman] “I’d say my experience is based in the real world as opposed to theoretical discussion. It probably depends a lot on how many tracks you use. I tend to be Primary A-Roll, B-Roll Secondary, Lower Thirds, Music and the occasional audio effect. For this type of editing it is better vertically than FCP 7 without question”
Mine is real world too, And I use a boatload of audio “tracks”. Does it scroll off the screen? Yep, but so do my timelines in FCP 7, Pr, whatever. For me, 30 + “tracks” are easier to manage in X. In the end It’s no less manageable than any other NLE once you know what to expect.
This is the same sequence. Which looks more manageable?
————————————————————-~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~
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