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Importing .wav poly files into FCP 6
Hi,
I shot some footage recently and the location sound recordist recorded his audio in the .wav poly format. 24 bit, 48 kHz.
I imported his files into FCP 6 using via File/Import/Files, but the resulting audio is way too soft.
Does anyone know if there is a better way of importing these files? The sound recordist was quite experienced so I’d be surprised if the recorded audio actually was that quiet.
Thanks,
Lawrence -
6 Replies
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That’s the way to import them. They’re probably that soft. A good location recordist will leave plenty of room for headroom, just in case it gets loud all of a sudden.
Use the “Peak Limiter” filter, and boost the pre-gain. That’ll louden them up.
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Hi, Bill,
Thanks for the response. One more question — when I import a .wav poly file into FCP 6, it comes in as two tracks. In the Preview window, the upper track appears to be softer than the lower track.
Looking at my sound guy’s notes, In the Track 1 column he’s written “+/- 0 dB”, and in the Track 2 column he’s written “+5 dB”. He’s also written “long shotgun on boom” under Track 1, with an arrow from it extending into the Track 2 column.
Do you know which track or tracks are the ones I should be using in my project?
I would ask my sound guy, but he’s indisposed for a while.
Many thanks,
Lawrence -
[Lawrence Kim] “Looking at my sound guy’s notes, In the Track 1 column he’s written “+/- 0 dB”, and in the Track 2 column he’s written “+5 dB”. He’s also written “long shotgun on boom” under Track 1, with an arrow from it extending into the Track 2 column.”
This is a common technique – he’s recorded the same source (the “long shotgun boom”) on two separate channels, with extra gain on one of the channels. This is done so that if the louder channel should clip, you can use the softer channel.
Since you mentioned that your audio was low, use channel 2 (the one with the gain). If there’s a peak on channel 2, you can switch to channel 1 for a softer version of the same source.
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Many thanks, Bill. Happy holidays!
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Actually, one more question — if I use only one track (the louder track), then won’t my audio be in mono? Don’t I need two tracks for stereo?
Thanks!
Lawrence -
Almost any microphone recording is inherently mono. You can pan it as needed in your mix.
Be sure that the .wav did not come in as a stereo pair (check under Modify>Stereo Pair in the menu). That will save you some headache when panning.
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