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Is anybody here actually cutting multi track audio with X?
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[David Lawrence] “I’ve asked several times in the forum if folks would like a DAW that had a timeline like in FCPX. I’ve never gotten an answer.”
I think tracks are inherent in DAW’s for a very good reason: track based effects and sends. I’m not sure how you would accomplish this in a ‘trackless’ paradigm.
Chris
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[David Lawrence] ” It’s funny, I’ve asked several times in the forum if folks would like a DAW that had a timeline like in FCPX. I’ve never gotten an answer. I think that says something…”
I forgot to answer this one. I think it’s silly to compare a daw to an nle, even though they might share some.
They are different tools for different jobs.
I send FCP7 timelines to AE all the time with Automatic Duck (RIP), and the timelines look and operate completely differently, but I don’t complain. I don’t need AE to work like an NLE, and I am sure there are people who would say I don’t need my DAW to work like a video editing program.
If you need tracks to operate like tracks in an NLE, then FCPX isn’t currently there yet, and it might never be. I could care less if tracks come back or not, but at least give me multi-channel audio control/or the sync markers to track my broken apart clips.
Jeremy
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[Chris Conlee] “I think tracks are inherent in DAW’s for a very good reason: track based effects and sends. I’m not sure how you would accomplish this in a ‘trackless’ paradigm.”
Some might suggest that Roles could serve this function.
Jeremy
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[David Lawrence] “I’ve asked several times in the forum if folks would like a DAW that had a timeline like in FCPX. I’ve never gotten an answer.”
The answer is emphatically no.
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[Chris Conlee] “I think tracks are inherent in DAW’s for a very good reason: track based effects and sends. I’m not sure how you would accomplish this in a ‘trackless’ paradigm.”
Agree, although I actually think that’s an example of something roles can probably handle well.
I’m thinking more along the lines of how tracks work in the context of music recording. Time is a fixed, external frame-of-reference for each track. The composer/producer creates their composition by placing beats/instruments/notes/sounds, etc. in this fixed frame. Many film/video editors work this way too.
When Walter Murch was interviewed a few months ago, one of the things he said about the FCPX timeline was “Well, I can’t make music with it…” This was before he had time to really play with it. I’m curious what he thinks of it today.
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David Lawrence
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[Chris Conlee] “I think tracks are inherent in DAW’s for a very good reason: track based effects and sends. I’m not sure how you would accomplish this in a ‘trackless’ paradigm.”
[DL] Agree, although I actually think that’s an example of something roles can probably handle well.
In an audio DAW like Fairlight there is clip based level, plugins and EQ. Then there is the track based dynamic levels, EQ and plugin processing. Then there is the sub bus level where all music or dialog premix comes and there is again bus based dynamic level, EQ and plugin processing. The there is the ability to route those sub buses to other tracks to record the pre fade levels (undipped stems), Then the post fade stems can be routed to a master bus where again dynamic levels, EQ and plugins can be applied. So there are so many potential layers designed to give control and also create simultaneous deliverables. Meanwhile any track can be sent to an auxiliary bus that just applies processing like reverb. Those aux sends have routable returns that can change under automation to return to any sub bus or master bus. Aux send levels can be pre or post fader.
Until they have roles within roles, independent sub roles and a mix panel that allows extensive automatable control of all those parameters, then I do not see roles as being any where near as comprehensive as a track based bus assignable DAW can be.
I don’t think many picture editors have any idea of the complexity and power of how DAWs route, assign and control audio. A trackless roles based editor cannot come close to this complexity without being a nightmare to drive.
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[Michael Gissing] “I don’t think many picture editors have any idea of the complexity and power of how DAWs route, assign and control audio.”
Amen. Have just recently been learning Pro Tools, and the ability to route anything to ANYWHERE, or multiple places at the same time, is amazing. Truly an astounding amount of control and configurability. In fact, I’ve been thinking over the past couple of months just how simple NLEs are compared to most professional DAWs.
Chris
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[Michael Gissing] “I don’t think many picture editors have any idea of the complexity and power of how DAWs route, assign and control audio. A trackless roles based editor cannot come close to this complexity without being a nightmare to drive.”
Yep, all absolutely true. Wasn’t thinking routing which tracks do exceptionally well.
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David Lawrence
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I forgot to answer this one. I think it’s silly to compare a daw to an nle, even though they might share some.
They are different tools for different jobs. “
Have to disagree, not silly at all.
Yes they’re different tools for different jobs, but only in the sense that each is optimized for its respective media type and I/O needs. They’re both share a common interaction language and a common visual model for representing time-based media in space.
The reason I keep bringing up audio and DAWs is because if Apple’s trackless paradigm is truly the revolutionary improvement that they claim, then it should work as a general solution for all time-based media. This has been my core argument from day one of the FCPX release.
By eliminating tracks, Apple changed something that wasn’t broken. The problem they solved wasn’t a problem for anyone skilled in the craft. The convenience their design affords is minor compared to the problems they’ve created for anyone who uses an NLE as a general purpose time-based editorial environment. Not to mention the interchange issues that are still getting worked out.
Nowhere do we see this more clearly than with audio. With muti-track audio, the idea of a single Primary track that all other tracks must relate to makes no sense whatsoever. Depending on your editing style and how you compose with multiple video channels in the context of posting a show, a single Primary may be just as meaningless.
[David Lawrence] “”What about multi-track audio situations where you really need each audio channel in an absolute temporal frame-of-reference, completely independent of everything else”
[Jeremy Garchow] “Put it in the primary storyline.”
So 24 audio tracks in the Primary storyline and everything else connected to that? Doesn’t that seem a bit forced? You still only have one true track in FCPX. I think that’s the root of the problems with audio.
If the Magnetic Timeline wouldn’t work for a DAW as well as tracks, then is it really as flexible and revolutionary Apple wants us to believe? Aside from complex routing as Michael Gissing points out, the other thing DAWs excel at is audio editing. I can’t imagine an audio editor would be happy with tracks affecting all other track timings by default or requiring elaborate workarounds to keep things locked to an absolute time reference.
I understand that many folks enjoy and are comfortable with FCPX’s trackless approach. I think that’s cool. But if we want to have a real understanding of the paradigm, I think we have to examine it in the context of the universal interface language that has been the standard for representing time-based digital media for decades. If Apple thinks they’ve invented something better, let’s see it how it works better for multitrack audio.
I’m with Mark Raudonis:
[Mark Raudonis] “Music video cutting against a single, unedited audio track…. OK. Nice trick. Now let’s see the tool used to cut a multicam scene with 12 iso trks of dialogue. That’s a demo that I’d like to see.”
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “The reason I keep bringing up audio and DAWs is because if Apple’s trackless paradigm is truly the revolutionary improvement that they claim, then it should work as a general solution for all time-based media. This has been my core argument from day one of the FCPX release.
By eliminating tracks, Apple changed something that wasn’t broken. The problem they solved wasn’t a problem for anyone skilled in the craft. The convenience their design affords is minor compared to the problems they’ve created for anyone who uses an NLE as a general purpose time-based editorial environment. Not to mention the interchange issues that are still getting worked out.”
But David, I would challenge you on the concept that Apple “eliminated” tracks. They did nothing of the kind, unless you define “tracks” as “how tracks operated in Legacy.”
The moment you import a digital asset into X, you essentially create a TRACK. That track persists and relates to the “tracks” you create above and below it just fine. The real difference is that these tracks aren’t persistently and necessarily “pinned to zero” as they were in Legacy. But you can’t actually argue that the aren’t there – because when if you look at any X timeline that has content – you can see them as easily as you can in Legacy.
I also firmly disagree with your contention that their convenience is marginal. I find it tremendously powerful and efficient to be able to assemble a stack of assets, and simply drag and drop that assembly around in time is literally orders of magnitude more sensible to me than being stuck in a world where every box in every stack in the warehouse of my timeline is always a discrete element that can be pushed out of time alignment by actions taken outside of the visual space I might be working in.
We’ve all had to restrict our thinking to this reality in the history of NLE design – the “what I do over here can break what I’ve already done down there that I can no longer see” and we’ve come to accept it and accommodate it – but honestly, it’s fundamentally crappy design to have a system where changes in one place can mess up previous decisions in another that you are no longer looking at. It’s something we’ve mentally had to learn to “anticipate” through rote learning. But it’s bad design. Period.
I actually LOVE not having an arbitrary “Zero” point like in Legacy. I can’t work the middle first, go back and do my titles later, Swap the back and front with the middle, and drag stuff around just to “see how it feels” with a freedom I never had before. ANd that freedom persists no matter HOW complex my timeline becomes. That’s no less than liberating to my mind.
I know it’s instinctively hard to change long set thinking about how an arrangement of virtual assets in time must behave. But some of us like the new system much, much better than the old.
I don’t even THINK about editing the way I used to. I like the freedom of knowing that the “stack” I created over there – will ALWAYS be there when I come back to that section, with all the clip timing and relationship decisions preserved, no matter what I change before or after it.
You appear to largely see X in terms of what you feel you’ve been forced to give up.
I largely see it in terms of the benefits of what I have now, that I didn’t have before.
I understand that these differences are based primarily on the kind of work we do and what we need most in our specific editing workflows, but you have half a dozen programs that do things YOUR way.
And I have ONE that’s shown me a different way that works better for me.
So sorry, but I’ll fight not to have to do what I consider to be “going backwards” to accommodate people who want X to be “more like” the tools we had for decades.
Working the way I’ve worked for 15 years as an editor, I’m significantly more productive in X than I ever was in Legacy. I’m getting more done faster, and since I “mentally migrated” to X, I’ve seen a massive increase in my billings. Attracting that work hasn’t been based on the software, but the software HAS allowed me to cut and finish work signifacantly FASTER than Legacy allowed, primarily because of the render issues, but also because the whole program just seems somehow more efficient to me.
So I’m just not sympathetic to your view. I think every day more and more general editors will discover the “point” of X.
If you never do, that’s fine. It’s likely because it’s NOT a good tool for the way you think and work.
But it’s an excellent one for the way I do.
Simple as that.
BTW, sorry to go off topic in this. It’s not about multi-track audio, per se – but then, neither was David’s post, so hopefully it’s fair game to respond directly to is assertions.
“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
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