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Mix on Tracks 1&2, M & E on 3&4…
OK so I have had a pretty good run with FCP X. I like it but I use all the NLE’s around to stay on top of whats new and work out the best workflows for different jobs.
I’m doing a bunch of international versions this week for a BBC series and decided to do them within X. It’s all been great and I’m surprised about how quick I have got them done until I hit a little snag. It’s not the end of the world but it’s annoying. I can’t monitor multiple audio tracks. Getting them out in the QT file using roles is easy but actually monitoring on my external meters during playback isn’t possible unless I’m missing something?
Any ideas?
Currently I’m assigning custom roles – “Tracks 1 & 2” to the mix and “Tracks 3 & 4” to the M & E. Exporting the quicktime with the roles assigned correctly and then viewing it back in FCP classic or Premiere Pro depending on how I’m feeling.
Also the other issue here is that while I’m working I need to disable the M&E track otherwise I get them all mixed together on the stereo output. So just throwing this out there, anyone got a fancy idea that may help out here?
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12 Replies
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If you are asking how to mute whole Roles, deselect them in the Index.
This will only apply to playback and won’t apply to exports.
Jeremy
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It’s more that I need more then just two tracks coming out of X via SDI for monitoring. Muting them in the index is helpful but still not a great way to deal with making sure the mix and m&e are perfect in the file. I’d have to listen to both separately which means watching each episode back twice.
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Yes, I had a hunch that’s what you really meant. 😉
You can jerry rig a surround mix. Export a multitrack, import back in to a surround Project and assign each channel to an output (L,R,C, etc), at least that’s how it works on my Kona 3.
Jeremy
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That’s a good Idea, I was thinking of testing out the surround options so I’ll give that a blast tomorrow.
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These are some of the details that are still keeping me away from X. My deliverables generally have 8 channels so I definitely get where you are coming from. Your work-around sounds fine, though. There’s no sin in using both programs until X fills itself out. I would render out via roles, as you are currently doing, and then do my final checking in Pr 6, as it has the best monitoring capabilities.
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If you haven’t, make sure you send Apple that feedback! I’d like for a simpler solution to this as well.
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Have done. It started off as a “FCP X needs audio follows video setting for external monitoring” then when it got to trying to check it back and realised I couldn’t monitor separate channels easily without committing them to my final file I had a little ‘moment’. Then sent a nice little feature request.
The fact that external audio doesn’t come out via SDI anyway is a pain, I don’t want to have to send my entire systems audio out via my SDI I/O, I only want my NLE, but I have to or FCPX pictures are out of sync. Annoying little thing. Apart from this it’s been a dream with everything I’ve been throwing at it and been awesome on a big 5K RED job I’m doing. Been working or the R3D files with no issues, loving it.
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[Zeb Chadfield] “The fact that external audio doesn’t come out via SDI anyway is a pain, I don’t want to have to send my entire systems audio out via my SDI I/O, I only want my NLE, but I have to or FCPX pictures are out of sync. Annoying little thing. Apart from this it’s been a dream with everything I’ve been throwing at it and been awesome on a big 5K RED job I’m doing. Been working or the R3D files with no issues, loving it.”
Yes, it is a pain, but this seems to be a limitation of AV Foundation or Core Video/Audio or whatever FCPX is using these days.
FCPX is so much good, and so much weird. The good thing, is that the good is really good, the weird thing is that the weird is totally weird.
I keep waiting for that “proof of life” update.
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If you use AJA products, please also provide feedback to them about this. This was one of the supposed features in control room (being able to route audio out of fcpx via roles to specific channels on sdi out. You’d still need a de-embedder to get those channels to your mixer, but conveniently, AJA makes those too (HD10AMA and the FS1or2).
I think everyone here at work agrees with you though, it would be incredibly convenient to have the option to have roles going to channels of output. We keep kicking around the idea of a role mixer and say that it would be something we’d like to see in fcpx. However, when you start thinking about how it might work (does it mix down all dialogue roles to one track? if you have a ton of roles, do they each have their own mixer track? do they appear and disappear as roles are present in the timeline?) it easily gets overly complex.
Keith
Keith Koby
Sr. Director Post-Production Engineering
iNDEMAND
Howard TV!/Movies On Demand/iNDEMAND Pay-Per-View/iNDEMAND 3D -
[Keith Koby] “it easily gets overly complex.”
Yes, I have thought about this too.
I’m not sure a Role mixer would work, but a channel mixer would. Set the amount of channels, assign Roles to it, and yes, some of them would get mixed down (just like multi channels do in FCP Legend) unless you don’t want them to, and you’d assign them to their own channel. You could have multiple Roles per channel. It would also serve as a great visual indicator of channel mapping, AND, for the love all things audio, keep the “downmix” button from fcp7.
Jeremy
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