Mixer? How would it work anyway?

[Charlie Austin]

[Jamal Watts] “how would a mixer work without tracks anyway?”

Assign roles to fader(s)/Channel(s). Maybe you might have to make mix groups with compound clips first. Or just some sort of round trip to Logic?

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~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~

[Andy Field]

It makes your head hurt on the convoluted work arounds for audio with no tracks…this update is better but it needs automation mixer

Andy Field
FieldVision Productions
N. Bethesda, Maryland 20852

[Marcus Moore]

It’s not convoluted at all. Roles (or sub-Roles as needed) could be assigned to sub-mixes, then to master mixes. With the editor being able to apply adjustments or effects at either the clip, role, sub-mix, or master-mix level.

The elimination of hard tracks is necessary for the magnetic timeline and connected clip conceit to work. But a “Role” is really just a virtual “track” that potentially allows for multiple layers of information at once.

The biggest problem with it’s implementation in FCPX at the moment is that the Roles metadata isn’t used to automatically organize material in the project timeline. Roles should not be sea of green waveforms that they are now, but color-coded and stacked in an order defined by the editor.

[Chris Harlan]

[Marcus Moore] “The biggest problem with it’s implementation in FCPX at the moment is that the Roles metadata isn’t used to automatically organize material in the project timeline. Roles should not be sea of green waveforms that they are now, but color-coded and stacked in an order defined by the editor.
“

I agree. Roles are already acting like busses; it shouldn’t be a problem to attach a mixer. Color-coding IS very much needed. It also makes me wonder, though; couldn’t we bus to a some sort of audio track view. It would be really nice if you could call up an editable view of Roles lined up like audio tracks. Might make all the difference.

[Michael Gissing]

Roles may not be acting like busses but as routed outputs. I have no way to check so please if someone can enlighten me. Bussing implies that it is possible to have master level, EQ and other control over a mix. Do roles really act that way?

If there is no way to have a master control of levels, EQ and other processing like dynamics compression & limiters over a role, then it isn’t acting like a bus. Therefore there is nothing a mixer can do with a role. I suspect there is no mixer because there is only clip based control like FCP Legend. So all a mixer could do is dynamic levels on a clip basis. Still useful to have but not really proper audio control.

[Marcus Moore]

You’re right there’s no way to do that currently. But I’m not sure how you could ascertain if it “could” be done.

Visual organization of roles I would like to see sooner rather than later, but as for the more involved mixing tools; that’s a function I would imagine we might see in a 10.1 release next year (NAB?).

[Marcus Moore]

I wonder if the solution might be that you can expand and contract a role, much like how the multichannel audio expands now in 10.0.6. Clip connections would be maintained, but the role would be only 1 “track” high. For example, all sound effect would be visible as a since block with all the clip connections still visible and active. But if you need to add, delete, move an element, expand the role for access to the individual clips.

[Michael Gissing]

FCP has never had track/bus based processing. FCPX from my reading of the design philosophy inherent in versions to date gives me no reason to assume they will ever introduce processing at a level other than the clip. If roles were to function like a bus then non clip based plugins & processing will be needed. Otherwise it is just a glorified router with summing.

[Michael Gissing]

Your description sounds like nesting.

[Marcus Moore]

It can’t be nesting. You can currently take a bunch of audio clips and put them in a compound clip (basically nesting), but once you do that any individual clip connections you have to the primary storyline are broken and replace by a single connection to the compound clip.

What I’m talking about is only a visual collapse to keep the project timeline clean. 1 “track” per Role until you need to do detailed work on it’s elements. But while you’re editing in the primary storyline, any connected clip will continue to keep it’s position.