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My Demagnetized FCPX with Tracks
Okay, I talked about this hypothetically but after months of this love hate relationship with FCPX I committed to see if I could make it do what I wanted it to before I started this new promo film.
So here it is, a basic 2 video, 6 audio track setup that combines the advantages of connected clips for compositing and Compound Clips for composite organization and audio mixing AND has a fixed timeline where nothing in the fixed Secondaries will travel with anything in the Primary dedicated tracks because they’re not connected to the Primary.
The “Alley” below the Primary is one of the things I’ve frustrated over…a place where my sync audio clips automatically edit into without the need for a Compound Clip and that sits right under the on camera audio for synch as I assemble.
Using the right combination of Trim, Position and Shift Delete, I’m able to add, move, delete and trim clips in any track without effecting any thing else except when I want to by editing with Q.
After I tested it all I just emptied the containers and created a 1 minute template cleverly called traX in my project library.
Here it is with everything from J and L cuts to the sync audio lane, audio tracks etc to give you an idea, but it all works like I would want it to so far.
If nothing else, it shows how easy it would be for Apple to immediately provide a simple track grid option.
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29 Replies
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This idea was talked about a while ago, I made a short video of something similar and sent it to Apple. You’re right it does show just how easy a fixed track option would be to implement
Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television -
Hey Steve, I was one of the people talking about it as I said, but I wanted to make it an actual permanent starting point for all my projects with an easy “exit strategy” for final output.
Plus the dedicated audio lane, I think is a new idea and works great. I took the whole idea to more practical level at least for me, in so much a this is what I have when I open the program now…I don’t have to set anything up. It’s a pretty similar working environment to FCP7 for a lot of uses and you can add tracks and delete tracks as simply as in 7.
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I’m very interested to see how it works on a real project, it would be good it you could also send your experiences with it to Apple as well. At the moment I’m not feeling the need to use a track based layout, but I’m very aware it’s something that is needed as an option if Apple want a wider adoption off FCPX
Steve Connor
“FCPX Professional”
Adrenalin Television -
Me too. That’s why I wanted to set up a “default timeline” for this project and edit everything into it.
This thing has been in production for a year gathering all the footage over 4 seasons.
I absolutely loved organizing the hundreds of scenes, locations, seasons and actors with the keyword editor…absolutely dwarfs 7 in that regard.
I don’t need tons of tracks. I just need more east/west control than X natively allows for.
I especially like this “audio sync lane”. Because of the remote nature of some of these locations there’s some audio direct to camera but most is separate audio. This gives me the ability to drop either in and do J and L cuts quickly with either. I just want it all to drop into and stay in a straight line as easily as if I selected a track in 7 and this way it does.
Honestly I think my basic starting point will be just three fixed audio tracks with that lane below the primary. I think I’m good with everything north of the primary right now, but it’s immediately expandable.
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Cool Jim, the fact that you could even make that speaks to the versatility of the program in a way doesn’t it?
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For me Tony, it’s more, why does Apple require me to build a work around to “trick” X into making tracks that stay in place?
I just got tired of the lack of simple, visual, linear organization when I wanted it in complex edits.
It doesn’t change the way X works, it just gives me more control of my organization and therefore edit.Visually, I see editing as a north, south, east and west proposition- and metadata is like Z space. FCPX is all about north and south (me too), and all about Z space (me too), but kind of, eh, when it comes to east and west – so I just wanted to force it to respect those compass points too.
It’s awfully nice to hit Q and have the audio tracks drop automatically below the primary without a Secondary, and stay there without a Compound Clip until I’m ready to finish.
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[Jim Giberti] “For me Tony, it’s more, why does Apple require me to build a work around to “trick” X into making tracks that stay in place?”
I don’t know, if had to guess I would say that Apple thought that tracks were old and that their way was more innovative and people were going to throw flowers at them. I bet they are still asking themselves “what happened?”
One of the things I have always liked about Apple stuff is the fact that you can find workarounds for their stuff to get done what you need to your way.
Even before they had multi-cam you could still do a workaround and do multi-cam.
BTW, remember how many people were talking about multi-cam before they put it in and after they did nobody talks about it at all. Not to say it’s good or bad or anything. It was such a big deal before.
Now, mehYou seem to have outsmarted them Jim. You have your tracks but they don’t collide like they did in legacy and you don’t have to lock and unlock your tracks.
It seems like you kind of have the best of both worlds.
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[tony west] “BTW, remember how many people were talking about multi-cam before they put it in and after they did nobody talks about it at all. Not to say it’s good or bad or anything. It was such a big deal before.
Now, meh”I think that’s just one of those things where if something is wrong people speak up but if nothings wrong, or nothing major is wrong, they keep quiet.
It’s like if you are having car trouble you are probably going to talk about that it but on the flip side I doubt you talk about how your car is working fine when nothing is wrong with it.
-Andrew
2.9 GHz 8-core (4,1), FCP 7.0.3, 10.6.6
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (7.9.5) -
[tony west] “BTW, remember how many people were talking about multi-cam before they put it in and after they did nobody talks about it at all. Not to say it’s good or bad or anything. It was such a big deal before. Now, meh”
It looks like an excellent multi-cam tool as long as you have simplistic audio needs, it was reviewed positively when it came out, and I still can’t use it because I split my audio over all my source tracks and X is terrible at dealing with this workflow. What else needs to be said about it?
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “It looks like an excellent multi-cam tool as long as you have simplistic audio needs, it was reviewed positively when it came out, and I still can’t use it”
Rushed out to give the appearance that Apple were on top of the game but ultimately deeply flawed – why can’t they just take a deep breath and get this stuff right? Everything about FCPX has been released prematurely. It’s really not remotely encouraging.
Need to try harder, guys. Need to try a whole lot harder.
Another update where stuff just doesn’t work properly will be a sign that they just can’t get it together.
I think the big problem is they just don’t have the resources …
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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