OMF/XML trouble in FCP7

[James Cude]

Hmm- any chance you can wash it through a ProTools station and get media more like AIF?

[Eric Stishan]

perhaps. i’ll have to see if there are any accessible pro tools stations nearby. Audition turns all the files into AIF but then they don’t have the FCP effects on them. very frustrating.

[Michael Gissing]

If you load the OMFs via Automatic Duck, then you don’t need the XML. The XML has no media and you can’t reconcile the OMF media with the XML.

However, I would never recommend you use FCP for audio editing. The OMF throws away all the FCP filters etc but I do audio post all the time via OMF and I do not want anything from FCP in the way of levels or EQ.

Just load it into a proper audio DAW and have decent EQ, dynamics procesing, denoising and then automate levels properly and split out the mix via stems so that you have FX, dialog and music pre mixes. You can’t do any of that in FCP and the filters are clip based and not very good. Also FCP is a frame based editor with limited crossfading which isn’t fine enough for proper sound edit work.

[Eric Stishan]

thanks for the insight. the problem is there are 6 different OMF files, all with different lengths and timecodes and such, and they only seem to be lined up in the XML file. Though I guess I can try to match them?

I wouldn’t want to use FCP for audio editing, but if it was going to expedite the process I figured I could suck it up just this once, especially since the editor already did some audio editing in FCP. Unfortunately there is not a way to open or cross reference any of the audio effects in Adobe Audition.

[Nick Meyers]

maybe you need to get proper deliverables from the editor.
you need to get GUIDE pictures & audio,
that correspond to the OMFs.
sounds like you might have 6 spools, so you need 6 pic guides

make sure there is a sync pip on the head & tail of each of your 6 sections,
with a single frame of image & a pip on each and every track.

or is are the dense FCP audio work tracks into 2G OMFs vertically, not horizontally?
maybe you just need more information from the editor

if you are ok with FCP, maybe you should get the projects AND media, and prep this stuff yourself if the editor is an idiot.
(to be fair, i should say: “If the editor is the non-technical type”)

the audio filters in FCP are crap!
i cant comment too much in their audio quality except today that i’d be surprised if they are the best around,
but working with them would drive you crazy if you are used to more graphical interfaces.
(dont know if this is fixed in FCPX)

nick

[Eric Stishan]

I would never use FCP for appropriate audio editing, but he had some effects for high pass filters and such, things specific to the shots and like you said, I don’t have the video, so I wanted to make sure the filters are in the appropriate place.

getting proper media from the editor seems out of the question at this point, unfortunately. I just can’t get into contact with him, my director had to fly across the country to get a response from him….just hardly worth it at this point.

so i have a DVD of the rough cut the director gave me. i think i might rip that and use that as a reference video/audio and base the audio editing in Audition off the audio from the dvd.