pro tools aiff export out of sync in FCP

[Doug Beal]

Normally we export OMF for protools and the protools box is locked word clock or video from 29.97 generator depending on the mix house

Doug Beal
Editor / Engineer
Rock Creative Images
Nashville TN

[Vashi Nedomansky]

Thanks for the quick response.

I forgot to mention my FCP timeline is 23.98 (hpx170 and canon 5d). I exported AIFF 2 track as it was only for dialog cleaning and not deep enough for OMF. Would that affect it adversely? Otherwise I made sure the PT session was at 23.98 (not 24/film) and went to work.

So frustrating. I will try a OMF export but read somewhere it might be a FCP bug where it interprets the AIFF as NDF or something. Arg.

[John Fishback]

Try this advice from Jeremy Garchow, “First, delete the new mix out of FCP and your timeline. Set FCP up in a 23.98 easy setup, then quit FCP. Now reopen FCP and reimport your new mix.” This has worked for others.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Vashi Nedomansky]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Easy Setup change, save and restart worked like a charm. Wow. Now I can sleep at night. Awesomeness!

[John Fishback]

I’m glad it worked. I guess FCP need to be “reminded” about the audio setup parameters. As I mentioned, this was Jeremy Garchow’s idea. I’m just passing it along.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Pete Camden]

Battling with this issue past two days in here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/8/1094543

and then I finally stumbled across this.

I owe Jeremy a case beer, so if you ever visit Sydney there’s heaps of free drinks…
Happy times now. Thanks once again for the great knowledge you spread.

It’s like what Lenin said… you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh…

[Gates Bradley]

Dang, I am having the same issue, but this solution did not work for me. I am cutting a feature length music doc and the film has to be ready in 2 days for a premier, and I can’t figure this out. I didn’t notice it until the last performance, which is roughly 20 minutes.

I am using a sequence based off of the Panasonic HVX 720p native settings: DVCPRO HD, 23.98 frame rate, 48khz audio. All of my audio is mixed by a sound engineer in ProTools and brought back in. It never changes sample rates, however- they stay the same.

Anyone have any other ideas? Or perhaps I am performing incorrectly this solution. I deleted the protools mix file from my timeline and project, did an easy setup as suggested, and then reimported. It not only did not work in my edit timeline, but I made a new timeline and it did not work there either. I’m at a total loss…

[Final Cut Pro 7.02; OSX 10.6.4; Macbook Pro 15″; 4gb RAM]

[John Fishback]

This is a shot in the dark. If you don’t already have it, download Wave AgentWave Agent from Sound Devices. It’s free. Open the wav file from Pro Tools (duplicate it as a backup before doing this) and look at the interface. Check the sample rate and the frame rate. If they are 48000 and 23.97 (their notation for 23.976, I guess) then you might try changing the sample rate to speed up (greater than 48000) or slow down (less than 48000). Wave Agent has two sample rates in its drop down menu to either side of 48k. You didn’t say whether the Pro Tools mix was ahead or behind. Choose the appropriate sample rate and Save. Then try that file in FCP. If, on the other hand there’s no frame rate or it’s not 23.97, change it to 23.97 and Save. Try that. I’ve never had to do what I’m describing, but that’s what I’d try in this case.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[Gates Bradley]

John. A big word up to you. It worked! It’s just one of those things where machines get confused with all of the bouncing around of metadata (or looking for it when there is none). One of the many pitfalls of the modern prosumer workflow. You completely saved my neck. Kudos to you sir.

I should add for others encountering this problem that for some reason, on the really long clip (18min) I had to change the sample rate in Wave Agent from 48k to 48.0048khz. I do not know why, but I did, so if the above solution doesn’t work for you, if the sound is still a little ahead of the video, try this. (Or if it is a little behind try changing it to 47.9-something khz – you will see the option in wave agent).

[Michael Gissing]

The sample rate pull up or pull down is basically adjusting the speed by .1% which is the difference between 24 and 23.976 . It might be that the ProTools output was done at 24 and needed to be slowed by .1%

You can always test that idea by setting the playback speed of the audio in FCP to 99.9% and see if it pops into sync. If it does then you can do the speed up or down in Compressor or Quicktime.