Some questions about FCP X

[Andy Neil]

Some of this is probably not going to be to your liking, because a lot of what you’re asking is predicated on the workflow of making X work like Premiere. To quickly do the kind of work you do, you may need to adjust your workflow to take advantage of X’s strengths. But understanding how FCPX works will help.

1) There is no audio crossfade transition for FCPX. Not in the way you’re talking about. You can do manual crossfades where you overlap two audio tracks and then adjust their respective fade handles, but nothing like a quick audio dissolve. That said, someone once made a transition in Motion that was applied between two video tracks but only affected the audio. Something like that is your best option. FCPX has typically good audio options, but fast crossfade transitions are not one of them.

2) No mixer like you’re used to in Premiere. There is no per track adjustments because there are no tracks in FCPX (aside from the primary storyline). However, it’s pretty easy to lasso a number of clips and adjust their audio levels at once. This can be done in the inspector (in the audio tab) or else by using the shortcut CTRL +/-. Also, FCPX has a feature called Roles. This allows you to assign audio under different headings like: music, dialogue, sfx. You can isolate a role in the Timeline Index (CMD+2) and apply effects or adjust volume globally to all those clips.

3) Again, no tracks in FCPX means no per track adjustments. However, using roles (as mentioned above) you can isolate or solo specific types of audio. This will allow you to enable or disable an entire group of clips at a time. Mostly I just quickly lasso clips in the section I’m working and hit V to turn them off; it’s pretty easy that way. But for you I’d recommend using Roles as it sounds like you do a lot of isolating of audio.

4) Connected clips are a fundamental feature of FCPX’s magnetic timeline. They are designed to go along with the clip they are connected to, if you move it. You can suspend the connection by holding down the tilde (or gravé) key when moving clips around. You can also put all your VO for example, in a secondary storyline so that those audio clips are only connected to the primary at a single point instead of each VO clip being connected to a different video clip in the primary. It helps keep clips together that you want to remain in sequence.

Hope this helps.

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Shane Ross]

OK…this brings up a question for me. One thing I do in my “antiquated” track layout, is SOLO tracks so I can make sure a music edit is just right, or a sound effect. Easy to click one or two boxes to solo only those tracks.

Since FCX is trackless…how can I accomplish this? Disable all the clips around the ones I want to hear? What if my SFX is spread out all over because FCX is so trackless? In FCP/Avid, I have specific tracks that are adjacent that I have my SFX on.

How would you accomplish this in FCX?

And yes…it is VERY lame to have have audio fade capabilities built in. Shows that engineers were in charge, not editors. There is a free app that enables this, though, so that’s good. Funny that you need a third party app for this very simple task….

Shane
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[Andy Neil]

[Shane Ross] “One thing I do in my “antiquated” track layout, is SOLO tracks so I can make sure a music edit is just right, or a sound effect. Easy to click one or two boxes to solo only those tracks.

Since FCX is trackless…how can I accomplish this?”

By using Roles. Your SFX can be assigned the SFX role, and your music assigned the Music Role. This can even be accomplished automatically when you import if you use iTunes to store those elements. Otherwise, they can be assigned at any time while editing.

Then you open up the Timeline Index (CMD+2) and OPT click the role that you want to isolate. Or click roles on and off so they no longer play. You can even further highlight the selected role by minimizing other roles so their clip appearance is different from the isolated. It’s really only a click or two.

[Shane Ross] “Funny that you need a third party app for this very simple task….”

It’s not a 3rd party app just to be clear. Someone just used the Motion/FCP interface to create a transition effect that does nothing to the video track. By default. transitions applied to clips with video will automatically crossfade the imbedded audio as well.

But you’re right, there should just be a crossfade transition. Especially now that they allow the edit point for adjacent expanded audio to be selected and rolled (new with 10.1)

Andy

https://www.timesavertutorials.com

[Shane Ross]

Thanks for the explaination…makes sense.

Shane
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[Jeremy Garchow]

[Shane Ross] “Since FCX is trackless…how can I accomplish this? Disable all the clips around the ones I want to hear? What if my SFX is spread out all over because FCX is so trackless? In FCP/Avid, I have specific tracks that are adjacent that I have my SFX on. “

FCPX has a “solo clip” function as well, and new in 10.1 is the ability to “add to soloed clip selection”. So if you want to solo some music or sfx, or music and sfx, select them and hit solo. If you need to add more, you select those clips and add more the soloed selection. You can solo connected storylines all at once (if you know what those are) by selecting the shelf and hitting solo.

It’s very easy. This is in addition to soloing whole Roles as Andy points out.

Jeremy

[Bret Williams]

As well, you can put all you sfx in a secondary. That’s as close to having a track as it gets. But it’s easier for me to just have them all over the place. Just like they were in legacy. I add them last, so they are below the vo and music. And they’re generally multiple layers as they’ll overlap quite a bit. This part is much easier in X. I don’t have to worry about tracks getting in the way. Clips don’t collide and possibly erode other sfx as I move them around. And generally sfx get adjusted on a case by case basis, so just like in legacy, I do this with a quick lasso then ctrl +/-. I miss cmd opt L, then typing in an amount to increase/decrease the level, but not that big of a deal.

In general, my audio ends up pretty organized. Clip audio is connected with the video, music tracks are in a secondary, VO is likely in a secondary, or orgAnized below the video clips, and below the music secondaries is the sfx. When cutting and pasting sfx and music I work quickly, not worrying about what track it’s getting pasted to or if it will overwrite something (who misses auto selects? Or track patching? Not me)

[Bret Williams]

The adjacent audio edit point could be selected all along. Just not with the mouse/trim tool. You pressed shift \. Then you could roll with the keyboard shortcuts, but not drag with the mouse.

[Douglas K. dempsey]

I don’t know of any “apply a cross fade” transition that works on detached audio. The work-around for me is to “Expand Audio” and then overlap by trimming out head and tail, apply the built-in fader. If you control-click on the fader you have choice of linear, 3dB etc.

As for adjusting level on “an entire track” — well there ARE no tracks in X. You can select the clips that make up the “track” you want to define, and make those into a Compound Clip. A CC can accept a global filter, correction or level adjustment.

When having trouble with clip attachments, remember that you can move the attachment anchor to another clip, by placing the cursor where you want the attachment anchor to go, and use option-command-click on the two clips.

Doug D

[Bret Williams]

[Douglas K. Dempsey] “I don’t know of any “apply a cross fade” transition that works on detached audio.”

On detached audio? Highlight the cut point and press cmd+T. Helps if they’re in a secondary or the primary together of course. But I’ve noticed in 10.1 that X has gotten pretty smart. If you highlight the end of a clip (audio or video) and press cmd+T and there is another adjacent clip, then it’ll go ahead and plop them in a secondary for you.