Splitting multi-channel audio into discrete left and right tracks?

[Patrick Donegan]

I have the same question.

As far as I have seen, I have to hand pan the 2 mono audio channels from my HVX-200,
and hand pan the 2nd set of audio channels also.

FCP X 10.2.2 – user since FCP 1.25
iMac mid 2011, MBA mid 2012
HVX-200, Shure wireless mic

[Jeremy Garchow]

This sounds like stereo (left right) and not dual mono.

[Phil Lowe]

Yes. Once you have the audio in dual mono mode, you still have to change the pan mode from none to stereo left/right. The problem is, you still actually have to pan the channels manually to the left and right to get them ro play back as split audio tracks (something, by the way, you don’t have to do on a track-based system.) You can batch change the pan mode in the browser, and even put clips into dual mono mode. What I need to do is pan these split channels to the left and right for one simple reason: if you have to do it only when on the timeline, you have to do it for each clip you put down, so you have to leave the inspector open. But with the inspector open, you can’t skim across multiple clips.

So apparently, the only way I’ve found to do what I need is to expand the audio components, open the audio animation tool, and pan each clips audio individually on the timeline. Not fast at all. In fact, I’d say it’s half-fast compared to any track-based NLE around. They need to stop smoking crack down in Cupertino before programming this stuff!

I have a serious feature request for the next update on this iPhone editing app: put tracks back in it!!!

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Bret Williams]

Seems to be even worse in Premiere. All changes have to be made in the browser there. Once you place a mono track in the timeline in premiere, it’s mono. No panning allowed. You’ll find threads about it in the Premiere forum. The answer there is to match frame to the clip in the bin, change it’s audio format, then reedit back into the sequence over the mono audio clip.

So that’s better? I disagree.

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “Seems to be even worse in Premiere. All changes have to be made in the browser there. Once you place a mono track in the timeline in premiere, it’s mono. No panning allowed. You’ll find threads about it in the Premiere forum. The answer there is to match frame to the clip in the bin, change it’s audio format, then reedit back into the sequence over the mono audio clip.

So that’s better? I disagree.”

I opened Premiere CC2015 and dropped a dual mono clip onto the timeline then panned channel 2 right and channel 1 left. But, more importantly, I opened the audio track mixer panning 1 fully left and 2 fully right and arrived at exactly where I want to be with FCPX: every clip in the bin set for dual mono with left and right panned audio. And I didn’t have to do it clip-by-clip after having dropped it on the timeline.

Avid is even easier: drop channel 1 on any odd-numbered track and channel 2 on any even numbered track and – so long as your audio settings are set for alternating L/R tracks of mono clips, you will have exactly what I want and should expect from any NLE.

Whoever coded FCPX threw the baby out with the bathwater when it came to audio editing. IMHO.

I’ll only add that I honestly don’t see how Apple can continue to support this program much longer. It’s too arcane for the iPhone/iPad crowd, and way too hobbled for pros. They either need to fix these issues or EOL it.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Phil Lowe] “hey need to stop smoking crack down in Cupertino before programming this stuff!
“

I’m still confused as to why you need to split the audio clip by clip and pan them. You have full capability of exporting discreet audio in FCPX without a whole lot of fuss.

If you are trying to separate, say, music/fx from the voice, you set Roles for each of those which can be done in a batch in the inspector, export a multitrack QT and add the Voice Role to a mono output channel and the Music/FX Role to a mono output channel and end up with discreet dual mono.

This is the beauty of fcpx. You can have stereo sources, mono sources, whatever. If your Roles are assigned properly, which is easiest to do before the edit (or right after import) you can assign each Role to a mono output channel, or assign it to multiple stereo channels, or fold everything down to one singular mono channel.

It is a different way from working than tracks, but what you need to do is possible with X without panning every single channel of every single clip.

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/33755#33755

Jeremy

[Bret Williams]

I think you’re right on the Premiere front. What I was remembering is the way audio is in Resolve. But I swear I’ve seen numerous posts about similar issues in Premiere. In Resolve (track based) I can’t do what you want. A mono clip can’t be panned. It lets you pan it, but nothing happens. It’s like they only half copied the way audio works in legacy and Premiere.

But in X I can do what you want in a few clicks. The difference seems hardly worth worrying about. Lasso select all the clips and open their components. Then lasso select all the components to adjust and pan as desired in the inspector. No need to do it clip by clip. See screenshot below.

Seems similar to the workflow with tracks. Maybe a few more clicks but on the upside there’s no need to do track management and patching throughout the edit process so it seems like a pretty fair tradeoff.

And usually the issue would be much simpler than the above and could be accomplished with roles like mapping all sfx to channels 1/2, all VO/dialog to 3, and all NAT to 4, and all Music to 5 upon export.

Exporting:

And I tell ya, once you’ve got your roles set up it’s really cool to be able to turn on/off (or even just highlight) video or audio roles in the sequence via the timeline index.

Index:

Turning on/off based on roles and exporting discreet channels based on roles are both advancements over track based systems. I could have 10 different roles in a single track (secondary) and have it output to 10 separate channels without the need for 10 separate tracks taking up space. You can even have those 10 roles export as 10 separate audio files. I’m not sure if Premiere can export each track as a separate file automatically.

X is definitely a different beast, but it roles are fully capable for track management (if not a little more advanced) and it’s pretty simple to accomplish mass clip or channel pannings with components and the inspector.

[Bret Williams]

In messing around I even discovered another interesting thing about roles. Turning them on/off via the timeline index actually digs down INTO nested comps. So if you have a nested comp with 3 roles inside like titles, video, and dialog and you only want to see dialog and video and turn off titles, it will actually turn off the titles inside the nested comp. Much more powerful than I remembered. I would have thought it would either turn off the nest or leave it on. Not turn on and off parts of it inside. And if you jump inside the nest, it’s all on. It only selectively turns them off/on based on the settings of the exterior comp. In fact you can even turn off different roles inside the next, but that will be ignored by the exterior comp. Amazing. Please show me how that is even close to possible within Premiere, Avid, Resolve, or even AE. Tracks just can’t do that. Well, they could. There’s no reason an app couldn’t have both Roles AND tracks but nobody else is doing it. You’d think Adobe with all their continual advancement all the time would implement something similar. Or rig up an AE publishing system. They do have quite the advanced, cloud based, billing system though!

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I’m still confused as to why you need to split the audio clip by clip and pan them”

In news, we have to split the narration from music and “nat sound” so that the nats can be repurposed as vo’s or reused in packages. It’s about archiving the footage for reuse later. Because we’re on such tight deadlines, we don’t have time to make a separate archival export. Every piece has to be cut as it will be archived. That’s why this is critical.

Roles sound like a waste of precious editing time to me, and patching tracks, for as little as it needs to be done in a news piece, sounds a lot faster than tinkering under the hood. I’m an editor, not a programmer.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “Please show me how that is even close to possible within Premiere, Avid, Resolve, or even AE”

You can turn off track monitors or solo them in Avid to get the same effect. Roles sound unnecessarily complicated and a waste of time when you’re under the gun.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.