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Strange Audio Problem
For the first time in a few weeks, I opened up a timeline for a short film I’m working on. A strange audio problem has developed. I’ll do my best to describe it:
Certain clips are no longer playing back the correct audio. My timeline is the same as it always was, but certain clips are playing back audio from other clips. I’ve checked the files and waveforms: final cut pro is playing back the wrong audio for some of the clips on my timeline.
Also notable is that, for the first time, I’m being required to render audio in certain places. At times, the red render line seems to correspond to having five tracks of audio on the timeline, at others it corresponds to crossfades, and in other places there is no apparent correlation. All my audio is the same in-camera audio from the EX1; I’ve never had to render it before.
I’ve already tried deleting my existing audio render files. The only way I’ve been able to fix my problem so far is to replace the clip on the timeline.
My sources files are XDCAM mp4, opened in FCP using a Calibrated plugin. I’ve had this problem before when working with Pro Res files. My FCP version is 7.0.3.
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12 Replies
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I think I’ve run into this problem before but with music tracks. I’ve fixed the issue by right-clicking on the affected audio clip in the timeline and relinking it. I think this should work for you as well. Should save you some time having to replace the clips.
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Mac Pro | Leopard 10.5.7
2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon | 4GB Ram
Final Cut Pro Studio 2 | Avid Media Composer -
Do all the clips have unique file names?
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If you have to render audio: make sure ALL you audio is converted to 48k WAV of AIFF. You can do this via Quicktime. To get more realtime playback go into User Prefs (command 0) and change ‘Real-time Audio Mixing’ to 24 tracks. It defaults to 8 (grrr)….this is why you have to render.
You can also just change the level then back again so it re-caches.Jon
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Just to reiterate: the files aren’t incorrectly linked. If I double click on the affected clip to bring it up in the viewer, the correct file pops up. Also, the waveforms in the timeline are those of the correct clip. In some instances, the correct audio will pop back in halfway through a clip.
The issue seems to have fixed itself, but I expect it should return. Typically, once this problem shows up in a timeline it plagues me the rest of the problem.
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Thanks for the real-time audio mixing suggestion, I hadn’t previously been aware of this.
It didn’t fix all the rendering issues, however. The audio is unchanged from the original Ex1 footage; it’s always worked without needing rendering in the past.
The issue is very strange, a clip I’m looking at now is demanding to be rendered if I put a cross fade on the left channel of audio, but doesn’t need rendering on the right channel, even though it’s audio from the same source.
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Have you done the usual things when things are strange (Trash prefs, repair permissions etc).
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I would be very grateful if you would let me know what the “usual things” entail…
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Erik,
I have experienced this behavior before. Typically it’s from clips that started out in a DIFFERENT audio rate other than 48K. For example, something you may have downloaded off of YouTube… or a file ripped from the internet. The audio rate on these files is often 44.1K. If you start editing with this wrong rate, and
let the timeline do the conversion, YOU WILL GET BONKERED AUDIO.I’ve consistently been able to reproduce this error. It’s frustrating I know!
My advice is to be careful about the audio rates, transcoding, and file formats of ALL the elements
that make their way into your timeline. Do all conversions BEFORE editing.Good luck.
mark
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[Erick Stoll] “I would be very grateful if you would let me know what the “usual things” entail…”
Trashing preferences is best done with the free download tool from Digital Rebellion. Use disk utility (Applications>utils) to repair permissions on your system drive.
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Like Mark Raudonis (above) I have experienced this in the past. I would have a music cue in the timeline doing fine and then suddenly it changes into Brass Band music.
This is called “The Brass Band Effect” and is a known issue.
You have not given Final Cut the audio in a format with which it is entirely happy – maybe MPEG3 or something. You may also be hearing little pops and cracks – yes?
In any event you would do best to turn your audio files into Quicktime files which FCP likes. Give us a scream if you are unsure of how to do that.
Best
Harry.
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