The “little things” in X.

[Michael Gissing]

dSP and Fairlight DAWs have been doing this for 20 years. At the bottom of screen you can select a track and a large waveform is displayed. The ‘head’ is fixed so everything scrolls past the head and the clip name stays on the left.

This behavior only happens in the scroller display. Otherwise as clips move past the head the names stick to the LHS. So you have both attributes in the one display.

Perhaps it is more use in a magnetic track NLE but for many people familiarity is also important. Visual distraction is always a consideration.

[Bill Davis]

Here’s your direct quote:

“because people are used to reading and remembering things organized in grids that make it easier to …”

Now I’ll fix it for you…

“because SOME people are used to reading and remembering things in grids that make it easier to…”

You’re the one that failed to qualify your statement – implying it’s universal. Not me.

Sorry if that’s not what you meant. But it IS what you wrote.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Alex Hawkins]

Wow that’s amazing!

Now if X could only smooth scroll its timeline…

Alex Hawkins
Canberra, Australia

[Jeff Markgraf]

[David Roth Weiss] “it’s easier to remember where things are when you have tracks”

Umm, no, not necessarily. I just got done doing fixes on some numbskull’s promo (cut on Avid) that had 22 (!!) audio tracks, 3 of which were stereo way down at the bottom. Stereo sfx and inexplicably dual mono VO and SOT tracks spread willy nilly over the 22 tracks. An absolute mess. Couldn’t keep track of what was where and why.

Been cutting on Avid for a long time. Oh how I wished I were in FCPX and didn’t have to play Track Tetris on a deadline. What a waste of time. This kind of timeline is where X really shines with the trackless and magnetic timeline. Clean, organized and easy to work with.

Gotta go with Bill on this one.

[Paul Neumann]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdnP4XsfUzI

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Mike Warmels]

Well, using tracks includes a certain discipline on where you place your audio. And I prefer that, especially because I have most of the audio for my documentaries and children’s television show mixed in a sound studio.
When you order the audio on tracks, the sound editor gets the very ordered structure as well. Crucial for him because he uses particular filters, panning and levelling for the various types of audio (dialogue, narration, music, FX etc.). So all dialogue goes on one track, so does narration, music etc etc.

If an editor already does that, it saves a lot of times there.

In FCPX this is another story. I have seen audio timelines from FCPX (using X2Pro) showing with 96 tracks!!! Where normally an export from FCP7 or AVID would just be something like 12-16 tracks. But since FCPX is clips based, it sends out ALL audio belonging to the clips used. So the sound editor has to start cleaning up a lot AND put everything to the proper tracks before he can start doing anything.

The roles system in FCPX seems to be developed to kinda do it differently. It’s kind of a nice approach, I use it a lot and it works well with proTools for instance. But what I find bothersome is that you have to assign the roles BEFORE you start using them. If any audio is already cut into the project and you reassign the roles in the audio source clip, it’s doesn’t change it in the project. It’s one of those many little things in FCPX that haven’t been properly thought through.

AVID however does do that, if you change anything in the source clip (or you decide to give the music track of FX track a different colour) it also changes it in the used clips in the timeline.

[Bill Davis]

I”m sorry but I don’t understand this at all.

You wrote in your first line… “Well, using tracks includes a certain discipline on where you place your audio.”

Then a couple of paragraphs later you wrote… But what I find bothersome is that you have to assign the roles BEFORE you start using them.

Is it the first thing, where to be professional with audio you have to have a plan?
Or to be a professional audio system you expect your users to change their minds mid effort?

Seems to me these approaches are kinda 180 degrees apart.

Mike Matzdorff who did the 1st AE work on Focus addressed exactly this multiple times. Basically saying that at some point, you’ve got to get your S*** together and tell the software what goes where. And that “some point’ needs to be BEFORE export. If you do it up front, it’s VERY easy. If you’re lazy and don’t do it until the end, it’s significantly harder – but still very do-able. If a guy has 96 improperly assigned tracks in X, I bet dollars to donuts he’d have 96 clips spread onto god knows how many tracks in another NLE. Not because of how the NLE works, but because he’s clueless. And clueless people mess things up. You either know what you’re doing or you don’t. No NLE will ever totally solve that.

So I’m not sure how this is an inherent issue with the software instead of a situation where to use something professionally an editor simply has GOT to learn HOW to use it.

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Mike Warmels]

Ah, well maybe I didn’t explain the fact that I work in a television environment where a lot of directors do their own rough cuts. And FCPX has always been the one to claim it’s so great because it’s easy to learn and handle. And most love it, because of it’s ease and speed for rough cuts.

I am a director myself, and I do my own (pretty detailed) rough cuts myself, but I also like the rest of the process to runs smoothly. Most directors start their Libraries and Projects that editors then have to finish. However, when it comes to discipline, the majority hasn’t got a clue what their doing. So they cut away, add music etc.

So when an editor comes in, he automatically cleans up the timelines. Now, in FCP7, PPro and AVID you have a direct overview: what video layers are there, what audiotracks, what kind of audio. And moving them into the ‘proper’ tracks is some work, but not a lot. You can easily color code all the tracks or source clips and within less than an hour it all looks decent.

The problem with FCPX is that you can change the role of your audio, but when it’s in the project/timeline, you have to change bot the audio roles in the timeline AND in the Library. Now, in the Library it’s extremely easy and fast, but in the timeline you have to do it again. Plus often editors have to unselect the audiotracks NOT used and for that they have to go clip by clip by clip to check if anything is selected or unselected. There’s no way to see that in one glance by looking at the timeline. The lack of immediate overview of what’s there and how it’s used or has to be used, is just lacking.

So imagine getting a 40 minute rough cut for for a 30 minute show (fairly standard).. a lot of work that could be prevented if the roles assigned to or tracks (un)selected) in the original clips would automatically be changed in the project.

It’s just one of these typical programming things where I find FCPX quite immature. And there are a lot of them, and they show up unexpectedly when you have to do something FCPX obviously considers “complex”.

[Mike Warmels]

Oh yes, about the 96 tracks. Now, I haven’t done the audio exports using X2Pro myself yet. Editors have done that but this is how I viewed it from my end:

1. I cut together a (not very) rough cut of a 30 minute show. I had all the roles assigned prior to editing (I do know how to work with discipline).
2. The XD-Cam footage was converted to Apple Pro Res by the broadcaster, who is producing the show. And as they say, they can only do that including duplicate tracks. XD-Cam has four, they duplicate those, so you get 8 tracks per clip. Why this is the case, I have no idea.
3. My editor and me unselected the audio tracks we didn’t need in the cut (we usually only need three)
4. After finishing the cut audio was exported using X2Pro (just like Mike Matzdorff did on Focus) for mix on ProTools.

Now, when I came in to check out the mix the first time I just wanted to see what the sound editor got from us. Familiar with what FCP7 and AVID produces, I just wanted to know what you get, since FCPX can’t do these AAF exports itself (silly!!!) but you have to use third part software.

And lo and behold: for every XD-CAM clip there were 8 tracks!! You can can imagine if you do the little magic audio fading trick as it has to be done in FCPX (just to see if the audio cut can be made) you automatically get 16 tracks. One of the great advantages of not having audio cross fades (another great feature of FCPX). So when one adds an atmo from another track to cover up the cut for instance, it’s 24 tracks. And so on…

So maybe they’re doing something wrong in X2Pro, I dunno, I don’t use that particular software myself yet. (but I can hardly imagine that since dozens of editors do this everyday in that location using X2Pro). But personally it makes sense, since FCPX is clip based and not timeline based, like the other NLE’s. So if you export clips, you get what’s IN the clips, which is 8 tracks per clip.

(I see the same thing in consolidating – FCPX doesn’t consolidate the used footage in the timeline with handle length, but includes the ENTIRE CLIP used – really smooth if you’re using a few quotes from an half hour interview).

[Bill Davis]

Just wondering if you have spent much time in the Roles subsection of the timeline index Mike?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.