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Tonight’s the night
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I agree in many aspects Bill. Today though, we tried to build a string out of 5 spots in X because it’s important that we learn where problems can come from. Hooo-boy. Painful to say the least. It took all afternoon – it was a comical mess.
So we’ll be keeping a FCP7 project just to conform protools mix files and final spot string outs with multiple versions. Could be worse – some things 7 is just going to be much better at. This way, we can make the most of x for editing and concept creation speed, and also take advantage of 7’s crisp ability to lay back tape and easily manage a large string out of spots.
John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.
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[Charlie Austin] “”That would be very cool, even if it is just to turn off tracks/channels you don’t want to use.”
Already do-able. You can enable/disable embedded source tracks in the inspector. That’s how you “assign’ which tracks get cut into the timeline. For feature stuff I generally only enable the source dialog track and enable FX or whatever only if I need ’em. Turning off/muting things in the timeline is really simple if you’ve assigned roles, or you can just disable ’em with a single key stroke “V” which does the same thing as CNTRL-B in FCP 7. :-“
Hey Charlie!
Just so I understand, you bring in, say, a 42 min. ProResHQ file that has a 5.1 mix, plus a 5.1 M&E, plus 3 channels of mono splits. So, say 15 channels are in use. You’re delivering in stereo and not using any of their music, so you are only interested in 2 of the 4 mono splits. So you enable your DIA or SOT channel, and disable all 14 other channels in the inspector, which allows you to have only the DIA channel visible/audible while editing. Is that correct? So then, you want to cut in a creaky door opening and use the attached SFX, so you place the clip in the timeline and then in the inspector you disable the DIA track (because the soon-to-be victim is babbling on in the background about her MBA) and enable the SFX channel. Is that right?
If that’s all so, then FCPX certainly has better multichannel tools then I was aware of, which is, of course, not surprising.
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[Charlie Austin] “FWIW, cheating dialog is really easy in X, mainly because you can freely move audio clips in subframe increments. Picture can still only move a frame at a time, for obvious reasons, but you can move audio clips however you want, not just the keyframes. Something I really miss when I’m in FCP 7…
“Yeah, I think that’s a terrific thing. What I was saying above was in response to Bill’s notion of futzing with the audio later, and I was simply agreeing with Franz that audio and video editing are–for what I do–inseparable.
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Sounds like a normal procedure in FCPX. You can do both: select the tracks in the Event-Library or when the clip is in the timeline. If you deselect tracks in the event you still carry them into the timeline (but they stay deselected of course) and use them when needed.
And it gets much better than that once you dive into compound clips and clip-skimming…..
If you only deliver in Stereo your explanation would work, but if you want to deliver in 15 stems again you need the help of roles to do that. AFAIK you are not able to give a track within a clip a role, but need to break it apart and might want to collect the tracks in a compound clip.
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” Is that right?”
Hey Chris, Yeah, like Alban said below, it’s really easy. In your example above, you could tell the inspector (if it didn’t auto detect it) that you have 2 surround and 3 mono stems, so all you’d see is 5 stems. Then you can just select via checkbox (kind of analogous to soloing tracks) which stem you want to cut in to the timeline. If you need a specific stem(s) from either surround mix, just tell the inspector to display that stem as as 6 mono tracks (or stereo, mono, mono, stereo.. whatever it is) and select the ones you need. You can do all that in the timeline after the fact as well, personally I find it easier to “assign” the “tracks” I’m cutting into the timeline first. This workflow is one of the the things I really miss when I’m in FCP 7. A source with that many tracks to keep uh.. “track” of in any other NLE I’ve used is maddening, doubly so now that I’m cutting some stuff in X.
Getting elements out, however, is another kettle of fish. I just finished a theatrical :30 spot that I cut in X. It was… challenging. That, and compatibility with other editors at work on FCP 7 is what keeps me from moving exclusively to X. A few more rough edges to smooth out and I’m gonna start switching them over. That’ll be fun. 🙂
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“that audio and video editing are–for what I do–inseparable”
Gotcha, same here. 🙂
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[Charlie Austin] “Hey Chris, Yeah, like Alban said below”
The problem is, you don’t have access to the two audio channels separately unless you break apart.
When you break apart, there’s no indication of sync slippage.
To combat that, you compound and break apart every time you need to make an adjustment.
If you need stems, you’ll need to break apart all of it before export as multiple audio Roles inside a compound take on the one audio Role of the compound.
This is where FCPX needs help. Multichannel audio mixing/export with sync indicators. Right now it’s less then efficient/ideal.
I’m looking forward to what Apple comes up with.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “[Charlie Austin] “Hey Chris, Yeah, like Alban said below”
The problem is, you don’t have access to the two audio channels separately unless you break apart.
When you break apart, there’s no indication of sync slippage.
To combat that, you compound and break apart every time you need to make an adjustment.
If you need stems, you’ll need to break apart all of it before export as multiple audio Roles inside a compound take on the one audio Role of the compound.
This is where FCPX needs help. Multichannel audio mixing/export with sync indicators. Right now it’s less then efficient/ideal.
I’m looking forward to what Apple comes up with.”
Hey Jeremy, True, but in your example above the only issue that effects me (if I’m not being careful) is the lack of sync indicators. Like someone else who cuts promos mentioned, I never use story lines and cut everything in as connected clips, so the audio is always separate. If I only cut in the channels I need, I never need to break things out in the timeline. I do agree that there’s lot’s of room for improvement, and also look forward to what they come up with. 🙂
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[Charlie Austin] “Hey Jeremy, True, but in your example above the only issue that effects me (if I’m not being careful) is the lack of sync indicators. “
It would help, certainly, and can go a long way. If you’re working in primary, it’s all pretty good, but if you break apart a connected clip outside of the primary as the audio is now attached to the primary instead of the connected clip. This can cause big issues as the audio is divorced from the video. I do use the primary and i like it, so when breaking clips apart outsude of it, I have to be super careful.
I do like how “tidy” the FCPX timeline is (or can be).
A great feature is the “expand clip” option which separates the audio from video, but doesn’t break it apart.
I’d be super happy of I could expand audio with all selected tracks, not just the pseudo mix down it currently presents, have differing Roles assigned, and be able to shrink them back up when needed.
FCPX has awesome short cuts to expand one clip, all clips, all clips with splits (j/l cuts) and then collapse all. Those are all kb shortcut ready, and makes easy work of working on everything, nothing, or some of it only when you need it. It is features and thinking like this that keep me around as what’s in there is a decent start, we just need more of options and control of it.
Why don’t you use the primary and edit with the position tool on all the time? Just curious.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] “…This can cause big issues as the audio is divorced from the video. I do use the primary and i like it, so when breaking clips apart outsude of it, I have to be super careful.
I do like how “tidy” the FCPX timeline is (or can be).”
I’ve worked with audio separate from pix forever, so that’s not really a problem for me. I actually like seeing the audio associated with picture. I know this is possible by expanding the clip height, but my timelines generally contain tons of audio “tracks” so I need to work at the smallest size. It would be nice to “lock” connected clips together though…
I’d be super happy of I could expand audio with all selected tracks, not just the pseudo mix down it currently presents, have differing Roles assigned, and be able to shrink them back up when needed.
That would be great, and it’s a feature I hope they implement. At the very least you should be able to assign roles to individual channels in a master clip in the event.
FCPX has awesome short cuts to expand one clip, all clips, all clips with splits (j/l cuts) and then collapse all. Those are all kb shortcut ready, and makes easy work of working on everything, nothing, or some of it only when you need it. It is features and thinking like this that keep me around as what’s in there is a decent start, we just need more of options and control of it.
Why don’t you use the primary and edit with the position tool on all the time? Just curious.
“Agreed, working in the X timeline is way more efficient than 7 for me. And like you, I look forward to additional options, control, and polish. I’ve been cutting stuff 40 hours a week for over 20 years, and FCP X, while often maddening, has made editing weirdly fun fun for me. 🙂
RE: the primary.. Besides force of habit, the main reason I don’t use the it is because of the sheer number of “tracks” I cut with, but honestly, it’s mainly because I haven’t adapted to it yet. Even using the position tool I find it more difficult to move stuff around quickly in the timeline if it’s in the storyline. I’ve also found that secondary story lines behave uh… oddly when you try and move them around so I avoid them for now. I’ll try using the primary more as i move forward, but it just slows me down at this point. YMMV 😉
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