Where Are the Audio Dissolves in FCPX?

[Noah Kadner]

None exist as of yet in FCP X. You do that with the volume keyframing within the tracks- pen tool functionality, etc.

Noah

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[Nick Freeman]

How do you turn on the pen tool?

[Joel Granholm]

To have FCPX use media handles for transitions (like FCP7 does) instead of sliding clips, open Preferences and go to the Editing tab, then, under “Transitions”, make sure “Apply transitions using” is set to “Available Media”.

All transitions applied to clips with audio will (or should) result in a crossfade on the audio, regardless of which transition it is.

There are two ways you can manually fade the audio of a clip in & out:

1) Use the audio “Fade” handles: When you mouse over the audio, you’ll see a round handle at the beginning and end of the clip. You simply drag these to set the duration of the fade. You can control-click a Fade handle to chose the shape of the curve for the fade.

2) Keyframe the audio level: Choose Show Audio Animation under the Clip menu (Ctrl-A), then you can option-click the volume control (the black line) to add keyframes.

If your audio is in a video clip but you want to apply a transition only to the audio, you can do one of the following:

1) Expand the clips (Ctrl-S) then extend the audio in/out points of each clip so they overlap, then manually fade the audio for each clip. You can collapse the clips again when you’re done.

2) Split the clips (Cmd-Shift-G) to separate the audio from video, then bring the audio clips together in a secondary storyline (Cmd-G), then apply a transition to them to get the cross fade (Cmd-T). This will be the faster option for applying to several clips, but the audio & video link for the clips will be broken.

However you do it, I would say the most important step is to send feedback to Apple to try to get them to give us back our proper cross-fades.

[Craig Seeman]

Select the two clips you want to use the dissolve on.
Detach Audio (Control Shift S)
Select the audio clips and make Secondary Storyline (Command G)
Add the Dissolve effect and it will be an audio only dissolve

No need to mess with keyframes although more complex than it should be.

[Craig Seeman]

Audio Only Dissolve in Final Cut Pro X

[Benjamin Reichman]

Craig, thank you for the tutorial! Very helpful. I have to say that really is a rather convoluted design; especially because you have to create a new Storyline for the sole purpose of adding the cross-dissolve. And that would make me worried about sync, especially since FCP doesn’t have out-of-sync indicators. But enough complaining–thanks for the workaround. 😉

[Craig Seeman]

I agree. It’s convoluted and risky. It’s not even consistent to doing Video only dissolve. It’s counterintuitive. I’m honestly not sure how something like this would get past beta testers since it is a very common function. This is not Pro vs “Prosumer” because if one believes one should make things easier for the prosumer then this fails. An experienced editor might figure this our but a “prosumer” would probably give up and walk away.

[C. Park seward]

[Craig Seeman] “. I’m honestly not sure how something like this would get past beta testers since it is a very common function.”

The Beta testers for this app should be embarrassed. If you only look at audio dissolves and not all the missing features, the Beta testers should never be allowed close to an app again.

Best,
Park

[Dan Hayes]

Did they actually have beta testers? Has anyone come forward to relate that experience? I realize that they were under NDAs during the process, but are they still forced to keep quiet?

[C. Park seward]

If I was a Beta tester for FCPX, I’d never tell anybody!

Best,
Park