You know what would really speed up my edits – timeline audio gain

[Jeremy Garchow]

I agree with you that a timeline gain would be awesome.

But at least there’s now relative and absolute DB adjustments. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH12576

[Dave Jenkins]

Agreed

Dajen Productions, Santa Barbara, CA
Mac Pro 3.5MHz 6-Core Late 2013
FCP X

[Robin S. kurz]

[Brett Sherman] “Either a key command to add of 10db of gain or an overall timeline gain setting would save me a ton of time.”

Like Jeremy said, there’s always the relative levels adjustment. Select all and CTRL-L.

But I, too, am hoping for role based master faders or the likes in future updates, yes. I’m pretty sure there’s still a lot to come in terms of audio in particular.

____________________________________________________
Deutsch? Hier gibt es ein umfassendes FCP X Training für dich!

[Ronny Courtens]

Totally agree we need a “master” volume control, and I’m pretty sure it will come.

In the meantime you can indeed use relative level adjustments, or you can turn your edit in a compound clip which will allow you to globally adjust the “master” volume, to keyframe it where needed and to apply master effects such as limiting or compressing.

Or export your project as XML and import the XML in Logic Pro X to do your audio mixing and mastering. If you use Roles the latest versions of FCX and LPX work perfectly together, even with complex projects.

– Ronny

[Craig Alan]

Ronny. Are you suggesting:

Turn the entire timeline into a compound clip, adjust the audio first to the entire clip and then key frame adjustments then perhaps break apart the compound to continue editing?

If so, I’ve always been reluctant to turn an entire project into a compound. Maybe I’m just not adjusting to Fcp x workflow?

Isn’t there a way to apply the gain effect to the entire timeline leaving the volume bar for further adjustment?

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Ronny Courtens]

Hi Craig,

The compound clip workflow only works if your edit is done and you want to make some final adjustments to the global audio (such as gain, limiting, master compression) before exporting. Breaking apart the compound clip is not useful in this case because when you break apart a compound clip you lose all the effects that have been applied to the compound. However, you can always open a compound clip in its own timeline and make final touches to the clips inside it without losing the general adjustments you have applied to the CC.

But there are other methods to apply a general gain boost to multiple clips on your timeline.

– If this is audio that has been recorded with the video you can apply a Gain filter to the first clip on your timeline, adjust the gain for that clip and use Paste Attributes to paste the adjusted Gain filter to all the other clips that need gain boosting. Then you can use the Volume slider in the Audio tab of the Inspector to fine tune the volume on a specific clip or on multiple clips at once.

– Or you can select all your clips on the timeline that need a gain boost and in the Inspector > Audio tab go Audio Enhancements. There you click the little blue arrow to open the Audio enhancement parameters and you use the Loudness sliders to boost the gain of all the clips at once.

Here you see two clips of which the audio was recorded rather low:

And these are the same two clips with their audio boosted using the Audio Enhancement tool:

– Ronny

[Jeremy Garchow]

I also find (and this is a bit more complicated, read: happy accident) that there’s two gain stages in each clip.

You have the main gain on the whole clip, and then you can expand audio components to have another 12db of gain (if you need it).

Jeremy

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Ronny and Jeremy — great tips. I use the gain filter to pre-boost and then the volume bar with keys frames as needed. But on a long timeline shot at a conservative gain to allow for overhead I could see needing a global. Increase first.

Mac Pro, macbook pro, Imacs (i7); Canon 5D Mark III/70D, Panasonic AG-HPX170/AG-HPX250P, Canon HV40, Sony Z7U/VX2000/PD170; FCP 6 certified; FCP X write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Mike Fitzsimmons]

Not sure if this was explicitly mentioned or not, but you can also just select all the clips in your NON-compound timeline hit CNTL-L and add (or subtract) some db overall. All levels will be raised (or lowered) that much – including keyframes.

No need to compound to get a “master volume” effect.

[Jeremy Garchow]

So, in addition to using the adjust relative volume command, I just found you can select all, and control + or control – and this will adjust the levels of all clips down plus or minus 1db.