Bill Davis
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One thing you need to understand is that most level control circuits are logarithmic, not linear.
As the control gets toward the top of the scale, (or the bottom for that matter) the boost or cut is increased much more rapidly than on a strict 1 to 1 basis.
Look at the db readings and you’ll see that at the extremes, theres typically a LOT more cut or boost than there is near the zero position. Which could mean that at the 100% boost position, you’re getting a LOT of gain added to accommodate the HUGE difference between, for example, the amplitude of a line level signal and a mic level signal. Those two things are VERY different. So a fader designed to handle both, needs a BIG range of boost and cut over it’s travel.
So “turning it up to 100” is often NOT a particularly sensible way to operate a mixer.
Obviously, all this depends on how the particular circuits are designed. But just because the fader travels 6 inches that doesn’t mean that the first inch is simply six times quieter than the 6th inch. It typically doesn’t work that way.
FWIW.
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You might look up the on-line manual for a simple mixer like a small Mackie and reference the section on “Gain Stage” setting.
Basically, on any mixer, you want to optimize the controls so that they affect the signals in the most optimum way, neither imposing too much gain, or too much cut at any stage.
This normally involves setting the TRIM at the channel input to ZERO – then setting all the downstream controls at their optimum position (typically 0db so they pass the signal without either boost or cut)
After doing that, you inject a signal into the input (often, a fixed level 1k tone so you know the signal is stable) then bring theTRIM up so the signal flowing through each channel to the output is ideal.
Once the gain stages are set this way on all the channels in use, you can use the channel faders and the master level controls to boost or cut the signals as needed, without worrying that you are trying to “fix” a signal that is messed up to begin with.
Those basic mixers manuals did a pretty good job of explaining all this.
Pre fade and post fade are exactly that. Taps off the signal either before or after the channel strip controls – so changes to the faders affect the post fade mix, but don’t mess with a pre-fade signal that you likely want to send out to recording and NOT have messed up by live mix adjustments.
Those are the very basics.
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Google was looking at my town Scottsdale AZ – but didn’t end up playing.
Oddly, some months later, our ISP, Cox – announced Fiber availability. Came in a couple of months ago.
The biggest difference has been sudden parity with upload speeds – they were suddenly equal to the download speeds I’ve always had.
As to everything suddenly being “instant access” as I imagined, nope. Downloads appear to throttle at times. Basically, I feel like my extra monthly is really paying for the upload improvement – which as a content creator, makes a huge difference to me and well justifies the cost bump. (I do a lot of Vimeo Pro uploads for client review)
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Based on my experiences last year at the FCP X Creative Summit, I can assure you that FCP X team members know what’s being discussed on sites like this one – and I’m completely confident that would likely include this very discussion. It would be illogical to assume people who are creating and maintaining a thing – wouldn’t be actively interested in the real world discussions about that very thing.
My opinion, of course. -
Well I think the explanation is brilliant.
It conforms to Pascal’s historic advice about writing a shorter letter if he had more time.
It’s simple, concise and easy to grasp – which has always been the gold standard for effective communications.
It deserves re-posting in other places.
Since the link to it is currently buried in a response post, do you want to express a separate link to your hosting site so we can help you gain a wider audience? Or would you prefer that we drive whoever might be interested in watching it to this place in the “Or Not” thread?
Excellent job.
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Welcome home.
Of course you realize that the fact that you stressed about it in advance is the REASON nothing happened,, right?
I think it’s some kinda corollary to Murphy’s Law about how when you have no backup panning in place – THATS when the Gremlins (and the TSA!) decide to come out to play.
Glad it all worked out.
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[Eric Santiago] “The audio is there but slips a great deal in some places.”
Big red flag that immediately sends me to check out the status of the underlying clips sample rate settings.
90% of audio slippage I’ve encountered has led back to some stage of footage preparation where audio was recorded with OTHER than standard 48khz audio sample settings.
It’s not ALWAYS the issue, but is often enough that it’s the FIRST thing I confirm.
YMMV.
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[Andrew Kimery] “On the flip side, in PPro 2015 Adobe really improved the color grading tools inside PPro so that kinda puts them at odds with the grading plugins Red Giant offers. This might be why X upgrades from Apple will be fewer and further between because first party tools aren’t as inherent to the software’s usability since it, by design, has such a robust plugin community supporting it. That, AFAIK, is certainly a unique path to take in the NLE space.”
A fair and interesting assessment, Walter.
It remains to be seen if considering X as it is now as a “platform” means that the X we think about today will be the X we work in tomorrow. Witness the announcement of SAP for the iPad just days ago? Wow! That could potentially be a huge puzzle piece just now slipping into place in how data will eventually get processed and distributed, including video data.
I do a large part of my work in the corporate training space.
Back when I was starting out in the video dark ages, my clients had to ship hundreds and hundreds of VHS tapes to client stores. AND we were effectively locked out of delivering any video of note via the IT department, because their stuff was was always tied up with “mission critical” data polling for sales results and the like. Today, the data pipes are increasingly bi-directional. And so the idea of maybe someday serving corporate video directly out of X via Share to tens of thousands of iPads inside a corporately approved SAP implementation – is almost intoxicating.
I’m sure Premiere Pro will (or perhaps already has?) accomplish(ed) their own implementation of the Share destinations thinking that X unveiled along with X back in 2011.
Now they just need something similar to what Charlie Austin demo’d at NAB where X’s ROLES lets you pre-target affinity group for customized exports inside a unified export system.
Things are changing so fast! It’s cool.
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I think it’s a matter of design intent.
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but in the Adobe suite, when you change modules, aren’t you in a distinct interface? You leave the premiere layout to work in Speedgrade, for instance? Same with AE, Audition, whatever. Basically, you are moving one program to another. They interchange well, but they each must be learned separately.
I suppose Apple does a very limited version of the same thing with Motion and Compressor. But those can be seen as special-ist tools because many of their capabilities are already available to editors inside X itself.
That’s the distinction in my thinking.
X is built to keep the editor “at home” in a single unified interface, where the Adobe approach is a large connected web of individual programs where you are expected to work in and know the peculiarities of the distinctive and different tools to accomplish your regular work.
Described this way, Isn’t it unteresting that Resolve basically splits the difference? The color cirrection suite as a thing apart – bolted onto a somewhat X-like NLE (without the database, magnetism and trackless/roles stuff that actually makes X what it is.
Interesting design thinking.
Or am I misinformed in thinking this?
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I think it’s pretty obvious that Color Grading Central’s Denver Riddle and others have bet on the fact that the on-going X systemic changes will eventually allow “full boat” color correction to take place directly inside the X workflow.
This is consistent with the INSIDE OUT view I’ve written about before. The X focus has always been to keep the editors focus INSIDE the editing app, and allow him or her to bolt-on advanced capabilities as needed. Why? Because exiting one system to move to another is essentially a break in concentration. And few would argue against the fact that preparing any program to go out to an audience revolves around long stretches of dedicated concentration.
Color Finale Pro – as demo’d at NAB last month – puts a much more robust new set of capabilities directly into the X environment.
What appeals to me, particularly, is that it’s proving the value of the X approach to keeping things modular. If you just want quick shot matching, look into the automated X-Riite single-click color matching workflow for that. It may be ALL you need to avoid the downstream distractions of terribly mismatched shots. And if so, you’ve won big. Automation, solving problems super simply, FTW.
For an editor who who doesn’t or can’t use that and gets to their Event Browser and finds their shots are unacceptably unmatched, the color board is waiting to do a quick acceptable base grade inside the app – and it’s FREE – so everybody gets to play.
Want to go further? Pick up Color Finale and you’re back in traditional Color Wheels with much more control. In tandem with X’s excellent scope array, many won’t need anything else.
But if you DO need more – just pony up for Color Finale PRO and Tangent hardware get very much closer to a pro color grading system at super affordable price point.
And ALL that capability is accessible without ever needing to leave your “home” application.
Of course there will be folks who need to concentrate exclusively on color grading at a very high level. For them, FCPXML export to a Resolve or even Pablo Rio workflow like the Focus and WTF folks pioneered is a few clicks away.
That tools seem to be constantly developing to let me do better and better color work directly where I’m most comfortable – inside X application itself – is starting to seem like I can skip buying and learning so many external tools in order to improve the quality of my work going forward.
Seems nice from both a money, time, and “attention span” point of view.
YMMV.
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