[Craig Alan]

Ok I went through this myself. Your slap on the head suggests end user error, that it now makes sense. What is happening here? Is it that the transform tool keyframes according to where the playhead is not the skimmer?

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.

[Craig Alan]

Yeah. I’ve been trying to test this to help myself understand what happens to the levels as I choose different options. Can’t. Every time I test it I get different results. That is, one time the meters will show lower levels on dual channel mono panned center or to one side. The next time it won’t. It might be end user error somehow but not sure how.

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.

[Craig Alan]

I still think your best choice for the main speaker is an E6 not an omni that picks up the first couple of rows of the group. Even a mounted mike facing the speaker, you’ll get significant drop off in sound as he turns his head from side to side. It can be wired, but you’d have to run the wire to the camera and with this set up if the camera moved at all that could prove to be a problem with a long XLR and all that furniture. But you know the lay out and if the cam will be static as well then wired is way cheaper.

I can’t see two mikes centered between the long audience group picking up all their voices. If you get a plug-on G3 transmitter, you can pair this with any hand-held mike and yes many of them come with an on-off switch. However, without it being sent to a monitor they will have no way of knowing their mike is off. You’ll be the only one who will know if they forget to turn it off or on. You can also have this mike on a separate channel than the speaker’s mike and control the gain that way. From low room noise to +4 or so when someone is asking a question. A mixer will always give you more control and better sound than trying to ride the gain on camcorder audio controls. If you use a different channel you can also adjust it in post. No doubt Ty’s suggestions are much less of a compromise but not cheap. There is also the possibility that in that room at any given day there will be interference on any cordless system. Always best to test it on that day and make sure you have a clean signal. Sometimes changing the channel helps (so know how to find a clean channel in advance of the event) . And in worse case, have an xlr back-up plan. In fact, if the camera will be static and the long xlr cord is in the center of the rectangle, you could have one handheld on each side of the table. So three mikes total and you’ll need a mixer for that. That’s still a lot of passing the mike down the table. Another option is to record the sound to an audio recorder and just run the on-board mike on the cam for audio sync in post.

Please post a clip of the finished film with the set up you choose. I’m interested in the result. It’s a very common request. And not an easy thing to pull off well.

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.

[Craig Alan]

Well I got the meters to display two channels but not sure how to turn off histogram. I think I’ll call customer support and have a tech guy talk me through the menu system.

But nothing is registering on the meters. Maybe a FCP preference?

The meters read from -60 to -10?

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.

[Craig Alan]

Jeff this has been very helpful and I appreciate it.

I actually do have a Flanders monitor with a Black magic card which I use for color correction. I’m disappointed that I can’t use it for Aperture. Or monitoring QT movies after exporting them.

Didn’t occur to me that it would be helpful for audio as well. Are the audio meters on the Flanders of good quality? I love it for the visual features.

I am connected to the black magic card on SDI 1.

How do I bring up the audio meters on the Flanders. I have LM-2140W.

I can call Flanders tomorrow if need be.

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.

[Craig Alan]

On the mixer I use the output level of the tone oscillator is in dBu at LINE level. 0 dBu.

As for color correcting exposure (Luma levels). I try to keep my deepest blacks a hair above 0 and the brightest highlights a hair below 100 with the widest dynamic range as possible. Then I play with mid tones which includes human skin tones to create a look. Then I might color correct I’m terms of hue and saturation. Then I recheck the overall Luma levels.

I understand that digital audio doesn’t clip until it does. So maybe distortion is the wrong term. But I do know that I can find the sweet range on even a consumer level camera. And some are better than others and they are all helped by using a mixer. Though you can’t bypass the cam’s poor preamp altogether, you can keep it turned down and rely more on the quiet preamp of a good mixer. However there is no exact way to calibrate the mixer to a camera that does not allow for -20 calibration. I know, for example, on the Canon HV40s That 0 tone out the mixer works pretty well if you calibrate at -12 or a bit lower. And also if you keep the mixer peaks to about +4. This gives you extra headroom. I also find it depends on the mike being used, how close to the source, and again monitoring with headphones.

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.

[Craig Alan]

[Jeff Markgraf] “Translated into FCP7 workflow, that -20 tone equalled -12 on the FCP output meters.”

Somehow this must be related to the -12 mark on consumer level cams that don’t even have the -20 marker?

I have never read a good explanation of mixer to camera to NLE in terms of the different meters. Except that 0 out mixer equals -20 on any pro camera (recorder). I follow the rule without truly understanding it. I’ve also learned that you have to get used to your camera in terms of where on its meter it starts to sound distorted. Or even, where the sweet range is.

You really have to trust your ears as much as the levels. You start to learn where to aim as you listen.

[Jeff Markgraf] “It seems logical to take the red in the waveform as 0dB, or peak level.”

I look at 0 on FC’s meters as being the audio equivalent of 100 on a histogram scope for highlight levels. The whites get crushed. The sound starts to distort or even just too loud given the rest of the audio track levels. On my sound devices mixer we can get away with the meter’s clip light coming on for a split second because there is a built in limiter. But you don’t want it there if you can avoid it.

[Jeff Markgraf] “Yet if I look at the waveform in the browser, I would have expected clipped, distorted playback. “

Well this sounds exactly like my original question. If it’s evenly slammed against the limit I’d guess they used a filter/limiter to prevent any clipping. I used to use that broadcast safe filter/audio limiter in legacy FCP. I could edit using my ears and meters and then apply these filters to just be sure. But I was really just following advice, not really getting it on a higher level. I do know as a consumer that some movies are crystal clear and easy to listen to and others I miss lines in every scene.

I have noticed that when we import music from a pro recording, yeah it’s in the red in the timeline and on the meters and is just too loud in terms of the rest of our sound. Not sure what to make of that. But it’s pretty easy to adjust and get good levels because it was recorded well to begin with. The cleaner the recording the more you can lower the levels and still be able to hear it clearly.

[Jeff Markgraf] “If you have access to an outboard meter, such as the Dorroughs, by all means use it”

Where would you hook this up? To the computer’s audio out? I assume a pro audio app would have better metering than FC? They seem to have a whole range of these meters at different price points. Which is rec. for audio editing?

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.

[Craig Alan]

I’m testing each one of your points.
Here’s my results.

Playing a clip in the Browser:
I can display them in the inspector as either two stereo or four mono.
Four mono will play as a single channel on the meter display.
Two stereo will play as two channels on the meter display.
I can isolate any or all of the four channels by toggling the button boxes in the inspector at the start of each waveform.

Playing a clip in the Timeline:
One to four mono will play as two identical channels on the meter display, not like in the Browser.
Stereo will play as a pair, same as in the Browser.

I get the 3 dB drop in level when two mono channels (L and R) are panned to center and I tried panning to the right and left 100% and sure enough the peaks that clipped in the timeline peaked on the meter display.

So I think I get the audio part of things. What has me still confused is the relationship between the Inspector’s toggle boxes for the Inspector’s waveforms and using the V key to deactivate an expanded “track” of audio in the timeline.

Timeline Audio Clip Expanded:

When I uncheck a channel in the Inspector, it disappears in the timeline.
Not just turns a lighter grey and deactivates, but literally goes away.

A deactivated (V) audio channel in the Timeline remains deactivated even if it is checked in the Inspector.

Not sure from this inconsistent relationship what the best practice is or how it will effect the final export of a finished project.

Hopefully if the channel of audio is either disabled or made invisible that it will not play or export with the project. But why the different behaviors? Why not just grey it out when unchecked in the Inspector and if it is disabled in the Timeline, uncheck it in the Inspector?

Is there technically any difference in the audio file if the channel is muted (disabled) but still visible in the Timeline?

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.

[Craig Alan]

Perhaps. But MC’s interface feels old and dated, subscription software (CC) ‘may not’ be the best business model, and that leaves what NLE to fill the ‘next’ professional industry standard niche?

Start/stop detection in the legacy FCP came from legacy iMovie. The legacy FCP in its last few versions came as a suite that provided a great deal of its power. It was not a single app. The only thing clearly lacking in FCPX is stability and certain annoying interface quirks. When I watch a tutorial by Larry Jordan and he tries twice to remove a selected portion of a clip, that is change the selection to cover the entire clip, gives up, and then manually drags both sides out, I know it’s not just me. But these are growing pains not a lack of professional features. It also needs to have no concerns with tons of compounded clips and secondary story lines and a more mature use of roles. But these are growing pains. I keep thinking that if secondary story lines had all the same power and rules as the primary, then you would essentially have the option of tracks, when needed. Expanding and collapsing audio and video and compounds etc are also an interesting track alternative. The fact that there is a connection point is a positive feature over other NLEs. FCP X also needs to round trip and network perfectly with any other industry app that one might need. These are growing pains. There has been no NLE at this age in its development that was this powerful. The same team that works on iMovie works on FCP X. The leader of this team, Randy Ubillos, was creator of Premiere, KeyGrip (later renamed Final Cut Pro) FCP legacy. Many pros shoot with cameras that belong to a family of consumer level or prosumer level product lines.

I think there are two different workflows that are required by two different sets of pros. One is the self contained project – that is stays local to a given computer and one or two people edit the project locally. This is becoming a very common professional workflow. There is so much power to produce a project that looks and feels professional and gets the job done in a timely fashion. The other is the ‘Hollywood’ workflow that requires an army of experts working on the same project. FCP X is not there yet.

I think the jury is still out because the crime has not yet been committed. FCP legacy is not dead. FCP X has not failed. CC is selling. MC still dominates big budget movies. Resolve has not proven to be a contender yet as a NLE.

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.

[Craig Alan]

Great question. Would love some responses. I know from trying to do similar things that if you set up a student account using a simple finder that you can use sparse images as a container to hold an entire Project (the old definition of project). A simple finder cannot mount sparse images. Thus you can launch them with your admin account and do so remotely using Apple Remote Desktop. I have no idea how smoothly all this goes since I am just setting up lab now. However i have used this workflow on individual computers with raids as media drives attached. The only thing you need to pay attention to is when you set up the sparse images (use https://www.spherico.de/filmtools/createDiskImage/) you need to set up permissions using Get info on the sparse image so everyone has read write permission including
‘apply to enclosed’. For projects that you want shared you keep the image mounted. Once mounted the simple finder can open the library. You need to experiment with parental settings to make sure all needed apps and support programs are given to the student account. Make one complete system with these two accounts and make sure you set it up properly and then clone to the other computers. Th beauty here is you do not need to have an account for each user. Only one admin and one student account. It will require you to mount and unmount the sparse images to keep others from loading each others work.

Now here’s the catch: once mounted it can be seen when using FCP X’s “open library.” If everyone is using a shared storage not sure what would happen. Though it is limited to who ever is in the lab. Plus I don’t think two editors can work on the same library at once.

BTW my first attempt at setting this up as to password protect each image. But this require encryption and takes way too long when you load new media.

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.