[David Lawrence]

Folks, apologies for the delay. I got a bit deeper than I expected and took a bit more time than I thought. It turned into something of a short article so I went ahead and started a new related topic. I think this will also be a good place explore some of the examples Walter mentioned.

Let’s keep this thread going but keep the emphasis on audio, music and DAW vs NLE UIs.

Please join me to continue discussing tracked vs. trackless timelines, editorial intentions and spatial workflows here:

The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example

p.s. Jeremy — I promise I’ll get to all of your questions 😉

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[David Lawrence]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “You’re right in terms of ends, but I am interested in how FCPX shapes the process.”

I agree with statement fully. I’ve just made some screen grabs and will demonstrate in my next post.

Jeremy, Andrew, Walter – I’ll address your questions and raise some new ones in that post. We can do that in this thread or we can start a new topic, I’m fine either way, let’s just link if we jump threads to keep continuity.

We’re digging into the core issues. This is the key stuff and this conversation is great. A lot is interrelated so I really want to keep this thread going even if we move to another topic heading. Give me an hour or so to prep. Stay tuned…

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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “Thanks for the link. If nothing else it looks like a useful tool for integrating VTS plugins in a Mac.”

You’re welcome. It seemed quite powerful from playing with the demo. The price is right, but it was more learning curve than I had time for. Curious what you’ll think.

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[David Lawrence]

[Franz Bieberkopf] “Is there a short summary – that thread you link to is very long and meandering with lots of cross-topics. I couldn’t find what might be the start of this.”

Franz — thanks, yeah that other thread was way too long and way off topic. The sub-thread started with a question I asked Jeremy. I asked if he thought the magnetic timeline would make sense for a DAW. His answer was a lightbulb moment for me. I finally understood why we think of tracks in an NLE so differently.

Here’s a link to my reply:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/16840

This lead to a great conversation that’s worth digging thru if you can find the thread. It really deserved its own topic so I moved it up here.

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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Richards] “I think the broad idea was to find a way to capture a more explicit expression of editorial intent. In an open tracked timeline, intent is all in the mind of the user. As far as the software is concerned, that lower third only happens to sit atop the right bit of talking head. That music just happens to come in at the right beat in the action above it. Tracks 1 and 2 are dialog, 3 and 4 are music, and 5 and 6 are SFX, but the NLE doesn’t know that.”

I guess it depends on how we define “editorial intent”. I would argue that editorial intent is explicit and intrinsic to spacial positioning in the timeline. When I look at a timeline I read editorial intent like a musician reading sheet music.

The idea that the software might understand the edit is interesting, but I’m hard pressed to think of any examples where it would be useful. Can you describe an example of the potential value?

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[David Lawrence]

[Michael Gissing] “I have spoken to software developers about the idea of using video composite layer techniques in audio. Straight opacity is a bit like mixing in audio terms but key, difference, luma type vision mixing is different. Similarly audio mixing might be blending sound based on dynamics or frequencies in audio. “

Michael, thanks for bring up the Fairlight and its innovative UI for audio. This is the closest thing I’ve seen that uses layers as an approach for audio compositing. I’ve played with it a bit but never really got deep into it. It seems interesting:

https://www.audiofile-engineering.com/waveeditor/

Also, you spoke about the role of tracks. I’m also curious what you think about ripple-mode for edits. From your POV as an audio post specialist, could you do your job if your tools only operated in ripple mode?

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[David Lawrence]

[Andrew Richards] “I maintain that AVFoundation forces nothing on the UI. The UI is 100% abstracted from the OS frameworks that handle the actual bit-laying. Walter Soyka! Back me up!”

LOL, Andrew, I’m in total agreement with you and Walter on this. Sorry if my point wasn’t clear. UI is always 100% abstraction. It can be anything the UI designer wants it to be. That’s why many of the UI decisions in FCPX are so baffling. For me, they only start making sense if you imagine that the FCPX UI was designed by the engineers. The constraints, inconsistencies and mental models in the UI feel like they’re driven by an engineering data model, not an understanding of users.

That said, I do wonder how much of the UI is baked in. Why for example, is their solution for adding transitions to connected clips, to turn them into secondary storylines? My hunch is that the data model demands it.

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[David Lawrence]

Picking up from the questions in Jeremy’s post here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/16855

[Jeremy Garchow] “Let me ask you this. Do you think FCPX will ever get tracks? Do you think they will work with the trim tool? By adding tracks, don’t you think we will lose some of the editing efficiency?”

Will FCPX ever get tracks? I don’t know. I tend to doubt it because I believe Apple is heavily invested in the marketing and the engineering direction FCPX represents. I think it would take a lot of pressure to turn them around. Not that it’s impossible — I’ve pointed to what I see as evidence that tracks are integral to AV Foundation. But I also agree with Craig Seeman’s observations about other parts of the AV Foundation spec. It feels like the UI is an expression of this object data model rather than the track parts of the model. That would explain many of the object behaviors as well as the constraints.

This is pure conjecture on my part but I believe that at one point, FCPX did have tracks and that there was a big internal fight for the soul of this product. The track people lost and they were the ones fired in 2010.

I do think that tracks could be brought back with a hybrid system that gives us the best of both tracked and trackless. The first step would be allowing more than one primary storyline. Don’t even call it primary, just make it storyline (i.e. fixed track), and connected storyline (i.e. secondary storyline). This would solve many of my problems right away. That may be tough or impossible because of the data model. I don’t know what they’re doing under the hood.

Re: trim tool and editing efficiency – I think we need to break this into two related but different aspects of the magnetic timeline’s behavior. 1) ripple mode 2) tracklessness

Ripple mode and trimming:

There’s a lot to like about the FCPX trim tool, especially how it’s context sensitive depending on cursor position. I’d love to have that in FCP7. But it’s never been a big deal tapping A, R or RR depending on what I want to do.

I hit RR for ripple trim maybe 5% of the time on the actual timeline. I’m more likely to cut or trim by grabbing the clip edge then delete or shift-delete depending on if I want to ripple or not.

If I want to ripple, I often go into trim mode. It took me years to figure this out — the trim mode in FCP from double clicking an edit is in many ways as good as AVID’s legendary “Rock and roll” keyboard trimming. I use this mode to loop around the edit point making one frame adjustments on either side of the edit. It’s done entirely by feel. +1, -1 +2, etc. No need for filmstrips. This is how I do 95% of my rippling. It’s a very specific tool for a very specific need.

Rippling is the default mode for the magnetic timeline. This default mode is the opposite of how I edit most of the time. To return to the music metaphor:

If a clip is a note and the timeline is the composition sheet, I want to place the note anywhere I want in time and have it stay there as I build the piece. It’s all about having absolute control over time and pacing by placement in space. This is intrinsic to the open timeline and tracks. With this in mind, can you see how if the system starts mashing notes together (and up and down on the staff) all by itself, or forces me to insert spacers to hold the notes apart, it might be a problem?

I’m not saying the magnetic timeline is inefficient. I think it’s very efficient, but for very specific, specialized tasks that aren’t the default in my usual workflow.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Also, do you think that this style of editing simply is impossible in FCPXs timeline?”

I’ve done it. It’s possible, but the process isn’t exactly what I’d call efficient (or fun).

Stay tuned, I’ll say more in another post.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Just curious, did you get a chance to answer those questions in the last post to you (from the link).”

They’re great questions. I’ve been distracted by work this afternoon 😉 but I’ll answer with some screen grabs when I get a free minute.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “And for those that are still paying attention to the subject line, how does the Macbook Air portability factor fit in to your backpack factor, factually? Discuss.”

Hey All,

I’ve started another thread where we can continue this discussion and be on topic 😉

Please join me here:

NLEs, DAWs, Tracks and Audio-centric Workflows — Continuing the Conversation…

I’ll be quoting from this thread as needed. Looking forward to getting deeper into the many interesting questions and points we’re discussing.

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