[David Roth weiss]

Excellent addition Oliver. It just goes to show that our NLEs have deep foundations that are not always as they can appear at first glance, even for old pros. And, after really looking carefully, it’s easy to see why this is so easily misconstrued.

And, now that we’ve all collaborated to straighten this all out, I would have to say in summary that, currently Adobe’s implementation is in fact the better and more accurate approach to sub-frame audio editing that better emulates the sub-frame editing capabilities of a DAW. This doesn’t mean that FCP X us for amateurs, or that editors using X can’t produce excellent work, including audio editing and mixing inside FCP X, only that in a fair comparison of both apps, at this point Adobe has the more advanced implementation of audio editing. To be fair, it’s also more expensive… But, also to be fair, with that added expense, the user also gets access to an even better audio editor (Audition), and the entire suite of additional apps as well.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

I believe the entire misunderstanding for all concerned is by virtue of the fact that the industry refers to this feature as sub-frame audio editing, the alternative is editing at the full frame level, yet the sub-frame sample rate is not based on frames at all, but on samples per second.

So, both FCP X and Premiere support audio editing down to the sample level which is 1/48000th of a second at 48khz. However, if you read Apple’s document on the subject below, you’ll see that the scale is divided into 1/80th of a frame increments, which also adds to the confusion.

“For even more precise editing, you can zoom in to audio clips at the audio sample level. Audio samples show the audio waveform at a fraction of a second (for example, 1/48,000 for audio recorded at a sample rate of 48 kHz). Sample-accurate editing resolution is available only for connected audio clips (that is, audio clips not in the primary storyline) or compound clips that contain only audio.

Tip: For reference when working with video, you can view subframes (1/80 the duration of a video frame) in the timecode display of the Dashboard. In the General pane of Final Cut Pro preferences, choose the subframe option in the Time Display pop-up menu.”

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

I would use Adobe Media Encoder.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

What a bear toggling that on and off, huh Shawn?

Gosh, my mouse finger is getting a real workout just thinking about that difficult “PIA.” I hope you get to take a break afterward.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

[Michael Gissing] “And just in the interest of accuracy DRW is not correct in saying accuracy of 1/48000 of a frame as the sample rate of 48khz is per second, so at 25fps there are 1920 samples per frame and 2000 at 24fps. “

Thanks for offering the correction Michael, again my info came from Larry Jordan, and again I will let him know the accurate information so he does not pass misinformation along to masses of people in his webinars and his training materials.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

Yes David, I knew FCP Legacy had sub-frame audio editing, but nothing close to 1/48000th of a frame. At that level of granularity, as I mentioned earlier in reference to Audition, one can quickly and easily delete many extraneous sounds from tracks imperceptibly, without filling with room tone. That means an audio clean-up can go incredibly fast, at the very highest level of precision. That should be pretty exciting even for the most hardened of FCP X fans.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

For the record, I just received a reply from Larry Jordan who wrote:

“Cool – an improvement I was not aware of.

Thanks for letting me know.”

Larry

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

[David Lawrence] “I’ll add that with VST/AU plugins, flexible bussing, clip and track level automation, the ability to make tracks as big as and as many you want, Premiere Pro is actually a very robust DAW for 80-90% of what I need everyday. Is it a substitute for ProTools or a full-fledged DAW? Of course not. But anyone saying a well designed NLE can’t also share the functionality of a DAW doesn’t know what they don’t know.”

Well, I guess we can take the off the kid gloves now — it’s no wonder Walter Murch appreciates Premiere.

The stand-alone audio capabilities of Premiere are in fact well beyond what I’d been told, and I think it’s fair to say they are now certainly well beyond those of both FCP X and Avid.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

[David Lawrence] “Actually David, you can edit down to the sample in Premiere Pro too. Just toggle “Show Audio Time Units” in the sequence panel drop down. I do this so often I’ve assigned it a keyboard shortcut. ;)”

Excellent info David…

For the record, my information came from Larry Jordan, who also seems to have missed that important point. I’ll let him know ASAP.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[David Roth weiss]

[Robin S. Kurz] “Sure. We’ll also just ignore that comparing an NLE with a DAW is nonsense to begin with. Or that there’s always Logic that will go down to the sample as well. But I wouldn’t want to rain on your crusade, so never mind… :D”

So, Master Robin, sorry to rain on your parade, but how does it strike you that Mr. Lawrence has added that Premiere also supports audio editing at the same 1/48000 sub-pixel sample rate? What, no retraction? Cat got your tongue?

I can just see you now, griping all alone in your little cave:

RobIn Kurz as Golum

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.