[Nick Meyers]

do you have master clips in the browser?

if you do, then you can change the clip names to match the file names, and the changes will go through your project.

you can do it by right clicking on the browser clip,
or select the clip/s and go to Modify Menu.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“it may be attributable to thinking…”

no thinking in it, it’s a standard music mp3 at 44.1k

FCPX can deal with this and other formats, i believe.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

glad to be of assistance 🙂

i usually start at 24 tracks, then just keep upping it if i need to
(reverbs & pitch shifts will eat up track allocation)

i have been in exactly your position lately with an inherited project containing many mp3s.

without an assistant, i wound up just converting the music file as i hit them in the timeline.

there’s a “reveal in finder” command, try right clinking on a timeline clip to see if it’s in there,
but i think it only works from the browser (right click or menu)
or the viewer, (menu, or custom shortcut – you really want to get into them!)

shift F should reveal the clip in the browser IF it is a master clip.
(good luck with a director-initiated edit!)

when i get to the file, i open it in QT player7 (drag to the dock)
then export as AIFF, 48k, 16 or 24 bit, best quality
QT player remembers these settings

when i export, i add (mp3) to the file name.
i once had an mp3 conversion go into a final mix by mistake, so i always add a tag to avoid that happening again.

saving the AIFF to the location of the sourcefile makes for an easier re-connect.
use “Search” (FCP finds it), not “Locate” (you find it)
you will go to the source file, then un-check the “same name & reel#” box, and chose to connect to the AIFF.
as i said you’ll get a warning about media start & end times that you can ignore.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“Nearly every move I make I have to rerender all my audio and it’s KILLING ME.”

if you render the audio at the item level, then you should not get this.
you will have to render any extensions you make, but just on that clips, not your whole timeline.

also, FCP remembers these renders, so you can trim, and re-extend, and the render will still work.
this is unlike the way FCP deals with video renders.

still, what Andrew says is right, you wont have complete stability until you get those non-standard formats replaced.

i think if you use compressor to convert you should be able to do a batch reconnect if the names are fixed with some batch re-namer to match the originals.
(iTunes will convert and NOT change the names.)
you will definitely get a reconnect error warning about media start and end times not matching.
you can safely ignore it, but still, do all this work on a COPY of the project

but here’s one more thought: as well as the format mis-match, you may be having ANOTHER ISSUE .
in FCP User Prefs, set your real time mixing to a LOT higher than the default of 8 tracks.
that default hasn’t been changed since 1999 or whenever it was FCP came out!

nick

[Nick Meyers]

“Is there a way for me to select all the right or left edges on various tracks, and create a gap with a key command, or by dragging?”

answer is no,
so you need another approach,

the track tool will actually move your tracks out of sync, which you probably don’t want, although it is does read a bit like that’s what you are doing

you’re probably only left with 2 solutions,
marks suggests blading all (or control V to blade on the play-head)
so you blade where you want to cut to the other angle, and blade again where you want to cut back.
select the bladed section and delete, and drag back the angle you want if you’ve deleted all

my suggestion is to use in & out points to define the same section,
then delete,
and either recover the angle you want by dragging,
or lock that track before you delete.

marking in & out points really is the simplest way to define a section you either want to use (in & outs in the viewer)
or not use (in & outs in the timeline)
or copy, for that matter (in & outs in timeline again)

you probably know that once you have a gap, you CAN use trim functions on a selected edit point.
you can use the GROUP tool (g) to lasso a group of edit points, but frustratingly it always opens the trim window.

i remember now another approach i have used in the past, before FCP had multiclip.
it’s a bit like Dave’s suggestion, in that involves have your stacked tushes on track 1-x, then an edit track above them

mark in/outs
park anywhere within the marks
double click you chosen angle into the viewer,
and use F11 replace edit.

weirdly FCP can replace a blank section…. although sometimes it wont.. cant figure that one out!

cheers,
nick

[Nick Meyers]

SO..

i was happy to live with my reconnect after crash.
but if you find that lack of reel# is the cause of your problems,
then maybe you should add reel#s to your clips.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

i dot know if the “restore” approach will be better or not,
just thought i’d throw that in.

but i just remembered…

whenever i crashed, my autosaves would open with some clips offline.
always the same one, and the common factor was they had no reel#
some were exports of edited shows,
some were music files

but it always happened when opening an autosave.

this is 7.03

in my case, reconnecting worked and was pretty quick.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

well, i know pluraleyes 2 won’t work if there are stop/starts in the footage.

nick

[Nick Meyers]

that’s a really weird problem, and i haven’t experienced it myself (fortunately!)

i wonder, have you tried accessing the autosave version in the “Restore” function in the file menu?

nick

[Nick Meyers]

” I was informed that by unchecking Make Movie Self-Contained (as I would be using the same computer to burn the disc) the file could be up to 20 times smaller and the export 20 times quicker without loss of quality. Was I mis-informed?”

that refers only to the export from FCP.
compressing the file will take just as long.

also an issue with reference movies is that if you happen to lose access to one of the files the movie s referencing,
the whole process will fail.

could be you saved 20 minutes on the FCP export, and now have a huge hang in Compressor

nick