[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It just seems to me that is bad stereo instead of true dual mono.”

I started in TV in 1979. It’s been done this way for years in TV, at least since the days of 3/4″ tape. Assuming you have never worked in TV news, I can understand why this workflow doesn’t make sense to you. For those of us who have been doing it this way for years, it’s not a problem.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “You are editing in some sort of faux stereo, not mono or dual mono.”

The clips have to be split out to dual mono for editing. The channel assignments are 1:left and 2:right, so yes: it’s stereo. When it is played back through the PC and goes out to the transmitter for broadcast, both channels are mixed to center: mono.

Better?

[Jeremy Garchow] “You mean a J or L cut? Also entirely possible in X.”

Of course it is, as illustrated here:

When I say “cheat”, I mean starting the first syllable of the incoming clip right on the last syllable of the outgoing clip creating a very tight, slightly overlapped edit.

Now if by creating this scenario you mean expanding the audio and video just to be able to slide the track in there, why is your way the preferred way of doing it?

Look, I’m trying to develop a workflow here that is easy for me to grasp coming from years of editing on Avid, and that gets the job done as quickly as possible. The way I’ve done it is the way that both makes the most sense to me and gets the job done. Repeating it, over time, will (hopefully) bring the speed I need. You may do it another way, and that’s your choice. But, as this is the first package I’ve actually completed in this “crap app”, I’m going to do it my way until I can either work out a better way to do it, or get to stop using it altogether.

Fair enough?

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “I wouldn’t ever use overwrite or place any broll in the primary.”

I would. And did. It worked. Moving on.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “So if you’re not outputting to files? Isn’t that a time suck?”

We do output to files and, as far as I’m concerned, everything about X is a “time suck.”

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “Why did you apply a gain filter?”

Because the audio was too low at one point for +12dB gain on the clip volume. I had to take it higher than +12dB.

[Bret Williams] “What did you mean by you can’t skim across multiple clips when the inspector is open?”

At one point, I had a single column of clips and couldn’t skim from one to another without moving my mouse down a line. It always happened when the “inspector” was open, so took that as a limitation. I now see that clips on the same row can be skimmed across even with the inspector open.

[Bret Williams] “Are you outputting to tape?”

File.

[Bret Williams] “Doesn’t your station output in stereo? I can’t believe you’re working in a mono transmission TV station in 2016. “

Local broadcast content is broadcast in mono. Network content is broadcast in stereo. I don’t make the rules or set policies on how stuff is produced. I’m told to shoot and edit in dual mono and that’s what I do.

[Bret Williams] “That provides an inaccurate mix. We monitored in mono mix. Hearing the channels independently out of different speakers is just no way to determine a mix. Sure won’t help with determining if one signal has a phase cancellation or if one eq is messing with the other.”

Well, first of all, the amps I used to use at my former station had detent stops on the volume pots, which made setting the same volume on two speakers very easy. But even at the board level, the amps were calibrated to the same -20 dB reference tone. I don’t know how the edit bays at my current station are set up. Nevertheless, if a mono mix was required to assure a proper mix on L/R panned tracks, Avid let you do it with 2 clicks:

Changing the monitoring from stereo to mono in Avid doesn’t change the mix on the timeline the way, apparently, FCPX does.

As far as cutting all the sound on the primary goes, I tried that initially and couldn’t cheat the the beginning of a bite over the end of a track. And using the position tool would overwrite the track. So yeah, the way I did it is probably the way I’m going to keep doing it.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

Finished.

Slower than Avid. Significantly slower.

And the same package edited in Media Composer. Much faster. When I see audio on tracks 1 & 3, I know at a glance it’s primary (channel 1/left) audio. When I see it on track 2, I know at a glance, it’s nats. No messing with roles. No trying to figure out where all my audio is by going clip-by-clip through the inspector. Simple and elegant. Of course, the problem with it is kids using iMovie to edit their selfies will never get it, but there’s a reason Avid has been used to edit more feature-length films and news packages than any other NLE around: I could hand this story off to another editor who could see – at a glance – exactly what’s going on with the audio being given absolutely no other information about the piece. Or I can come back to it in 6 months and know, at a glance, exactly what I did with the audio. I seriously doubt anyone using FCPX can do that without first consulting all their metadata.

Whatever. Different strokes, I guess. I’m just glad I only have to use iMovie Pro for news.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

I’ve returned to editing this package I’ve started several times now, looking for that magical speed increase the guys at Apple swear is there…

“The editing team behind the Warner Bros. feature Focus found they are editing three times faster than in any other NLE”

Not only do I not find it any faster than editing in Avid, I’m actually slower in it, panning and disabling channels in the inspector as I lay each shot into the timeline (which is precisely why I was looking for an upfront fix a la Avid’s alternating L/R mono tracks!). The skimmer is just a royal PITA. I wouldn’t mind it so much for skimming a clip in the browser (can’t skim across multiple clips with the inspector open, however), but timeline skimming is distracting when there are other navigational tools that are more precise (and I use that term loosely). Even with snapping on, I find I’m constantly having to zoom in on edit points to make sure things are lining up, and then zooming back out (SHIFT-Z) to see the big picture again!

Way too much fussing with minutiae to be fast in this app!

That said, I think I have a workflow that may work:

[Phil Lowe]

[Bret Williams] “Have you tried highlighting a bunch of clips in the browser (the interviews for example), then in the inspector making sure it’s mono, then turning off the track(s) you don’t need, and then panning? “

Yep. As explained in an earlier post:

As you can see by the attached screen cap, I have selected all 90 clips in my bin, and can change the channel configuration and panning mode, but panning them all to left or right affects both channels of audio. I want mono 1 left and mono 2 right, and want this at the browser level with all 90 clips selected. Now, is there a way to do this or not? I have tried disabling the track that I don’t want to pan (unchecking mono 2) to pan only mono 1 left, but mono 2 still ends up on the left side of the mix. Premiere’s track mixer can handle this. Why can’t FCPX?

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “No one is going to listen to the voice coming out of the left side only.”

The viewer hears the correct mix coming from the transmitter! But we, in news, edit with discretely panned left and right channels so that we can both monitor these channels independently and output for archive and reuse!

Again, this is something that is a default setting in Avid!

Want channel 1 lav mic left? Just put it on channel 1! No renaming tracks. No assigning roles for export! I actually got a response to my feedback from Apple. Know what Apple’s response to this issue was?

“…you can use separate roles for the camera mic and shotgun, and then export the completed project as a Multitrack QuickTime Movie.”

No one on a news deadline is going to export camera clips out to QT (or XML) and reimport them just to get discretely panned audio! It really does reflect a glaring ignorance of broadcast news workflows!

It’s clear no one here has ever edited news, so it was probably my mistake to bring this issue here.

Just for grins, I tried one more go at this.

I took all 90 clips and created a compound clip out of them. I expanded the audio, selected it, then set its channel config to dual mono. I then set the pan mode to “stereo left/right”, and panned ch.1 left and ch. 2 right. I then marked an in and out on the compound clip and dropped it into my package timeline, at which point all my prior audio editing was completely undone!

Done with this POS for now. I think I want my money back from Apple!

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.

[Phil Lowe]

[Jeremy Garchow] “For the bird time, the answer to your question is Roles.

You set a role for voice, a role for music, and export your timeline with 2 channels of audio one that is voice and one for music.”

Does assigning roles pan the tracks during the edit or just export? If just export, it only solves half the problem, because we have to edit the way we archive. If only export, you’re still reduced to manually panning channels on the timeline. Oh, and when the inspector is open, you can’t skim across multiple clips in the browser! May as well be working in FCP7 at that point.

Canon XF-300, Canon 5DMkIII, Canon 7D MkII, Avid Media Composer 7.05, Adobe CC 2015, FCP X.