Thaxter Clavemarlton
Forum Replies Created
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There is a function in FCP that is often overlooked… and it can help with many audio and video “skipping”, “sticking” and “missing” problems.
You should “Mixdown” the Audio for playback before you dub out of FCP, or during the edit, if you have audio/video stuttering, drop-outs or freezes.
NOTE: Mixdown has even been demonstrated to help with slipping, skipping problems (or “missing” audio clips) for files being EXPORTED as QT (or similar) files out of FCP.
First, SELECT ALL of your audio tracks (highlight them) on the timeline, then:
Sequence Menu > Render Only > Mixdown.
You should see a dialog box telling you its rendering.
It might seem to make little sense that “Mixing down” even simple audio tracks will “fix” complex video “freezes” or random audio dropouts to tape or export, but it CAN.
NOTE: It does not matter of you only have one audio track, if there are random freezes during output, you should try the Mixdown.
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This has come up on this forum at various times.
The solution is to not use Capture NOW, but set an In and Out point and Capture CLIP.
You can also screen your footage and pre-mark as many “good” clips as you like then BATCH Capture them in one shot.
This is a better way to save drive space as well. -
I agree with David Jones who said leave the Dolby engaged for the transfer.
This will cut the abominable HISS of the cassette tape.OTOH, I know that the high frequencies on cassette sound much brighter with the Dolby OFF.
And since audio cassettes are woefully inadequate at recording/reproducing high frequencies in the first place, you might want to make TWO complete transfers, one with Dolby and one without.Mark them clearly and save them EACH to CDs or DVDs (again, clearly marked).
There may be better digital methods (available to you now, or in the future) to help limit the increased hiss on the “Dolby-OFF” version and still retain the improved (though some would say artificial) high-end “presence.”
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I think I understand that you intend to speed up the “action” by a factor of two.
But I’m lost as to how you will get “live” action to MOVE at exactly double-speed.
Double-speed of what?
Are you speeding up a soundtrack and having actors mime and lip-sync to it?
Is this a mechanical device that can be sped up?Regardless, no matter what codec you use, if you are only going to use exactly the “50% speed” setting (which will just “print” every frame twice) it should look pretty good.
Its the ramping up or down and/or the various speeds in-beween 50% and 100% that could give you some unwanted artifacts in the greater-compression formats.
If you are shooting at DV25, your best transfer to FCP is FireWire at DV25.
Once in the Mac, an exactly 50% speed ratio should look very good in DV25.(Still want to know what your signature will read in a year or so?)
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[Asaf Billet] “I’m about to shoot a video in double speed (the action, camera shoots PAL 25FPS).”
But 25 fps is NORMAL speed in PAL.
[Asaf Billet] “Intel Inside, the world’s most popular warning label.”
Have you told this to Steve Jobs?
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I have had this happen several times over various projects.
The fix?
Shorten or lengthen that particular rolling or crawling title by just ONE FRAME (or two) and re-render.
Try it on either end and see what happens.
I know its maddening but it works for me. -
[Filmcutter] “1> If I have an entire soundtrack that I want to boost audio levels on (lets say I have it all cut with lots of clips and I decide to add a music track so I want to raise EVERYTHING by 3dBs) is there a way to select the whole track and tell FCP to raise all the clips 3dBs higher than where they are now? I hope I don’t have to manually do each slip independently
Select (highlight) all the audio tracks at once, then choose:
Modify (menu) > Audio > (make a choice)
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Modify (menu) > Levels > (make a choice)[Filmcutter] “2> Let’s suppose I have cut a scene and built a pretty elaborate background sound track with effects. I now want to use those tracks in a new sequence. How can I put the old sequence in the viewer/source side and use those tracks. I don’t want to have to cut and paste the tracks separately.”
A.
1. Duplicate (Option d) your original Sequence
2. On the Dupe, delete all the clips you DON’T want and edit new ones in sync with the ones you DO want.B.
1. Open Sequence (timeline) 1.
2. Mark your In-point and Out-point on Sequence 1.
3. Drag the Icon of Sequence 1 from your Browser to your Viewer (left) FCP window.
4. Open Seq. 2
5. On Seq. 2, Turn ON ALL of the “Auto Select” buttons (NEXT to the little padlock icons) on ALL the tracks that you wish to “transfer” to.
6. Position the PLAY head (Timeline cursor) on EXACTLY the frame where you want the transfer to begin on Seq. 2 and leave it there.
7. Make sure all of the track selects from Seq. 1 MATCH those on Seq. 2 ( V1>V1, V2>V2, V3>V3…).
8. Hold down the “Apple” (Command) Key…
9. …as you drag the image of Seq. 1 from the Viewer and drop it onto “Overwrite” in the Canvas Window.That should give you all of your tracks, exactly as they are, in Seq. 1 over to Seq. 2.
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If you want to go a little bit more “pro” there are some very nice inexpensive units that can serve you quite well (in some ways, JUST as well as much more expensive units) in the audio department.
Mic:
Amazingly pro sound for voice-over (or about ANYTHING). Under $60.
https://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_pid/273156/Mixer:
You’ll need one with Phantom Power to operate (and adjust level of) the mic. Plus you can use it for other mixing jobs. Under $50
https://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=live/search/detail/base_pid/631238/USB input:
Feed in from the mixer. Record any audio source to the Mac. Under $40.
https://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic/Plus, you’ll need various cables, patch-cords and audio adapters to hook everything up (and a Mic stand!)
Don’t spend extra on those high-priced “Creature Cables”… they do not “improve” the sound… but they do “deplete” your budget.There are other mixers that have more features that cost appropriately more.
And you can spend a LOT more on a studio mic, but this one is AMAZING for the money.
There are many other sources for the gear than the links I gave you.
You can search for them if you’d like.
I can say that I’ve bought from Musician’s Friend in the past and had good luck. -
If you want to TRY the VO with an on-camera mic, go ahead.
If you then think it sounds OK for what you need, who’s to argue?There will simply be very significant improvements using a pro VO mic, proper technique, good mic placement in a quiet room, and a trained voice-over talent.
But, since you say you already concede this, give it a go any way you’d like.
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[Andy Hutchinson] “The original tape has 13 minutes of recording on it. There are at least 20+ areas of loss audio that range from 1-3 seconds. It starts almost immediately on the tape and continues through out. There were no problems on previous or following tapes.”
This really sounds like what I said in my earlier post:
The tape may have miss-threaded when it was loaded into the camcorder.
If the tape-path was a bit “off” during the recording, the head-tracks (tracking) may be marginal.
The error-correction on the playback can compensate for a lot of it, but once the tracks get too far “out of the correction window” you’ll get drop-outs.Here’s a possible (time-consuming) workaround:
1. Start making a FW copy to a NEW tape
AND let the NEW record tape CONTINUE to RECORD, don’t stop it.2. When you come to a drop-out on the (“bad”) PLAY tape: pause, back-up (reverse-search) the “bad” tape for a couple of seconds, pause, and play again (even as the NEW tape continues to record)
3. Possibly, on THIS play pass, if the drop-out may occur in a DIFFERENT area, so you’ll be able to salvage a more of (and/or a different area of) the clip.
4. After doing this for the entire tape, you’ll likely need to “piece-together” (from the NEW tape) the best parts of the “reclaimed” clips.
FWIW, if all of the tapes before and after this “bad” one are OK (and the “bad” one has problems all-the-way-through) I doubt that this is a “cleaning” issue.
Again, I suspect either a defective tape (less likely) or a miss-threading (more likely).