[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[John Steventon] “Have I over-thought it in my explanation? Should I just say “Dead loud and that’s all you need to know?””

Yep. SPL is in headphones is likely a “spurious” spec. Don’t worry about it.

You can buy the Sony “DJ” headphones (Sony V700DJ) for $99 – $150 and know that they will sound great in loud conditions.

As will the Sony MDR 7506 ‘phones, a studio standard for years.

Google for more info.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

If there’s a “hole” in the timeline (nothing there on any of the tracks) it outputs as “black”.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

I always like to keep my sound pressure level.

I do it buy mostly holding my head REALLY STILL, with EACH of my ears the same distance above my shoulders.

Then, I have my assistant, Vivian (she loves to see her name on the web, HI, VIV!) anyway, she carefully places the headphones on my ears… JUST SO (not too fast, not too tight).

Now, I can mix with the proper “sound stage” and the audio can “breathe” and “live” because the pressure on my ears is totally LEVEL.

I hope someday to buy a CD recorder so that I can retire my Panasonic cassette deck, once and for all (but still Viv loves my “mix tapes”, Don’t you Viv? Yes, you do!)

So you DO need to keep your sound pressure LEVEL on your ears.

Just tell your boss its “just BECAUSE it SOUNDS better” (that works with Viv).

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Your monitor does not need to have set-up applied when viewing a digital source.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[SammyClam] “3) Lastly, why are so many posters suggesting never going above -3 dB? Wouldn’t one want to get as close to 0 dB as possible without clipping? Especially when the end result is on DVD.”

The problem is when you are too close to “0” you will likely MISS some peaks that go above that “absolute” ceiling and cause distortion.

-3dB is still a bit “too close for comfort”.

If you are sure you are not making any amplitude errors, you can go all the way to zero, but that’s your decision.

The difference in LOUDNESS (what the listener actually HEARS) when you mix your PEAKS between 0 dB, -3 dB or even -12 dB can be slight.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

Without knowing what “done all the “fixes” I’ve seen here” means…

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, sync-slippage, 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.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

You have edited a professional concert DVD and did not have the audio processed at an audio post house?

Something sounds a bit odd about this.

Copyright issues come to mind.

Can you be more specific?

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Will Salley] “”non-music moments in pop music recordings”

That could describe the whole hip-hop / rap genre.”

😉

ROFL!

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

[Alan Langdon] “Did I do something wrong? Will I use quality?”

No, the quality will be fine.

But if the mixdown works, it will be much easier and faster to accomplish.
Plus, your timeline will still show all the tracks exactly the way they are laid-out and edited, so you can still make changes.

[Thaxter Clavemarlton]

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, sync-slippage, 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.