re: Editing with a lot of tracks of audio

Another editor and I had an argument about work habits on this topic so I thought I'd get opinions from you guys.

We have been working with a multi-camera shoot where a synced scene often entails anywhere between 12 and 48 tracks of audio.

The assistants have been doing a very good job syncing and organizing these monsters, but the other editor says that even from the early cuts, every person's dialogue track (even when the camera isn't on him/her, or the track is blank) should be left in the timeline. I insist that whatever isn't being used should be deleted, and if the sound mixer wants the other options at the online stage down the road, we can conform and retrieve those audio clips for him/her, with the idea being that by that time, what is truly needed in the scene will be clear, and we'll have 12 tracks for, say, three minutes worth of clips rather than three hours.

Which method would you consider superior, as a general rule? I get a headache just looking at the 12 disabled tracks in his timeline clogging up the works, and he hates my way, saying that I'm not retaining every available element.


www.derekmok.com

So you only use their audio when they are on camera? No off camera dialogue? No cutting away to get the reaction of the person listening?

Or are you talking about that say track 10 is ALWAYS for "Linda", even if she isn't in this scene?


www.shanerosseditor.com

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Hmm, in this instance I would go with leaving the tracks the same at all times, mainly so that when it went to sound, yeah, they know if they need Linda, she's there on track ten. And if there's nothing there - if the track is empty, then that means no audio exists for Linda at that time.

If it's always tidied differently then they are gonna have to hunt for her dial track all the time. And you never know what they are going to need, or steal to make repairs elsewhere later on.

But, geez, 48 tracks is awful messy and will surely make things start slowing down as time goes on.

> Or are you talking about that say track 10 is ALWAYS for "Linda", even if she isn't in this
> scene?
> So you only use their audio when they are on camera? No off camera dialogue? No cutting
> away to get the reaction of the person listening?

No, that's not what I meant. One-track-per-person is pretty desireable, obviously, when you have that many microphones. And "onscreen only" would be, obviously, a dumb way to cut dialogue -- what I've termed "chasing the line".

What I mean is that, I delete audio clips that I'm not using. For example, an eight-track group has A-H on it. I have A talking, then H interrupts with a line from another tape (overlaps). I will not retain tracks B-H or A-G on the overlapping tracks, because that would require 12 more tracks of audio.

If I wanted B to be gasping during this exchange, for example, I would turn on B and overlap it, retiming it for better effect, if necessary. But if B isn't doing anything I want at that point, I delete him.

The other guy's insistence is that even if I'm not using them, I keep the disabled tracks in the timeline.

Frankly, I find Match Framing much faster. If I want to restore a new part of the scene, I can just Match Frame from the sync sequence.

> 48 tracks is awful messy

To give him credit, he didn't mean retaining all 48 tracks. But even six characters on all the time means that a simple overlapped argument could take 18 tracks to accomplish (15 of which may not be doing anything useful), sending some audio files offscreen and making the timeline very prone to operator mistake. Plus, he has a habit of leaving all lavalier tracks on, even when the bleed is so bad that A would phase-cancel the hell out of B.

This phenomenon is probably relatively new. In the old film days, your telecine would have a decent mix of all characters (usually limited to four to eight tracks) and this would be a non-issue. Those 48 tracks stem from the fact that those damn hard-disk recorders give you eight mono tracks, even if you only need three.


www.derekmok.com

>The other guy's insistence is that even if I'm not using them, I keep the disabled tracks in the
>timeline.

How are you sending it to the audio guy? OMF? Disabled tracks do not go into the OMF. So are you getting your assistant to re-enable the tracks?

Also, how did you get all separate tracks from the multi-clip onto the timeline? With FCP's multi-clip function, you have the option to choose the audio from the camera you are on, or to choose the audio from one specific camera.



www.strypesinpost.com

It is bad practice IMO to keep things in the timeline disabled. It really doesn't save anyone anything as far as I see it. You are the only one who knows why it is on or off, and when it gets into someone else's hands then what? I find less tracks = less mistakes. Granted I'm just a simple feature editor so I don't worry about these tremendous amounts of mics. When there are 4-6 mics, i always use the sound mixers stereo mix, and add tracks as I need. If the sound guy needs to delve further he knows what to do....

After all, there was a time when sound people had to actually do most of their own leg work, and that was part of the job. Sometimes I miss those days.

As a sound editor/mixer who now edits picture as well, and with a project currently on the board that includes many tracks of dialog audio and BG audio, this is what I've come to: as I edit, concentrating on picture, I leave everything in. When I'm close to being finished with a segment, I go through & clean up audio. Any audio clips tracks not containing primary audio I delete. Anything I might use I just top & tail. Remember, even a track (clip) that contains nothing is consuming playback bandwidth, so to speak. IF all that's there is leakage, kill it. Since I mix my own projects, and I've spent my life cutting & mixing other people's project's, I know how I like to see a project open up on the audio side, and that's what I prepare for myself. On those occasions when I need to go back & retrieve something, I do a match frame in FCP and bring only those missing file over.

Ahhhh...I get you now.

No, I wouldn't have ALL the audio active. I would only use the audio that I wanted active at that time. And to a lot of L cutting. If this is narrative. I only had ALL tracks active when it was a reality show.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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personally, i would want a MIXDOWN track, and only edit with that.
if i really needed separation, i'd bring in the other tracks somehow.

i agree, working with all those tracks is a pain,
especially when you start overlapping dialogue: 48 tracks becomes 96, which lets face it, is unworkable.
and if you needed to do an asymmetrical trim, you'd have to manually select 48 clips!


however, i know that this is a real drag to deal with in audio post.
there doesn't seem to be an easy way to automatically add back the unused tracks.
that would be better dealt with in FCP, prior to handover.


nick

Yeah. I did tell the other editor: "Our job isn't to make the sound mixer's job easier. Our job is to make the best cut."

It's a clash of cultures -- he does the assemblies and he's used to having everything all the time. I'm used to streamlining my timelines and bringing things back only when I want them. The way I see it, bringing back the other synced tracks for only the parts you change means you deal with the mess only around 50 per cent of the time. Leaving everything in means you deal with the mess with every second of raw footage you try, and if a clip ends up being cut out from the scene, all the time wasted on dealing with 12 tracks of audio is wasted time.

As for the sound mixer, there's also the fact that he's not going to need alternate tracks for every single audio clip, since we're picking the best takes in editing anyway. If the mixer wants other options, he can ask for them later.


www.derekmok.com

And knowing how incredibly organised you are, Derek, it's not like you're going to lose touch with where everything is, so I concede too.

I'm with you Derek, there's no point in keeping all that stuff in the timeline. Not only is it a hassle when editing, my earlier point is that disabled tracks don't make it into the omf.

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So it's pointless, unless you have some guy re-enabling all those tracks before you send it to ProTools, and if you have that kind of person on the job, you may as well get him to do a match frame to replace with the original multiple tracks of audio. And you guys can focus on making the cut.



www.strypesinpost.com

What is so hard about re-enabling hidden tracks. It's select all, solo. Ta da, everything is on.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

True. Crap. I was referring to disabled clips. Either way, I won't edit with 12-48 tracks per clip. That's a LOT of junk to go through for every shot and lots of wasted time.



www.strypesinpost.com

> What is so hard about re-enabling hidden tracks. It's select all, solo. Ta da, everything is on.

The pain of having to deal with those tracks in editing is the problem, not so much that it's hard to CONTROL-B something. Having too much extraneous junk leads to creative stagnation -- you get into a mindset of not doing as much as you can, because it's too complicated. For example, if I needed to boost what I chose, I choose Apple Dynamics Processor plus Compressor. Try that on a group of 12 mono tracks just because you left them all in, useful or not. And then if you want to remove just the Dynamics Processor from it, you have to open 12 clips one by one.

It's the same reasoning as why I don't ever "stack" clips to do a cut. I always cut the actual clips as they're meant to be. Because then if a clip is moved accidentally, I can spot the mistake from a mile away and restore the intended cut in two seconds flat. Not surprisingly, the other editor "stacks" all the time without cutting up the clip underneath. One of those stacked clips could be moved eight frames by accident, ruining his editing decision, and he's not likely to spot it until it's too late to Undo. Clash in cultures, as I mentioned.


www.derekmok.com

I am not arguing in favour of editing with tons of tracks, I have done it when it was needed but would rather not.
But having disabled clips in the timeline, and yes I meant to say clips, isn't such a big deal when it comes to OMFs. If you select all the CLIPs in your sequence and hit Control-S, everything is enabled.
Just clearing that up.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

>If you select all the CLIPs in your sequence and hit Control-S, everything is enabled.

Nice one there, Andrew. Didn't notice that function. But I do have the occasional habit of having a few alternate clip choices (both sound and audio) lying around on disabled.



www.strypesinpost.com

> But having disabled clips in the timeline, and yes I meant to say clips, isn't such a big deal when
> it comes to OMFs.

My point exactly.

And besides, I would probably wait until the sound mixer actually says "I need alternate takes at this point, that point and that point". Five minutes of Match Framing and a new OMF export later, he's off and running. Which makes leaving all those clips in even more absurd.


www.derekmok.com