experiencing click track and intermittent pacing/delay of audio track/music

Hi,
I have never experienced this before and have editing several music videos. The music/ audio track is not playing smoothly so it is not a good reference for cutting. It sounds as though there is a click track keeping poor time or as if the there are two audio tracks very slightly out of sync causing a delay. I am working on a power book G4 using Final Cut HD. I have tried shutting down and reimporting the track.

Thanks
Amy

Are you using an MP3? Those don't work in FCP -- convert to an AIFF first.

If that's not the issue, try an Audio Mixdown (OPTION-APPLE-R).


www.derekmok.com

Thanks, I'll try those things

Hi, I tried those things, it's still happening

> It sounds as though there is a click track keeping poor time or as if the there are two audio
> tracks very slightly out of sync causing a delay.

Perhaps the two sides of the stereo tracks are out of phase. Try deleting one side by un-Stereo Linking them (OPTION-L), deleting one of the pair, and then panning the remaining one to the center (CONTROL .). It's not necessarily a good long-term solution, but if you no longer hear the problem after this, it helps locate the issue.

Did the music track come from a CD? Try re-importing it. Not just shutting down FCP and re-importing the file, but re-converting it from CD afresh. Also, ditch your render files using Tools - Render Manager and re-render.

If none of these things work, perhaps you can post a section of the file so we can hear it.


www.derekmok.com

It was imported from a CD. I had already tried starting from scratch and converting and importing the song again. I found the solution was to convert the file using an actual audio application such as Audacity. The track sounds fine now. Apparently, Final Cut Pro is not consistently the best tool when it comes to converting audio files although I've never experienced this before.

You should prep your audio before import, just like you should with photos or graphics or wierd format video. Here's the FAQ : Why Do I Hear Popping or Clicking Sounds?

Final Cut is an NLE. NLEs are designed for editing, not audio conversion, audio mixing, recording, compositing, formats conversion, or toying around with severely compressed mediums.

If you're working with audio, avoid mixing sample rates, as final cut performs an on-the-fly conversion of the sample rate, which occasionally results in complications.
Also, avoid doing fancy 48 track audio mixes in final cut or fancy audio effects layering. As much as final cut can perform certain tasks, the saying always holds that 'just because you can, doesn't mean you must'. Use proper tools that are designed for their jobs.

Using an audio program to convert a simple MP3 to a AIFF was definitely the answer to the problem. However, it still doesn't explain why in the past, I've never experienced a problem with converting and importing songs from CD's in the past without the assistance of an audio program. The files from a mastered CD which you import into ITunes are all the same, are they not?

Quote
Amy:
The files from a mastered CD which you import into ITunes are all the same, are they not?

They are not. How they are handled by iTunes is entirely dependent on your iTunes preference setting for Import (Advanced > Importing > Import Using). It's easy to forget how you might have set it last time you used it. The import process converts the files during the import, and then you're "stuck" with that format on the disk file. So "in the past" was probably more of an issue of different iTunes settings than FCP behavior.

Scott

Ah, I see. Thank you, this is helpful. Is there a standard I-tunes setting that you could recommend to prevent this sort of thing from occurring in the future?

Standard setting? iTunes has so many uses outside of Pro Apps, and its bane (for us) is that it has so many options. For importing from CD for use in FCP, Import Using: AIFF encoder. That leaves it at 44.1 kHz, which is not quite what FCP likes (48 kHz) but usually suffices, and is way better than MP3. That can be fixed in an additional step with QT (see next).

My workflow for getting CD tracks into FCP is to open direct from the CD into QuickTime (Pro), then Export: Sound to AIFF at 48 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo, directly to the folder that you store your music on for your project. No need to involve iTunes at all, although iTunes does provide support for batch processing a whole bunch of files at once, which QT doesn't.

Scott

Scott, iTunes can convert AIFFs from CDs at 48kHz. Just go into Preferences - Advanced - Importing. Aside from batch processing, iTunes has one enormous advantage over QuickTime Player in this function, which is the ability to embed metadata (Artist, Album, Track Number, etc.) into AIFFs and MP3s it creates. This is invaluable when you're dealing with, say, 200 tracks from CDs you're using as a scratch-music library. That metadata even carries over onto other software and across platforms -- for example, I took 400 MP3s from my music library (all created with iTunes with complete metadata) into two PCs running Avid XPress, and you can still see all the titles, artist names, and where on which CD an MP3 came from. Invaluable.


www.derekmok.com

Right you are, Derek. Guess that shows how much I use iTunes for this purpose . Never thought about wanting metadata in my files, but I can see the value of what you're talking about.

Scott

> Never thought about wanting metadata in my files, but I can see the value of what you're
> talking about.

An iTunes database with complete metadata takes weeks and weeks to create. But once you've got the system set up, it's invaluable. Especially if you have 200 Megatraxx CDs with near-indistinguishable track titles. If you have a project where you cull tracks from 50 of these CDs, the metadata allows you to not have to separate each disc's contents into its own folder. You can just leave the tracks in their own folder, and the metadata will allow you to see which disc it came from.


www.derekmok.com