Rejoining audio to clips

Hi there. I'm hoping there's a fairly painless way to fix this.

I didn't think I'd need the audio for many of the clips in my timeline, so I left off the audio track when dragging clips to the timeline. Now I'd like to have the audio for some of these clips. Dumb move.

Is there a quick way with "match frame" or something I don't know about to somehow restore the audio to the clips in the timeline? They're all about 10 seconds with in and out points.

Thanks for any assistance ...

PC

Yep. It's called match frame.

Park your playhead on the first frame of your clip. Hit an X to mark the full duration of that clip.
Next hit F. That will load the clip in the viewer with the first fame of your sequence clip under the timeline. If there are existing marks on the clip you clear them with Option-X.

Set your track patching, turn off video, make sure that the audio channel or channels you want are set to the proper destination tracks and hit F10 (overwrite).

Pretty simple.

-V

> Next hit F. That will load the clip in the viewer with the first fame of your sequence clip under
> the timeline. If there are existing marks on the clip you clear them with Option-X.

I'd have to beg to differ, Vance. Clearing In and Out points on the Match Frame clip defeats the very point of using Match Frame. Match Frame calls up the clip in your timeline, with In and Out points preserved and audio (if the master clip has it) comes back. If you clear them, then you'd be inserting the full master clip into your timeline, rather than just the piece you used.

> Park your playhead on the first frame of your clip. Hit an X to mark the full duration of that clip.

No need to do that either, unless you have overlapping clips...in which case you should be using either Arrow or Group Select to choose the clip you want, not X.

By the way, Paul, your situation is not uncommon, and you didn't necessarily do it the wrong way. If your initial editing decision were to leave out the sync sound, it's cleaner to delete the audio. But if you're on the fence next time, one good way to turn off the audio without deleting the clips is to select all of them and press CONTROL-B (Clip Enable/Disable). This allows you to keep the clips in the timeline, but they become invisible -- won't end up on the video/audio track. And if you decide you want them all back, just select them all and press CONTROL-B again. This method is far better than using the audio track on/off buttons, which indiscriminately disable the entire track, even if you have clips farther down that track that you do want to keep.


www.derekmok.com

Works great.

The only hitch I see is that I lose any filters etc. on my timeline clip when I overwrite it.

Solution would be to copy timeline clip, overwrite with the audio, then paste attributes on the new version?

> The only hitch I see is that I lose any filters etc. on my timeline clip when I overwrite it.
> Solution would be to copy timeline clip, overwrite with the audio, then paste attributes on the
> new version?

You can do that if it works for you, but it'd be much easier to just turn off the Source/Destination button for the video (the big silver button to the left) so that when you Match Frame and edit the clip back in, only audio goes in.


www.derekmok.com

You could do it that way, but part of Vance's instruction was "turn off video" before hitting F10, so that the existing video portion wouldn't be overwritten. You can do that by un-patching video, or locking that track, to prevent video overwrite. Unfortunately, FCP doesn't have a better way of sending audio-only to the timeline if there is already video with it in the viewer.

Scott

Great minds, same wavelength, etc.

Beats the heck out of copying and pasting attributes.

Many thanks for excellent and speedy advice.

Paul

Derek-

I just did a test to check what you were talking about. I had thought that when you did a match it called the clip with the last marks you used. I am surprised and pleased to learn that the clip called into the viewer is marked to match the sequence use you are calling with the match frame. That knocks a couple of keystrokes out of the process I would normally use. Thanks.

-Vance

FYI, this very topic was just covered in the FCP6 class I'm taking at my local community college, which uses the book: Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 - by Diana Weynand. It is in chapter 7 of this book. It's a very good and thorough book and it's very easy to follow. I recommend it.

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

Also, you don't need to be parked on a specific frame. Any frame of the clip you want to match will do. It's really a lovely feature.

So, unpatch the video lines, and as long as you playhead is somewhere over your clip in the sequence, hit f, then f10. Then repeat for each clip.

Aside from relinking the audio to the clips -- which started this thread in the first place -- what other sorts of situations does this feature come in handy for?

I often use it to find a source clip so I can get more footage from that clip.

In really large projects it gets hard to keep track of where every shot is, but I often know, for eg, that any clip containing an interviewee will link to the whole interview. So, I just use the sequence clip to source the original and grab a new clip from it.

> what other sorts of situations does this feature come in handy for?

Match Frame is a very versatile tool. Just off the top of my head:

If your clip is really screwed up for reasons you can't find -- unnatural distortion of the shape, wrong filters, etc. -- you can use Match Frame to remove everything.

Sometimes the reference clip in the timeline gets corrupted -- not the media itself, but the relationship. Using Match Frame to re-edit the clip back in is one of the troubleshooting steps you can do.

A quick alternative way to make a duplicate of a clip. Especially if you want the filters, settings etc. on the duplicate to be different from the original. For example, if you duplicate a clip on top of itself for brightening, matting, and other applications. Using Match Frame to make copies means you don't have to deal with the Auto-Select buttons.

When trying to re-edit a clip and your new In point needs to be after your current Out point. Double-clicking the clip in the timeline, the actual reference clip will open and will not permit you to set an In point after an Out point -- the timeline clip will shrink to one frame long and mess with you. In those cases, you Match Frame to do the re-edit. While the Slip tool can also do this, the Slip tool doesn't allow you to watch the clip in the Viewer in real time while redoing the edit points.

Similar to Jude's point, when cutting music. you will often want pieces from different parts of the music clip. Rather than look in the Browser, you can Match Frame the pre-existing piece. Audio Scrubbing in the Viewer is better than in the timeline, allowing you to do loops and restructuring faster.


www.derekmok.com

Great suggestions.

I've been using "reveal master clip" to locate clips in a big project, but the are times when it can't seem to find the clip.

Using match frame is fewer steps, and you start out with the identical clip right away.

Great suggestions.

I've been using "reveal master clip" to locate clips in a big project, but the are times when it can't seem to find the clip.

Using match frame is fewer steps, and you start out with the identical clip right away.

Match frame also works in reverse. In other words, you can have a clip/frame in the viewer and want to know if it was used in the timeline. Press "f" and the playheads of the timeline and canvas window will move to that frame, if it was used. Otherwise, you'll get a beep and no frame will appear in the canvas window. BTW, the menu way to do it is View -> Match Frame -> Master Clip.

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

>Sometimes the reference clip in the timeline gets corrupted -- not the media itself, but the
>relationship.

I really wish there was a way to fix this. It happens often enough be irritating.

>Match frame also works in reverse.

I tried it. doesn't work if the shot was loaded from the browser. It's rare to have a clip in the viewer that was loaded from the timeline and not know where the clip is...

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> >Match frame also works in reverse.
>
> I tried it. doesn't work if the shot was loaded
> from the browser. It's rare to have a clip in the
> viewer that was loaded from the timeline and not
> know where the clip is...


Hmmm...

I think there might have been a misunderstanding here. The clip in the viewer would be one loaded from the browser.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "in reverse" because this is actually the way it's intended to be used. (edit: well, I guess that depends on where you start reading about it!)

See page I-82 of the FCP6 users manual:
[manuals.info.apple.com]

I hope quoting the manual isn't a no-no here but the section on match frame says, "Show Match Frame (F): When you click this button, Final Cut Pro searches the current
sequence for the same frame shown in the Viewer." You can read your/the manual to see the rest. In fact, if you have used the frame more than once in your sequence it'll go to each one as you press "f".

When you say, "doesn't work" what do you mean? What happens? Where are you loading the clip from. Are you absolutely sure it's in the sequence?

I would have to say, "Uh... yeah... of course it's rare to have a clip in the viewer, loaded from the time line and now know where the clip is". Duh.

I will verify tomorrow in class that the manual is right but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be there if it didn't work.

--
Eric Harnden
Quintessential Studios
---------------------------------
[wordpress.quintessentialstudios.net]
[twitter.com]

works for me, strypes.

i do this a bit with my current workflow.

on this doco we've got a lot of 2 camera footage.
lot's of buttoning on/off, too, so multiclips aren't an attractive option.

for the most part i manage to work with the 2 tracks stacked,
but every now and then one side can go missing.
then i match frame from the timeline,
shift-f to locate the clip in the viewer where the 2tk rushes sequence also is
open that
go to the viewer and match back.
that takes me to that frame on the new timeline.


nm

Hmm... Could be something with FCP 5.1.4. I hit shift F, deselect the clip and move the playhead somewhere else in the timeline, select the clip from the browser, hit "f", and i get the buzzer. Just tried it again, and some clips seem to work...