Avid-style Audio Mixdown

Hi everyone, I've been working in an Avid facility he past week and one of the tasks I've been asked to do is create split-track Quicktimes of the Timeline sequences and FTP these off to the audio guy.

I have a sequence with Video and say 24 tracks of audio, of which say, 1-19 are sync sound , narration and effects, 20-24 are music.

What I then do in Avid is mix/render everything that is NOT music (tracks A1-A19) down to one audio track, going out to the LEFT and everything that IS music (A20-A24) down to one track going out to the RIGHT.

I then make 2 Quicktimes:

One with vision, and the mixed-down non-music on track 1 (L) and the mixed-down music on track 2 (R)

One with vision, with just the mixed-down non-music on track 1 (L)

The question is, how do I do the same in FCP?

Thanks,

Marcus.

there's a better way to do this in FCP.

first, make sure all muisc, fx, etc are on seperate tracks.
i'm sure this is what you have

then, COPY your sequence.
(not essential, but always a good idea when you're about to mess with something)

open the sequence's settings, and go to the audio outputs tab.

for a simple 2-way split all you have to do is change "Stereo" to "Dual Mono"
if you had other elements, or for stereo music and stereo effects as separate stems, you would have to create another set of outputs.



ok, now go back to the timeline, and right or control click on or near the lock icon (left of timeline)
go to audio outputs, and choose either 1 (left) or 2 (right) for each track.

you'll notice there is no visual clue as to what your output is,
so to be sure, go back and double check all your assignments.

and that's pretty much it.
the cool thing is you can go back and change the audio output back to stereo, if you need to,
and if you then change back to dual mono, your assignment will still be there
(worked for me last time i tried)


to get your 2 versions, i'd suggest you COPY the sequence one more time,
open the copy, and go in and MUTE all the tracks you dont want.

you can now BATCH EXPORT the 2 versions.


nick

Just curious,
If this is going to an "audio guy" why can't you avoid all this work and just export OMF?
It sounds like you are mixing stereo music and effects into mono? Why?

the sound editors need guides of the audio in the timeline,
and often they need to be able to turn of certain elements.

for instance the dialogue editor doesn't want to hear the music or effects all the time,
but needs to know what they are doing.

one cool way i read about reecently was to simply make a QT with 6 tracks:
stereo dial, fx & music.
then whoever you give it to can pick and chose what they want to hear

cheers,
nick

Hi Nick, Thanks for your in-depth reply, that's exactly what I've been creating: guide audio for the sound guy. I'm not at my FCP station right now to walk through but I am still at my Avid station. I'm posting screenies from the Avid to show everybody what we're talking about and to act as a reference if somebody else stumbles across this in a search.

1 Select the non-music tracks to mixdown

2 Mixdown these audio tracks down to one track (mono) on the Left






3 Rinse and repeat for the music tracks




4 Creating the first Quicktime: Select the vision, (L) and (R) mono audio

and export as H.264(in Format Options)

5 Creating the second QuicKtime, just the mixed-downed sync-sound and fx track)
rinse and repeat the Quicktime Settings

Hopefully it works out as straightforward in FCP as it did in Avid.

so the mixdown can target a track, eh?
and you get a real clip there plus a new file in your media drive?
that's pretty cool.

(i hardly ever used avid, but what i see in it i like)

you could do something similar in FCP,
but what i suggested is perhaps a simpler way.


nick

FCP doesn't bounce audio tracks like that. I suppose you could nest them, but i recall there was a change in audio nesting behaviour in FCP 6.

In FCP, you can choose to render your audio at either item level or sequence level (this is the same as doing an audio mixdown). Audio mixdowns are usually used for going out to tape or when you're doing exports from FCP. I usually don't do any audio rendering until export, as FCP is usually capable of handling audio on-the-fly (different sample rates, bit rates, levels, eqs, etc...).

Another thing to note, is that FCP doesn't allow you to patch tracks to more than 1 bus (eg. dialogue tracks sent to output busses 1, 2 & 3; music tracks sent to output busses 1,2 & 4).

What I usually do, whenever I have to create separately assigned tracks on export..

1. I duplicate the sequence,

2. Enable only the dialogue tracks, run peak detection, mixdown audio, export dialogue as a stereo AIFF file. Then enable only the music tracks, run peak detection, mixdown, export music.. Then do the same for the sfx tracks.

3. After that, I delete all audio clips in the sequence, drag in the exported audio tracks.

4. Apple 0, to bring up sequence settings, set output to 4 channels (or however much you want, stereo or dual mono settings, etc...), assign the tracks in the timeline, export.

You can probably combine the different audio tracks in QTpro and skip steps 3 and 4.



www.strypesinpost.com

the important thing is

1. keep/put your elements on separate tracks.

this hold tru for any app.
as a note: i myslef only have the discipline to kep my elements to specific areas or groups of tracks as i edit.
that leaves me (or someone) with a bit of a chore come out-put time, but the freedom or the edit seems worth it.


2. using the audio outputs pane as a way to wrangle your audio outputs,
is probably the simplest way to, well... wrangle your audio outputs


oh... that's two things.


nm

Another thing to note... When you're combining a "stereo" pair of clips to a mono output, check the option to de-gain 6dBs. This will ensure that you do not get an audio boost which will happen when you merge 2 similar waveforms into 1 channel (dual power).



www.strypesinpost.com

Avid's audio tools are FAR SUPERIOR to FCP.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Avid's audio tools are FAR SUPERIOR to FCP.

How do you do sub-frame editing in the Media Composer? I've only been able to zoom in to a single frame.

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

Look at the SUB FRAME AUDIO EDITING tutorial found here:

[proappstuff.com]


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Quote

How do you do sub-frame editing in the Media Composer? I've only been able to zoom in to a single frame.

As far as I am aware you can't (not sure about v3), and totally disagree with Joey on the Avid audio controls - they suck cotton candy. The FCP audio controls and keyframes have always been superior to Avid's. Better waveforms and just much easier and quicker to use.

Avid was never designed to finish Audio properly with any finesse - thats what Pro Tools is for...

...then again neither is FCP - Soundtrack, Pro Tools, et al are available for a reason!



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

But of course... as someone pointed out on my 30th Birthday card...





For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

I agree 100% with you Ben. After working on an Avid show the last 3 months, Avid's audio tools kinda suck!!!

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

I know how in FCP. I don't think sub-frame editing is possible in Avid. I've been using the lastest MC version 3.0.5 on a Symphony Nitris DX

"Never underestimate a kick to the nuts"
Bas Rutten

Kinda?...

In general Avid kinda makes an octopus' tentacle look decidedly non-stick...



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

i don't know about SUB frame audio in Avid,
but they do have QUARTER frame (just like 35 film)

so much nicer for synching!


nick