Audio EDL for feature

Okay, so we cut a feature on final cut pro (newest version). no longer have an editor on, so i am doing this myself. i'm fairly good with FCP, but Cinema Tools is not my forte.

we have locked picture and color corrected. we are now exporting deliverable to the sound house for sound editing and mixing.

they want a sound EDL. here's the thing:

An audio mixdown was recorded on the camera tape, and that was used to edit.

We also have all the original sound rolls (with 8 isolated tracks) as digital WAV files with TC.

That TC matches our smart slates at the head of each take.

So i get that -- in theory -- the editor should have built a database as all the clips were imported, where they input the audio TC so it matched with the smart slates, and then all we'd have to do it make an audio EDL from FCP and it would all be good. they did not create that database however. so now i'm facing the whole daunting feature and trying to figure out the most efficient plan.

Is there another way to do this now? For only the clips that are in the final locked sequence?

Or better yet, is there some software that does it?

I may be way off here, but you know that program on iPhone, "Shazam", that looks at the digital waveform of a sound file and can match it with a database and tell you the artist and song?

Is there something like that where you can lay out an audio OMF of your locked picture, tell it where your original sound is, and it creates, in effect, a "sound online" with all your iso audio tracks? if not, there should be.

help and suggestions welcome.

thanks,
sam

Are you saying that the timeline audio mixdown was exported to tape then reimported and layed out as a work track, and you want to pull original TC from that?

the timeline audio mixdown came straight from the P2 imports- the video and sound were together. the TC references the video TC.

what i need to do it link it to the audio TC.... which is embedded in the audio WAV files that i have on a separate drive from the audio mixer.

As a test, can you copy a TC value from the timeline and paste it into a viewer with the appropriate .wav loaded and get the correct result?

You want to link the EDL to audio that you don't have in the timeline? I'm confused. How can you do that? The editors should have synced the audio before they cut if they wanted to use it. Sure, the TC matches the smart slates, but unless the audio was added to the footage, I don't see how you can reference it.


www.shanerosseditor.com

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

i think there is a way.

if the WAV TC matches the smart slate,
does that also mean that the WAV TC matches the Video TC?

if thats the case, then you should be able to create a video edit that matches your audio edit.
then export an EDL.

to create a vdieo edit that matches your audio edit,
make a copy of your sequence,
delete all the video, and i guess, all but one track of audio
go through the timeline, parking on the head of each audio clip,
hit f to match frame, (original slate with video & audio should load in the viewer)
F10 to overwrite.

for safety, set your target tracks to NOT overwrite the audio you are match-framing from.



if the smart slate does NOT match the video TC, then you can add the smart slates TC to each clip's aux TC,
then make an EDL using the AUX TC.

i think this would be less work than creating a new CinemaTooos database.

to do it,
copy the fine cut sequences into a new project.
delete all the video
select the sequences in the browser, go to Tools menu > "Create Master clips".

this should give you a folder of all the clips that were used for audio.
you also get music clips, sound fx etc, but it should be easy to ignore those.
it might be simpler to work one sequence a a time: select a sequence in the browser, then Create Master Clips.


get all the video clips,
and lay them onto a new timeline.
double click the first into the viewer,
find the slate,
modify menu > timecode. (you are going to be doing this a lot, so create a shortcut for it)
type in the audio TC to the AUX TC field.

when you've done that, stay in the viewer & hit the down arrow to take you to the next clip.

when you've done all this,
in the browser, open up the TC field,
select all your clips
and set the TC filed to "Aud TC"

now when you make an EDL it should reference the Aux TC, which is now the Audio TC.

i'd suggest testing a few shots first to see if it works.
i'd love to hear what you do in the end & how it all works out


cheers,
nick

oh, the last method wont work if the clips are SUBCLIPS from one master roll.
the AUX TC is carried in the metadata of the FILE, so changing one subclip will change them all.

you'd have to use CinemaTools in that case.


nick