Does FCP allow outputting a 2 channel stereo track to mono? Should I convert with Compressor or Soundtrack Pro instead?

Thanks,
Alex

well you can select all in the timeline and Control . (full-stop) to pan every thing to the centre. (make a copy of you sequence first)
then you'll get a dual-mono export.
two tracks, both of them exactly the same.

if you really want one track export with quicktime conversion,
and in the sound settings, chose mono.
problem is you'll be re-compressing your video.

so what is the point of this mono export?
what is the final destination?

if it's for the web, just export as a normal QuickTime movie,
and do what you need to in compressor to both the picture AND audio.


nick

Out put to self contained QT

Import to STP (sound track pro)

Export a mono file.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

or simply use 1 zero panned track in fcp. look at the wave one is bigger than the other. use the big one by deleting the other smaller wav track.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

J. Corbett, I think the STP rec looks simple and might give me less chance of messing things up, thanks!

Nick, final destination is an NTSC HDcam for the USA and they need track 3 to be Mono mix and track to be Mono mix without dialogue. Honestly I have no idea why :-p

This is great info thanks! :-)

>Nick, final destination is an NTSC HDcam for the USA and they need track 3 to be Mono mix and
>track to be Mono mix without dialogue. Honestly I have no idea why

They always do that. The reason is because they may want to create foreign language versions.

Sequence settings, under audio outputs, set it to 4 tracks. The first two leave them as stereo, for channels 3&4, select "dual mono". Go back to the timeline, on the left of the timeline, right click and assign audio tracks.



www.strypesinpost.com

yeah but MONO?
doesn't HDCAM have 16 tracks?

it would be far better to have the full stereo mix and the stereo M&E

if it's just the mono AUDIO track only, you can just export from FCP as QuickTIme Conversion.


nick

You're probably right. These are the specs I was told to follow. Btw, this is my first gig as paid editor :-p

NTSC
Track 1: Left channel stereo
Track 2: Right channel stereo
Track 3: Mono mix in English (This differs from previous versions of these specs)
Track 4: Mono mix without dialogue/narration/words (This may change)

PAL
Audio Track 1: Stereo Full Mix Left
Audio Track 2: Stereo Full Mix Right
Audio Track 3: Stereo Full Mix minus dialogue Left
Audio Track 4: Stereo Full Mix minus dialogue Right

I guess your philosophy is more in tune with the rest of the world. Us NTSC folks have to do things differently :-p

I believe Alex was talking about your usual broadcast submissions- eg. track 1 & 2 full mix, track 3 mono mix, track 4 music only. I think HDCAM has 4 tracks. HDCAM SR has 12. Need confirmation, as I can't recall off hand.


>yeah but MONO?

Assign track 3 & 4 to channel 3, reduce levels by -6dBs so they don't clip, you get mono on channel 3 going out to tape. Then assign 5 & 6 to channel 4, and you get mono on 4.

Set tracks to dual mono in sequence settings, and you get to assign to individual channels. Set it to stereo, and L channel goes to odd number track on tape, and R channel goes to the even number track.



www.strypesinpost.com

>I guess your philosophy is more in tune with the rest of the world. Us NTSC folks have to do
>things differently

Just the timecodes. Friggin' weird timecodes though... Start at 2 frames, except for 10/20/30 mins.



www.strypesinpost.com

of course!
this is a much better way.
you can lay your mixes into the timeline, set the audio outputs appropriately,
and lay the whole thing off in one go.

well it's FASTER, but as you wouldn't be properly monitoring the audio it may not be better.
i haven't had to do these sorts of things myself.

(the NTSC way does seem to be a bizarre approach)


nick

strypes, you are like a goodie box that keeps getting bigger.

That is a very excellent way to handle the audio. I dont do out-to very much but i had never looked in the options for audio in fcp that much.

NICE

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

>(the NTSC way does seem to be a bizarre approach)

The specs are station specific. I've done mono mixes, but they're usually voice only and music only tracks.



www.strypesinpost.com

I will confirm that HDCAM has only 4 channels and HDCAM SR has 12. Just dealt with that issue on the Canada Day broadcast form Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

J.Corbett Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> or simply use 1 zero panned track in fcp. look at
> the wave one is bigger than the other. use the big
> one by deleting the other smaller wav track.

That will work, providing that the content is identical in the L and R tracks, but unfortunately, this will not work if the content is different, and in my experience, 9 times out of 10, it IS different in some respect.
Better to pan both tracks to center, and export that way instead.

Quote
Strypes
"Assign track 3 & 4 to channel 3, reduce levels by -6dBs so they don't clip, you get mono on channel 3 going out to tape. Then assign 5 & 6 to channel 4, and you get mono on 4.

Set tracks to dual mono in sequence settings, and you get to assign to individual channels. Set it to stereo, and L channel goes to odd number track on tape, and R channel goes to the even number track."

3 questions:
1. I always end up with 2 mono audio tracks and the 2nd one is empty. So far I've just deleted the 2nd track and use the 1st track. Is that how is should be?
2. When I compare the audio levels of the mono track to the original stereo track under the FCP audio meter, the mono track seems to read 6db higher than the Stereo. Is this normal? I followed Strypes instructions of reducing levels by -6dBs.
3. When I export to AIFF, FCP always adds a "-1" to the filename. Any way to avoid that? Or is this just FCP trying to avoid overwriting files? FCP seems to do that even though I don't have any files with a similar name.

Thanks!

1.
yes thats to be expected.
you are exporting 2 tracks, but one has nothing on it.

2.
that seems odd, but i don't really have an answer.

3.
the -1 it the TRACK NUMBER, i'm pretty sure, so no way to avoid it.


cheers,
nick

1. Cool, just wanted to make sure.

2. The stereo track hits -18db while the mono track hits -12db. I'm wondering if it compensates for only being 1 track by being louder. As I said, I followed Strypes instructions of reducing levels by -6dBs on the Audio output under sequence settings.

3. Understood, that make sense.

Thanks again Nick!

>1. I always end up with 2 mono audio tracks and the 2nd one is empty. So far I've just deleted
>the 2nd track and use the 1st track. Is that how is should be?

It depends on what your settings are. "mono", actually means one track. "Stereo" means you get two channels, with the first channel assigned as "left" and the second as "right", and usually the tracks are ganged together. In FCP, if you assign your master mix as "dual mono", you can assign your output tracks individually. If you had a stereo mix, they will go out as two identical mono channels.


>I'm wondering if it compensates for only being 1 track by being louder.

It's not an FCP compensation, but rather, physics. When you combine two identical waveforms in phase, the volume goes up 6dBs. If they are 180 degrees out of phase, they cancel each other out.


>3. When I export to AIFF, FCP always adds a "-1" to the filename.

Yea. If you export aiff and you set the export as "channel group", you will get the "-1-2" extension. If you export as stereo, the tracks will be stereo linked.



www.strypesinpost.com