Blog Archives

Way over on the left side of the Timeline are a set of gray buttons that very few people understand. However, when you know how to use the Patch Panel properly, you’ll be able to edit any clip to any track instantly. I use this ALL the time and can’t imagine editing without it. This tool is also essential when you want to make a video-only, or audio-only edit.

MS microphones are popular in documentary recording because they avoid problems with phase-cancellation. However, there is not an easy way to use them in Final Cut Pro — until now, that is, using this very simple technique.

When your audio mix is more complex than Final Cut can handle, this technique shows you how to export your audio using OMF, while keeping all your clips and handles intact.

Audio files are never lost, they’re just, um, misplaced. Soundtrack Pro automatically records files to a temporary location. Which means you can find your source files, even if there’s a crash. This article shows you how.

Does this happen to you? The audio waveforms don’t display in a Final Cut Pro 7 sequence when they should. Hitting option-apple-W simply brings up a series of Xs instead of a waveform. How do you get these back? By reading this article, which explains the problem and what you need to know to fix it.

Normally, audio is monitored off your deck or camera. However, if you need to listen to the audio during capture, Final Cut turns it off by default. This short tip shows you how to turn it on.

Final Cut Pro is two audio channels in, but up to 24 audio channels out. This article shows you how to get more than stereo from FCP.

By default, Final Cut outputs all audio as a stereo pair. However, Final Cut supports up to 24 discrete audio channels out — provided you know what to adjust and where to click. This article shows you how.

Increasingly, audio is being recorded in more than two tracks. However, Soundtrack Pro has a problem when dealing with more than two tracks. This article describes the problem, and a work-around that fixes it.

Multicam clips are new with FCP 5 and provide the ability to see multiple camera angles at the same time. However, while they are easy to use, they can be tricky to set up. This technique explains the steps you need to follow to get everything working smoothly.

In order to create a multiclip in Final Cut Pro, all the clips in it MUST match for codec, frame rate, and image size. They must also contain continuous, uninterrupted timecode.

Nesting is the process of placing one sequence inside another sequence. There are many reasons why this technique is useful. This article highlights several of them, including ways to fix problems when your nested audio does not appear.

Normalizing is one way to raise the gain of an entire clip without creating any over-modulation. Prior to FCP 6, only Soundtrack Pro could normalize. Now, FCP can, too. Here’s how.

All DV audio is not created the same. A client had a problem with the NS light lighting; finding the solution took a few days of phone calls. Here’s the scoop.

Understanding the Media Manager is critical to successfully recapturing media, whether for creating the highest quality final master, or for resurrecting an old project. But the Media Manager is not that intuitive. This article walks you through what you need to know for successfully recapturing your project.

Panning balances audio playback between the left and right speaker to position the audio in space. In this quick technique, learn three ways you can pan multiple clips in Final Cut Pro.

This is a quick tip illustrating how to make your dialog sound like it is coming over the telephone.

A good question regarding soundtrack transfer is submitted in this article and Larry explains the problem with how scripts process – or fail to process – clips

Here’s a technique you can use to slightly modify a voice so that it is no longer recognizable, yet still understandable. This is useful for disguising speakers, or commercial effects.

You have probably used Final Cut’s audio mixer to mix your audio tracks in real-time. Did you know you can do the same thing with audio filters? This technique shows you how.

Sometimes, especially when merging clips, you get more audio tracks in a Final Cut Pro timeline than you want. This article describes a couple of different ways you can get rid of them.

When you are working with multiple tracks of video, trimming clips on several tracks at once is essential. This article shows you how to trim multiple tracks quickly and accurately.

Even though Soundtrack Pro is, at its core, a surround-sound audio editing system, sometimes you just need mono (single-channel) audio out. The only problem is… how? This quick article explains what you need to know.

As we gear up for the 2010 NAB Show – where the Digital Production Buzz is the Official Podcast of the event – I thought you’d be interested in the gear we are using and how we are using it. Next month, I’ll report on what we did.

Have you ever wondered what that thin green line means at the top of some of your audio clips? Well, this short article let’s you in on the secret.

Here is a very slick technique to find audio in your sequence that’s distorting. It won’t fix it — but it will find it; and much, much faster than real-time.

The more I work with Soundtrack Pro 2, the more I like it. Recently, I spoke with Apple about STP and learn some quick facts I wanted to share with you here, including what gear you need to hear surround sound.

PPMs are something we never hear about in North America. All our audio is measured in dB. However, in Europe, PPM is THE standard of audio measurement — and Final Cut does not support it natively. This article explains what you need to know, and how to measure audio in PPMs.

MXF is the native format for a variety of HD video formats. However, it is not one that Final Cut Pro currently supports. This short article details what you need to know to get your QuickTime video into MXF format.

Normally, when you export a QuickTime movie from Soundtrack Pro, the audio travels with the video. But, not always. This article shows you what you need to know to export audio and video successfully from this audio editing software.

Asymmetric trimming allows you to trim the audio and video in opposite directions at the same time. I’m still not sure if this is a good or bad thing. Here’s how it works.

These ten suggestions on ways to improve your audio recording are excerpted from The Sound Effects Bible written by Ric Viers. If you are having problems getting your recording to sound the way you want, check out these tips.

Final Cut expects all cameras to shoot audio at 48 kHz. But, what happens when they don’t? Well, you get audio drifting out of sync, or no audio at all. Many low-end cameras record audio at 32 kHz. This technique shows you what you need to know to capture your audio accurately.

There are very few things that cause as much confusion to video editors as working with audio. In this technique, I show you a very efficient technique for structuring where to place audio in your timeline and suggest audio levels that can make your project sound GREAT! If you read only one audio article this month, this is the article to read!

One of the signs of getting older is that our hearing is not as sharp as it once was. So one of the things I do in my mixes is to be sure that I make things as clear and easy to understand as possible. This article walks you thru the specific steps you can take in Soundtrack Pro to make your audio as clear and distinct as possible.

When capturing from tape, Capture Now should always be your last choice, not your first. Sometimes, when using Capture Now, your audio may drift. If that happens, read this article.

This article shows the best way to get audio out of FCP so you can finish your mix in your favorite audio program.

Here’s a neat trick to make a constant speed change to a video clip without changing the sound of the audio.

This is a quick simple technique to automatically create keyframes for an audio filter. Basically, audio key-framing in real-time.

Audio in FCP is clip-based, rather than track-based. This article describes a variety of ways to change the levels of more than one clip at once.

Ever wonder what levels to set your reference tones to? Should you output tone at 0 dB, -12 dB,-18 dB, or -20 dB. In this discussion, Larry is joined by Woody Woodhall, president of Allied Post, to get a better understanding of the issue. And, yup, it’s just as confused as we thought!

Final Cut Pro hates compressed audio. This article explains the problems you will having working with it, as well as providing a simple conversion process that solves the problem.

Using Pro Tools to mix your Final Cut Pro project is a great way to achieve excellent audio. However, there are some tricks you need to understand in this process, as explained here.

Setting the correct audio recording levels on a video camera is crucial to obtaining the best sound during production. This short article explains some of the choices and what you need to know.

Here is a great trick to solve one of the features of FCP that drives me nuts — we can’t slip keyframes. But, here, in this article, I’ll show you an undocumented way to slip audio keyframes. Very cool and very quick.

It’s easy to create burned-in timecode for video clips. But what about visible timecode for audio clips? The answer is “maybe,” but probably not.

Every clip in Final Cut supports up to three timecode tracks — a primary and two auxilliary tracks. This article describes how to access them, change the timecode they contain, and idea on what to use them for.

I am not a testing organization, but, recently, Jon Schilling over at CalDigit (www.caldigit.com) sent me a 500 GB SATA RAID to examine (Model #S2VR Duo).

One of the common problems that inexperienced Final Cut editors run into is audio that slowly drifts out of sync. While the problem may appear to be within Final Cut Pro, the cause is actually due to mismatched audio sample rates between the video you shot and the way you are capturing it. What makes this worse is that many consumer cameras default to an audio sample rate of 32 kHz, while Final Cut expects 48 kHz. In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll explain what an audio sample rate is and how to change your Final Cut settings to capture your audio accurately.

It’s late at night, you are wrapping up a project. Just when you think you can go home, you discover that your final export from Soundtrack Pro, doesn’t sync with your final export from Final Cut Pro. Grrr!! Now what? This article explains a very nifty technique that solves that problem in short order.