Sound Designing in FCP

I'm doing a little sound design on a small project that must stay in-house, so I do not have access to a DAW. I have to do all the mixing within FCP. I am trying to keep the mix down to 10 channels, but am still getting ignored keyframes, dropouts and artifacting, not just during playback, but in the renders as well. Settings, tips, tricks, anecdotes please!

I used 14-16 audio tracks on my G4 and G5 easily. You must set the audio playback quality to lowest to keep from getting those beeps and a red render bar.
Your audio mix isn't causing any of your dropped frame problems so you've got start a new timeline with a single video track that's as close to golden as possible. do your audio design here and then mix it down to a single set of stereo tracks and bring it back in to your main sequences.
Or learn how to use Soundtrack Pro which you have. It's a nightmare all of its own because it's so alien to us video guys, but, if you're in the sound design business, you might as well dive in.
bogiesan

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Best export option for Sound Designer

Hi everyone,
I am working on a new short film and I am working with a Sound Designer and composer. We want to create a 5.1 mix for the film (which I have never done before). So I am trying to figure out what would be the best export option for him to work with to make his life easier.
Providing him with just a ProRes export won't help him match up to my cuts in the time line since he doesn't use FCP X. So my thought is that we will have matching files and folder structure for both video and audio before I start editing. But what I am not understanding is once I have a complete rough cut, how do I get him a cut list so that he can totally match up my cuts with the same audio files on his system?
Any advice?
Thanks.

See this pic for an example of how my exports turn out:
http://www.brettmichaelwiesman.com/temp/qtexport.jpg
First off, the titling style is not ideal for DV (or DVD). That is, your font should be a bit fatter (or, at least, bold) and perhaps 1-2 point sizes larger. (This is all because the DV codec makes titles look like s--t if the font size is small and narrow)
Also, for your LiveType files, make sure FCP is interpreting your alpha channel correctly. For every LiveType file placed in your timeline, select it, then press Command-9 to bring up the Item Properties dialog. In the column for Alpha, make sure it says it says Black. If, for instance, it reads Straight, Control-click [right-click] on Straight, then select Black from the contextual menu. You should notice your text 'popping out' a little more. You'll have to re-render, of course.
Also, in QuickTime Player, press Command-, (that's  + comma) to bring up QT's preferences. Make sure that the box for Use High Quality Video Setting when available is checked. (In order to get this working, it's probably best to set this, then restart QT - or close, then open, all movies). With the High Quality flag always used, your titling should always look better in QT player. (That is, there is no change made to your actual file, but at least when previewing, you'll get a better idea of things)
After you've made these changes, export as you were (Current Settings) and let us know if you see any improvements.

Preparing sequence for sound design

Hi Folks,
I just fnished editing a short film and am about to work with a sound designer who is asking me to give him the following:
An OMF2 file of the audio and a .mov, including a count down w 2 pip and time code.
_Okay, here are my silly 2 questions:_
1. The short film that I finished has no sound at all. The sound designer will include sound effects. Is there any reason why I should give him an OMF file? (I guess not.)
2. How can I create a count down with 2 pip. What is that exactly? Is it a time code generator that is inside FCP? What is 2 pip?
Thanks in advance!
Hisham

A silent movie? Yeah, kinda pointless handing him an OMF of that
You can create your own simple leader countdown by manually cutting together some 1 second long text elements containing the necessary "10", "9", "8" etc (and stopping at "2") or you can download a pre-made one .. there's a free one here: http://www.deepmagicstudios.com/FCP/
A 2 pop is a one or two frame beep that that occurs exactly 2 seconds before your first frame (so for you that would be at 09:59:58:00) ... you can make this using the tone from FCP's built in Bars and Tone generator

Looking for sound designer for a survival horror game

Hi all,
We are looking for a talented sound designer to help make atmospheric ambient soundtracks and sound effects. Our current project, Nightfall, is an atmospheric horror oriented game that is focused on provoking many different emotions from our players. Your job would be to help provoke these emotions through rich ambient soundtracks and sound effects that add life and depth to our game. If your interested in making great descriptive soundtracks and sounds that evoke a range of different feelings, from raising the hair on the back of peoples necks to creating a feeling of great happiness, then please send an email to [email protected]
We could really use your help!
Regards,
TransmuteGames

maybe you can look at their emu product

Buying a new Macbook Pro for sound design - is the 2.7GHz upgrade worth it?

Hi everyone,
I'm in my final year of sound design and I will be using Logic, Max MSP, Traktor, Ableton, Maschine, softsynths, some hardware and large sfx libraries. I will be using this computer as a source of income for the next three years and I'm finding it very difficult making decisions for the upgrade with purchase. I've decided not to go with the retina display as I'm going to be buying a separate monitor/s anyway. I will be getting the 15-inch Macbook Pro.
Is the upgrade from 2.6 - 2.7GHz worth it? I've decided against SSD at this point as I think I need the capacity more than anything. I could upgrade to SSD in the future if necessary. But I can't decide between the 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 7200 rpm or the 1TB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm - should I forgo the 250gig for the 7200 rpm speed? Any advice welcome thanks!

It depends on whether your productivity is limited by CPU bandwidth. If it is, then you should easily recoup the cost of the upgrade over the life of the machine. If not, you won't.

Ask a CS Pro: Intro to Sound Design with Adobe Audition

In this week’s Ask a CS Pro session, Senior Solutions Engineer Colin Smith will provide an introduction to sound design, including matching audio levels, adding foley, understanding effects and mastering for output to video with Adobe Audition CS5.5.
When: Friday, Aug. 26
Time: 12 p.m. -1p.m. PT Session start time for other time zones: http://bit.ly/pb0W9h
Where: Connect Room: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/askcspro
The room will open up 15 minutes before the session starts.
Update: A link to the session, along with links to more information about the topics covered, is provided in this blog post on Inside Sound.

I don't think this will be on Adobe TV, but you can view the Adobe Connect recording of the session here:
http://bit.ly/askcspro_0826
If the audio stream doesn't play, or loses synch, try moving the playhead forward/backward a bit. That should kick it back into synch.
I plan to have a little guide to the session, along with some helpful links, posted later today.

Problems with sound in the FCP

I have a mpg movie that was created in another software Studio 14. I transfer the file to my HD and it plays fine video and sound.
I need to edit it and I imported it into a FCP project.
The video is fine, but there is no sound at all.
Any suggestions to solve the problem?

MPEG files are typically multiplexed (muxed audio and video) and must be converted prior to importing into FCP. MPEG Streamclip can handle most of those tasks; use it to convert the MPEG file into a format that will exactly match your Sequence settings in FCP.
-DH

Mute all sound out of FCP

How do I mute all sound coming out of FCP. Not on an individual sequence or clip. All the time. Is there an 'Mute All' button or option anywhere?
Thanks

Back in the day...
I had a mini headphone jack adapter that wasn't hooked to any headphones. I'd just pop that in the audio jack on the front of my computer and leave it there. That was back when you couldn't turn the startup sound off.
Maybe that would work for you too. You know... those iPod ear buds only seem to work for so long before they crud out... I've got a mess of them that I never use anymore... I'd just cut the end off one of those... hmmm... sounds like an eBay sale for sure!!!
CaptM

!! Sound Studio / AIFF / FCP : Poorly rendered files in timelilne

I will try to describe my problem the best I can...
-Imported AIFF audio files into FCP (these files were generated in Sound Studio).
When I drag these files into the viewer, they sound fine.
-Pulled these audio files into my time line.
-Rendered them.
-The rendered audio files are barely audible. When I open the rendered audio clips from my time line in the viewer, they still sound awful whereas the unrendered files, which are still in my browser, sound OK.
Any idea why this would be happening?
Thanks for your help and please let me know if you need more details.
Maryam
IMAC 5,1
Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz processor
2GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
150 GB Drive (79.5 GB remaining)
OS 10.4.10
FCP 5.0
Sound Studio 2.1
Panasonic PVGS200 Camera
Quick Time 7.2.0 (player version 7.2)

Here's the info on the particular audio clip that's troubling me:
-Audio rate: 44.1 KHz
-Audio format: 16 bit integer
-Data rate: 172.3 k/s
What's strange is that I have music files with the same audio rate (44.1) that render and play normally. Only the audio format is different:
-Audio rate: 44.1 KHz
-Audio format: 32 bit floating point
-Data rate: 45.8 k/sec
Any idea how I can "convert" the troublesome audio clip? When you say " they will need to be rendered" I assume you are referring to a different type of rendering and not FCP's typical rendering (Sequence/Render/Render all)?
Thanks for your help so far. I really do appreciate it.

Sound waves in FCP

Hi there,
I am sort of stuck...
When I opened my project today, I realized that I don't see the sound waves any more in the viewer, even after double click on the sound tracks....
Can someone tell me what I did wrong to "hide" them ?
Also, when I double click I get vertical bars at each locations, instead of only one at the place at want to work...
Thanks in advance.
Ivan

To make this option stick for future projects, go to USER PREFERENCES and select the TIMELINE OPTIONS TAB and check SHOW AUDIO WAVEFORMS.
rh

Sound design: How to create a buzzing resonance?

Hi forum,
I'm trying to simulate the sound of this African instrument called Dzi. It's basically a marimba with gourd resonators that add a kind of buzzing sound. Marimba samples are easy to come by, but I've had a hard time adding the buzzing element. I've spent a few hours with Sculpture, but never even got close. Does anyone have any advice? Other ways to think about the sound I'm trying to get to are: The buzzing vibrations of a coin on a drum after you hit the drum (or a wooden bar); or the buzzing when you slap a ruler with one edge held to a desk, or even blowing on a comb with paper wrapped around. Any ideas?
I need to end up with a full-range sample instrument, so it would be nice to use a software instrument for this, rather than recording and layering and making all the zones from audio files.
Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I ended up using a second sample from a EMU soundfont (a drum called Bendir which has a buzzing rattle-kind sound), used a high-pass to get rid of the drum part, and added the sound to the Xylophone sound.
The distortion idea, by the way, sounded pretty neat, it was just difficult to get the distorted sound to appear significantly different from the original. All sorts of processing (including pitching down) still ultimately couldn't hide the fact that the sound came from the same sample, not from a different sound "generator" of the same instrument.
So thanks again to everybody for helping me think this through and come up with such elegant solutions.

Notice: Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Sound Designer Jennifer Ralston, tonight at 6pm PST

I wanted to make folks aware that Jennifer Ralston, a sound engineer for many amazing films, television shows, and video games, will be answering questions tonight on Reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/LocationSound/comments/1xny6q/jennifer_ralston_ama_sound_departeme nt_the_big/
Jennifer has a pretty impressive set of projects she's been involved with, at least several of my favorites.
Foley editor:
The Big Lebowski
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Supervising sound editor, dialogue editor, ADR supervisor:
The Wire
Foley supervisor / sound effects editor - uncredited:
Boys Don't Cry
Sound effects editor / supervising foley editor:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Her IMDB profile is available at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004221/

FCP v 5.1.4 & bwf sound files

Hi,
I'm about to cut a short film, shot on super 16mm, 24 fps and I'll be using FCP v5.1.4. Can this version import the original timecodes from .bwf files?
Thanks.

Hi Jerry,
Thanks for your advice. Sometimes when importing .wav's, older versions of FCP don't recognise the original timecode, it seems to default all the start timecodes at 00:00:00:00. I need to keep the original sound timecode (metadata) for the sound designer to work with later on (probably with pro tools)
Unfortunately, I won't be using FCP 6, it will be 5.1.4. Have spent all day searching online but can't seem to find a definitive answer.

Just installed FCP 10.1.2 and my FCP sound effects folder is missing

I just downloaded and installed FCP X 10.1.2 and was noticing that under Music and Sound that my FCP sound effects folder is missing. Any suggestions as to how to get it on there. Thanks for any help.

Yes i went to additional content, it said everything up to date. I also did the quit FCP and then start Garage Band and quit it and restarted FCP still no FCP sound effects folder

Royalty free music is not syncing with FCP? HELP!!!

Hey Everyone,
So this is an odd one. I've stepped in to help a friend who can't get the audio to line up from Royalty Free Music to sync with the video timeline of his project. It's a ballroom workout dvd where it's all one take. They used the mp3's downloaded from Royalty free Music.com and imported them into the timeline. What's odd is the tempo goes in and out of time with the dancer (who certainly isn't the issue with tempo). So it seems as if the tempo speeds up some and then is a little slower. They filmed this with only her mic on, and the dancer listening to a Sansa mp3 player.
My first fix was to convert all mp3's in QT to AIFF files. When I relined them up...same issue. One song would seem a little more in tempo, then another would seem off.
I would have also thought perhaps a processor issue on their Mac. Same issue with my PowerMAc and MacBook Pro. So I don't think that's it.... WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!!!???
Please help...thanks!

Hi -
The weak link in all of this appears to me to be the Sansa Mp3 player. It was not designed, nor should it have been, to maintain accurate speed playback. It is highly likely it was speed drifting during the duration of the playback. Even if it is 99% accurate, it would still be a second out of sync for every 100 seconds of playing - which is very apparent of syncing dance moves.
If you have ever seen or participated in a professional production in which music playback is an essential part, you will see the great lengths taken to preserve sync on the set and in the edit bay = with specialized audio playback devices that lock to the camera.
Also, I assuming that the talent listened to the Mp3 player with in ear headphones while the microphone was left open to record voice, so that you do not have a recording of the music in the clear to use in the edit and must use the sound files.
Two suggestions:
1) If the Sansa Mp3 player still has the material on it, hook it up to a camera and record the player playing the music to videotape. If you are very lucky, the player may playback in a similar way (with similar drifts in speed) to when it played back to the shoot. Digitize that video tape and see if the audio syncs any better. Most likely it won't, but this is worth a try and can be done fairly easily and is worth a shot.
2) Manually sync the head of each song, then see how far off it is at the end. You can adjust the playing speed of the sound file in FCP (with the new speed change window, you can just enter a new duration) and you will have to go through and keep adjusting until you get an acceptable level of sync. If the songs were crossfaded, you will need to establish sync then re-do the cross fades between the correctly synced tracks.
Hope this helps.

Sound Designing in FCP

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