Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Audio Sync with Timecode FCPX

E

Ethan Cooper

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 14, 2007
Messages
705
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Keller, Tx
Alright, so I've got my Epic synced to my audio recorder and now I'm ready to bring it all into FCPX and hit a magic button and watch it all sync. Except I can't without going through some multicam workaround kludge that I have no desire to be a part of if I can help it.

Fine then, so I open the clips in RCX and use it's magic button to sync the audio to the clips. Hurray, it works. So now I go back into FCPX, import the clips and um, well wait a second, why don't I have the synced audio & only have the reference audio from the Epic.

Anyone know what step I'm missing to get the synced clips from RCX to FCPX?
 
A FCP-XML export of a timeline doesn't include secondary audio for some reason unknown. It would be extremely handy since auto synch works so well in RCX.

Have you tried exporting a BWAV sidecar along with an R3D trim? It didn't work for me when trying to pare down a timeline with more than one track, but it may work for you if you only have an assembly timeline.
 
I don't think your video elements can have embedded audio, since it can't relink or reconnect just audio or just video, at least that was a limitation in the previous FCPX versions I've tried. It only worked if there was no embedded audio.
 
Thanks for the answers guys, I had hoped to hear something else but I guess it's back to the multicam workaround in FCPX or just old fashioned lining up the timecode of the audio and video.
 
That really sucks in older versions of FCP X you could manually change the way it way it auto synced, I didn't even see the that apple changed the auto sync. Have you tried synchronize clips option-command-G in FCP X?
 
Synchronize clips doesn't as far as I can tell allow you to use timecode from the audio. Unless I've just missed something which is easy to do in FCPX since little check boxes tend to be hidden in places you don't expect.

This is especially frustrating since you can auto sync video and audio time code when using their multicam tool so obviously the software can read and line up time codes somewhere, why not give the option for that under Synchronize?
 
Should audio synch be made in Redcine-x?
Wondering if some one use it instead of doing it in the editing software. What are the limitations.

Pat
 
I've never found a solution to this problem.

I've used RCX many times to sync the TC Audio with R3D's, does it in less than a second. Glorious.

Can't do anything with the sync'd R3D's outside of RCX, they have to be output as Quicktime (in my case) which was the one step I was hoping to avoid.

Premiere and FCPX do have sync to timecode functions, but Premiere's works one clip at a time... so not really useful in PPro, especially since Red have shown that it can be done in literally one button-push.

EDIT: Updated this to reflect the correction in post #11 - apparently FCPX does do this across multiple clips.
 
Last edited:
Mondo Ghulam said:
If anyone from Adobe or Apple are watching, please take a look at RCX and provide the same batch function for syncing audio in-app. The tech is already there in the software, but one clip at a time is no fun.
Click to expand...

Don't count on Apple or Adobe to (only) read it here, but (especially in the case of Apple), send feedback trough their feedback form if you haven't already. That gets read by the right people.
 
Fcpx does have sync by time code. Select all the video clips and audio clips from your bin and right click. I think it's under something like synchronize, but can't remember off the top of my head. I know it does it though as I did it on a project a few weeks ago. Works similar to redcine x in that it does the whole batch at once
 
I could well be wrong but I was positive that FCPX only did one at a time, but a cursory look at the help file says I'm wrong.

This is AWESOME! thanks for the heads-up, I might not have revisited this for a long time otherwise.
 
Ian Laurie said:
Fcpx does have sync by time code. Select all the video clips and audio clips from your bin and right click. I think it's under something like synchronize, but can't remember off the top of my head. I know it does it though as I did it on a project a few weeks ago. Works similar to redcine x in that it does the whole batch at once
Click to expand...

Damn, I also was under the impression it did one by one. Is this a change from an update? Anyhow it's not always reliable with timecode-synched clips.
 
Mathieu, I'll be testing this today so I'll feedback here and let you know.

I'm 100% sure I tried this as soon as the native R3D capability existed in FCPX and it was one at a time. Certainly the help docs seem to suggest you can sync multiple clips in one jump.
 
Hey,

I just tried this with all new footage and audio. I can't get FCPX to produce a synchronised clips. What I end up with is 1 clip with multiple audio files attached.

My steps:

1. Import Video and Audio to an event.
2. Select the all video, then all audio.
3. Go Menu > Clip > Synchronise Clips (it's the same result if you r-click too)

I get the result already described but In some cases, I'll get a clip that seems to be built out of several video components.

On closer inspection, if I open the newly created synchronised clip in a separate timeline, it has EVERY video and audio file I originally selected. Try as I might, I couldn't find one that was sync'd (not that this would be a satisfactory result)

So no change for me, I'm in FCPX 10.0.7 / Mac OSX 10.7.5

Note - going pair by pair (audio/video) the clips will sync, but this is a real pain after a full-day's shoot with 30-50 files in the bag.

@Ian I'm really curious to know how you got it to behave the same way as RCX - assuming it wasn't using multicam clips.

Mondo
 
Last edited:
I just tried to select multiple audio and multiple video and selected sync. It created a "synced" file where NOTHING is in sync. These files had no timecode but they had very clear audio files so FCPX should be able to sync them. Pluraleyes should be able to deal with this however.
/Andreas
 
SyncNLink X costs $200, but it's worth it if you have to do this on a regular basis. But yes, this is another basic professional feature that Apple should have implemented right from the start.
 
Yea, better syncing would really help. I have been involved in doing software for many years and one of the things that become very apparent is that you simply can't do a perfect software at version 1.0. Somethings will be crap. Apple did the right thing and did a stellar core, but yes some things we are missing. I will try the syncing again and see if it works. Last time it put 40 clips on top of each other in a time line. NOT good. Will get Sync N Link as well and see how good it works.
/Andreas
 
AndreasOberg said:
Yea, better syncing would really help. I have been involved in doing software for many years and one of the things that become very apparent is that you simply can't do a perfect software at version 1.0. Somethings will be crap. Apple did the right thing and did a stellar core, but yes some things we are missing. I will try the syncing again and see if it works. Last time it put 40 clips on top of each other in a time line. NOT good. Will get Sync N Link as well and see how good it works.
/Andreas
Click to expand...

Sync n Link is awesome. If you need to do this type of thing, especially with timecode, it's a must have, and will solve this problem. One thing to note about it is that if you plan to use Resolve, you need to make sure "Trim clips to common video and audio duration" is on, or you may have problems with your XML.
 
FCPX has issues with embedded audio, harkens from its original iMovie roots, you might be better off conforming a match set of R3D BWF files from RedcineX, and transcode the R3D files without sound, then the BWF and Transcodes have the same file name, in/out points, and matching TC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top