FCP video and audio tracks

Peter C.

Peter C.

Veteran
I’ve been editing a music video with dance clips that need to be timed to the music. I find it tricky making revisions to complex long sequences. I put the music in the primary storyline and the video above it in secondary tracks. I’ve noticed that once transitions are added the secondary clips get grouped into secondary storylines. Any changes can shift all of the clips in that group from the primary track containing the music. Not sure what the best approach to music timed videos. I get the feeling revisions to these type of projects is tricky.
 
If you're using the position tool and transitions have enough natural frames to work with (meaning you're not trying to start a transition at the beginning or end of a clip that you haven't trimmed which therefore have 0 frames to work with), nothing should be shifting.
 
Clips without transitions in a secondary track are independently linked to the primary storyline. If you delete the first clip the following clips remain in place but when transitions are added the clips get put into a container. Removing or lengthening a clip will cause the following clips in that grouping to shift. Also FCP won’t add transition between clips that are next to each other if they’re in separate groups even if there is additional frames in the clips. There’s no easy way to combine separate secondary timelines.
 
I don't know, tough to know what you're looking at, what you're exactly doing.

You may be right but if there's anything I've learned in the last 10 years of FCP it's that many cases of frustration are due to not knowing about certain commands and shortcuts that enable and disable various behaviors.

IMO, I think 99% of humanity knows only about 25% of FCP, which is why it's frowned upon by many.

Because if you weren't able to execute what sounds like simple tasks and if stuff just moved around in the timeline while you edited (without one magnetically wanting it to), no one would use this program.
 
It’s a ballet movie where everything is timed to the music. Multiple takes were filmed at different angels that need to be combined and transitioned seamlessly while remaining in sync with the underlying sound track.

Yes FCP has a host of hidden features. FCP defaults to magnetic timelines. This speeds up some types of work. My grip with it is there is no way to turn it off.
 
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If this is really critical and you need this solved, maybe upload a 30-second screen recording showing what's happening.

If you can't...by transition do you mean a hard cut or like a cross dissolve?

See if anything in the "Clip" menu helps like "Create Storyline" and "Break Apart Clip Items".

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I know what you mean by transitioned clips turning into compound clips and when you delete something they slide over (if that's what you indeed mean), but if you do this editing with the position tool then nothing shifts.

I'm just having trouble visualizing your exact issue...because editing multiple clips to one audio track is pretty simple and adding transitions shouldn't move things...
 
I completed the project last night. Only after completing it do I have time to evaluate and improve my approach where possible.

If you want to see what mean drop a song into the primary timeline, add a few consecutive video clips above it, then add a cross dissolve between them. Delete the first clip and you will see them all shift. In short FCP automatically puts secondary clips into a mini magnetic timeline when transitions are added.
 
Peter C. said:
I completed the project last night. Only after completing it do I have time to evaluate and improve my approach where possible.

If you want to see what mean drop a song into the primary timeline, add a few consecutive video clips above it, then add a cross dissolve between them. Delete the first clip and you will see them all shift. In short FCP automatically puts secondary clips into a mini magnetic timeline when transitions are added.
Click to expand...

I use FCPX for like 90% of my work and I encounter this issue as well. One option is to use "shift+delete", which will create a gap where the deleted clip was. You can then trim the secondary timeline to eliminate the gap.

Another option is to use "option+command+down arrow" to bring the secondary timelines down (making them the main timeline, instead of having the music as the main timeline).

But I'm curious to see what others say. I find that FCPX is not super intuitive for this kind of work—i.e., building a complex video over an audio track.
 
Drboffa: Thx I’ll look at those shortcuts. Yes I agree complex timelines aren’t fcp strong suit.

Traditional editing software default is non magnetic which is more cumbersome. It’s downside is if you aren’t careful, gaps can happen when you change things
 
So the advice drboffa offered is how I edit if I ever use cross dissolves which is probably never, but if you use them - and especially use them a lot with different camera angles - I can see how it can get pretty messy quickly if you're not interested in overwriting them into the primary storyline.

In that case, let's first establish that a simple visual cross dissolve is an opacity change between two different elements, usually video, photo or animation.

You can build this transition as a "Final Cut Title" in Motion which behaves like a pseudo adjustment layer for this keyframe behavior and publish it inside FCP.

I'll explain more later if there's interest, but here is a visual reference. The purple blocks that say 'Transition' would simply be moved around on your timeline instead of linking clips and creating compound clips that are more sensitive to deletion.

FCP_Title.jpg
 
I'd be curious to see this explained in greater detail, NorBro. As mentioned I use FCPX for most of my work, and use cross dissolves pretty regularly. Even if I've figured out a workaround I'm always keen to see different (possibly better) ways of doing things.
 
Same here I always like to keep my mind open to new approaches. I have recently downloaded Motion templates to be used as adjustment layers
 
I'll have to do some more experimenting with them and try to think of a way to best explain it. Because creating a good one in Motion that you can adjust in FCP is the key.

But in general, Motion is the engine behind FCP. Everything that's in FCP is from Motion.

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In the meantime, you can also key frame an opacity change in FCP from the beginning of a clip (0%) to like 15 frames or 25 frames (100%), and copy and paste that "effect" into any clips on top of the primary. It wouldn't be a true cross dissolve as it would only be 50% of one but no one would ever notice and that is a blazing fast method. You can add dozens of these in seconds.

But I don't know why anyone wouldn't want to overwrite the clips into the primary which is what the position tool can do and it's essentially the same thing your recommended shortcuts do but the position tool has more hands-on control (like you can choose things and delete them and then close the "gap" in the compound clip by dragging the sides).

If everything is in the main timeline, cross dissolves work really well. (You can still have multiple tracks on top of the primary if you're editing that way if it's not a traditional multicam edit.)
 
Sorry, never mind...you can't do proper cross dissolves with the titles. You can fake other transitions though, or just make a real one in the FC Transition project area (but that wouldn't solve the compound clip issue).

So we can lift clips, shift delete clips, and trim gaps, and that's pretty much the only workarounds I am seeing besides the obvious of overwriting stuff into the primary.

Although I never saw this as a problem because I don't use transitions that force clips to be grouped, I could see how this probably seems like a bug to other people coming from software that handles it differently.
 
Peter C. said:
Not sure what the best approach to music timed videos. I get the feeling revisions to these type of projects is tricky.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your issue - or not following completely... but having said that - this is something I do in FCPX all the time...
put music on audio track - not on the story line and lock the audio track. Add clips to the story line (I think it's helpful to see waveform in the audio file - to help with edits on the "beat"). You can also hold down the "`" key to delete clips - or move them without the magnetic timeline coming into play.
Also if you're not aware of "Auditions" - Final Cut help is your friend. Start with "Intro to auditions in Final Cut Pro".
And lastly, if shooting multiple cameras - then you should be using the Multicam Clip import - which is maybe one of the best things about FCPX that most other NLE editors aren't aware of.
 
Auditions or multicam and various other tools will speed up the workflow for choosing footage, but this is specifically about the way he works and how any clips in a compound clip slide forward when he deletes the first one in the group.

I don't think FCP 7 did that, but IDR.
 
This is what I do as well, connect the audio to a one frame slug in the primary storyline & then edit to the audio on the primary story line. I think it is the closest you can get to a track-based editing feel in the magnetic timeline.

markfpv said:
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your issue - or not following completely... but having said that - this is something I do in FCPX all the time...
put music on audio track - not on the story line and lock the audio track. Add clips to the story line (I think it's helpful to see waveform in the audio file - to help with edits on the "beat"). You can also hold down the "`" key to delete clips - or move them without the magnetic timeline coming into play.
Also if you're not aware of "Auditions" - Final Cut help is your friend. Start with "Intro to auditions in Final Cut Pro".
And lastly, if shooting multiple cameras - then you should be using the Multicam Clip import - which is maybe one of the best things about FCPX that most other NLE editors aren't aware of.
Click to expand...
 
I know how and do use multiclips and for other types of projects that works fine. For example, filming a 3 camera shoot of a concert, you build a multiclip, put in in the main storyline and the sound track links to it below. This works fine because for a live event all the cameras were filmed at the same time and you will not be removing pieces of it or re arranging it. What I'm describing is a movie where there are multiple takes. The dances aren't not filmed in complete takes. Dancers redo segments of the dance until the choreography is executed to the directors liking. Then in editing the best takes of the separate parts are assemble into one dance. These dances are created in their own timelines then reassemble to the main line to build the movie. Those scenes need to flow seamless into each other but if you alter any of it you don't want it shifting another scene that comes after it. When you put the video in the Primary storyline then the soundtrack gets linked to the first clip the rest of the clips are magnetically attached to that clip not the soundtrack which means any changes in the primary storyline will cause subsequent video clips shift off the sound track since they are not linked to it. So for projects where they are musically driven you put the music in the primary storyline when video clips are placed above it in the secondary, each are linked to the primary storyline which is the sound track. But as soon as you add transitions it breaks the links and they get put into a mini magnetic time line. When I say musically driven, dancers have been choreographed to the beat of the music and are doing precise moves to each part of the song. It's not like a movie where you have a sound track that sets mood but the video doesn't need to be precisely aligned.
 
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