What audio editing software are you using?

I'm a bit behind in this conversation, but from my POV, the audio tools in FCPX are somewhat limited, but high quality. If you can do what you need within FCPX, you're good to go.

Also, Logic X is pretty spiffy (some cranky PT-veteran music friends like it). As Grant mentions/asks, not a whole lot of FCPX integration or TC support. Gary and others can of course comment with more hands-on authority about Logic.

But the story is an upgrade to FCPX is coming RSN. If you can wait a few weeks (say, a week after NAB), perhaps things will be clearer.

But Grant, I take it that you're bumping up against the audio limits of FCPX. What seems to be missing for you?
 
ggrantly said:
Gary, How do you like Logic? I've heard there isn't any integration with FCPX.

Grant
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I mainly just use Logic for my music as it is best for that, pro tools can be quite clunky for post too so I tend to tracklay in FCP 7 then mix in pro tools.

Years ago I was using AMS Neve AudioFile and Logic/DFC as that was the best all round and the DFC is still the console of choice for most high end film and TV post places.
 
Jim Feeley said:
I'm a bit behind in this conversation, but from my POV, the audio tools in FCPX are somewhat limited, but high quality. If you can do what you need within FCPX, you're good to go.

Also, Logic X is pretty spiffy (some cranky PT-veteran music friends like it). As Grant mentions/asks, not a whole lot of FCPX integration or TC support. Gary and others can of course comment with more hands-on authority about Logic.

But the story is an upgrade to FCPX is coming RSN. If you can wait a few weeks (say, a week after NAB), perhaps things will be clearer.

But Grant, I take it that you're bumping up against the audio limits of FCPX. What seems to be missing for you?
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Jim, I don't even know what I don't know about either FCPX or Resolve for that matter. I walked away from Apple after FCP7. I am getting ready to dump everything Adobe (said with a smile), and choose a new video editor. At this point it will probably be either Resolve or FCPX. And either of those editors might have enough audio capability for my not so big needs. I am curious how many folks get by with one of those video editors or feel the need for more horsepower on the audio side.

And thanks to all for some really great responses.

Grant
 
Here's my take as someone who as a producer edits video a bit and also does some audio post work for others.

Resolve is getting better fast. But in the current implementation, the editorial and audio (Fairlight) tools aren't super great...yet... And that's Resolve 14. Perhaps at NAB BMD will show a newer version that really kicks it. Not trying to be vague; I took a fairly cursory look at Resolve 14's audio tools and thought "decent; promising..." And the price: $0 or $300...great!

FCPX 10.4, the current version, is what a growing number of friends are using for their short-form work. Like really nice stuff shot on RED, Arri, etc. Even cranky long-time-editors (i.e. not Apple Fanboys) are coming around to it. This is basically second hand from me...others here can give first hand experiences... But the built-in FCPX noise-reduction and dynamics tools (which I've looked at) are pretty OK. Not like what I can do in a DAW and with iZotope RX, but pretty good. And for picture edit, these people seem pretty happy with FCPX.
Bottom line: what I'm seeing is for high-end corp stuff, they're doing a lot of the audio post themselves in FCPX...they're not sending as much to me (of course, I think part of the reason is that a couple of these guys hire me for location sound and I give them good tracks ;-) ). For really serious stuff where we need to hit hard specs, they still send out audio (and that's kind of a pain in FCPX... we usually use https://x2pro.net to get out an AAF...that pretty much works as long as the FCPX project isn't too out of control... i.e., experienced editors have timelines that X2Pro can handle better than newer editors who sometimes have things tossed all over the place).

And I'd guess both Resolve and FCPX will be even more solid, audio wise, going forward.

OK, that's all pretty vague on my part. But I'm just back from a long shoot and can't think deeply.

Short version: great options out there.
 
dmitrizigany said:
For simple corporate videos, I see no reason not to do it all from within FCPX...
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Jim Simon said:
I've switched over to Resolve, which includes the Fairlight DAW built-in. Might just suite your corporate needs.
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For me the answer was in these two responses; namely do all your work within one application.

The reason I went with DaVinci Resolve is a) it's FREE b) cross-platform c) all-in-one application

Yes, there is a learning curve but there are a lot of free training video's on YouTube and some good fee paying videos that can help get up to speed.
 
My take on FCPX VS Resolve came down to price compatibility and who I thought would stay around. Really both were probably fine for the kind of pict. editing that I do. FCP and the whole FCS in general were really good at fast. The learning curve is not too bad and it's pretty easy to toss on transitions and eye candy. I had heard that the two biggest users were adult films and wedding videographers, and that makes sense with how it works. What was always more difficult (and showed up more in Motion) was to do something very specific. You want an element to fly across the screen and be at A at frame X and then at B at frame Y. Motion was more of toss it in this direction and tell it how long to take. It's faster but only if you kind of let it do it's thing.

I'm going to assume FCPX does a lot better, no first hand knowledge, but FCP6 had a really hard time working with a bunch of audio tracks. The ability to resize them was very limited and it gets really hard to do serious audio work when you can't see most of the tracks. Even STP had this problem. You couldn't see more than 7-8 tracks, maybe 10 on a really big monitor. That is way too few for post. And STP if it got overloaded would prioritize the video and lose sync with the audio. And since when you sent the audio to STP it sent the attached video you could easily get really huge projects. Also CAF files keep the full original plus all changes in the CAF package. So if you had a three minute take that you used one word from the CAF file in STP had the full three minutes of video in the package. Anyway the combination of issues made anything over a dozen or so tracks impractical.

That may sound like a lot (if it does FCPX may be right for you) but I've worked on 30 second spots that were pushing 100 tracks so...

But if you were doing something that had few tracks and you needed quick turnaround it worked well.

Resolve is more in the feature film workflow camp. It is more designed for that workflow. It was not designed to toss some clips in drop some effects and pop out a video. You basically have to go through a version of a "real film" workflow. Probably if you know it you can grab and go but it doesn't "just work" that way. It wants you to do proper media management, something that FCP basically fought against. I used FCP a fair amount but I did all of my sound post in ProTools.

Now PT is not a super fast learning curve and I am very fast on it so I'm sure Resolve can be fast once you learn it, but right out of the shoot it is more about organized post than crank it out post.

If you have no $ or you are not going to making any from your projects then the cost could be a factor but FCPX is pretty cheap as these things go so it shouldn't be an issue for most people.

If FCPX had been the perfect fit for me my biggest worry would be that Apple drops it or takes another left turn and a couple of years from now I'm stuck learning a new platform. All BMD does is film related so I think they have a more dedicated position and at least if they decide to get out of software will spin it off and not just dump it.
 
There is always Media Composer, and if on a budget (i.e. no budget) then try Media Composer | First which is free and about 90% of the features of the full MC but with track limitations (4 video, 8 audio) and some export limits. The interface has barely changed in the last 20 years with the newest change being the content browser much like the other editors. It is a structured workflow though, but you can be somewhat lazy and just toss stuff around. If they would every properly integrate it with Protools, they would make a lot of people happy. This shouldn't be that hard, they have owned Protools for decades.

I haven't worked with Protools | First yet, but it is also free and would allow you to get your feet wet and see if it is right for you. Missing a lot of plugins, but you could by them for the First version if you wanted them.
 
If they would every properly integrate it with Protools, they would make a lot of people happy.
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;~)

It's better than they own PT. Digi started making "sound designer" which was an editor for hardware samplers. Their break into multi track was as the supplier of interfaces for AVID systems.

There are two reasons I would hesitate to use MC. The first might be old news now? bur Apple and Avid didn't get along, at all. Employees got into a fist fight at one of the big conventions. So Avid never got any advance info etc. on OS updates. As any long time ProTools user knows you always have to time purchases of OS and PT upgrades so you can get an OS that works with your version of PT. Since Apple never looks back you need to get your OS copy before they update and screw up compatibility, and there is always a lag of months before PT is fixed for any new OS. Unless they have recently kissed and made up I'm sure MC has the same issues.

The second is if you need more than the free version it's a pretty hefty price tag.

Some extras would be you are only getting a NLE. MC is not known as super easy to edit on, and Avid/ Digi is/was on shaky ground finance wise. I know Digi was shedding jobs not long ago and there was a lot of question about what would happen if it went under. That was a few years ago so maybe things have turned around?

Providing Resolve meets your needs it's a much better deal. As long as you are working at 2K or below it's free. If you need the higher resolutions it's $299. With either you are getting media management, NLE, high end color correction, and a DAW. The NLE and the DAW are works in progress but they have been making a LOT of progress. I doubt anyone with out high level needs would notice anything missing. 14 has been out almost a year so the next version is probably around the corner. What I expect (no inside knowledge) is some incremental polishing of the NLE which is pretty solid already, and a fuller implementation of the Fairlight features.

At the risk of sounding like a salesman, I would add that Fusion is a very solid VFX package that integrates with Resolve and has a similar free and $299 price point. The difference with paid VS free is in tracking and some 3D functions. I think your output is limited to 2K but you can work with much larger images, for say big backgrounds. The tracking on the paid version is very similar to Mocha Pro, which is pretty impressive.

So for 1/2 the price of a "permanent" license for MC you can get a stronger version of what used to be in FCS, or CC.
 
Take a look at https://hindenburg.com/

I use it for more complicated stories. It works similarly to FCP X with a "magnetic" time line. So it is easy to "mine" for gems and catalog them for insert later, lengthen or shorten selections or cut clips, and have multiple tracks. Not much in the way of modification tools, but easy to build a piece with lots of cuts/voices/Foley/effects....
 
I edit in Premiere, and although I've obviously got Audition on the machine, it's not a common thing for me to have to go out to it, do something and then go back. Most of what I need, audio wise, can be done within Premiere. Are there specific things people are needing too do that their editor of choice can't do?
 
TWeistar said:
Take a look at https://hindenburg.com/

I use it for more complicated stories. It works similarly to FCP X with a "magnetic" time line. So it is easy to "mine" for gems and catalog them for insert later, lengthen or shorten selections or cut clips, and have multiple tracks. Not much in the way of modification tools, but easy to build a piece with lots of cuts/voices/Foley/effects....
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This is used more by the radio journalist folks. It also is missing post tools and compatibility, so it again depends a LOT on what kind of work you do.

I wouldn't generally chip in on a lot of this but I just finished toing a lot of research into replacing FCP and ProTools, and what would work for me going forward.

Hindenburg is a bit like iMovie for sound, my impression. If it works for your needs it's pretty fast to learn, but it lacks all of the post features I need. It was never really designed to work in a post workflow so it really bogs down there. But if your not doing a post workflow? I suspect it's not a great choice for the OP.
 
I decided to try Harrison Mixbus. Haven't had time to learn it well yet, but in general I like the interface. It will play video in a window as well as master or slave to SMPTE linear timecode.
Fairlight audio meters seem a bit strange. They 're labelled with a DBFS scale but the meters themselves seem to track in VU referenced levels where 0dBu input reads 5dB below indicated 0 clip point, not at -20dBfs. Lightworks and Mixbus both read in VU calibrated meters, not dBfs, and their readings match pretty well for the same signal input.
Actually the international studio standard defines +4dBu analog signal = 0VU=-20DBFS.
 
Looked at Mixbus also. A friend likes it but for post you have the getting it in issue. He was using it mostly for music to picture so he didn't need OMF import. He still uses PT for SFX and general post work.

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Another consideration that only concerns folks working with other sound editors and those sending sessions to mix stages, and that is getting them a format they want/need. In the US that is usually a PT session, but we have also sent OMF's and premixes (to a mix). In that case you either need PT or one of the DAW's that AATranslator works with (and a way to run that Windows app). I don't know of any DAW that directly supports exporting to a ProTools session, except ProTools.

Generally you only need a PT session if you are working with others that are on PT. Mix stages sometimes like them because it's easier to make changes, but a lot of times they don't want to be doing that and would rather you send fixes.
 
Noiz2 said:
One of the biggest issues for sound is when all you do is sound, you really want a way to get the edited audio tracks into your session. Just sucking tracks off the video doesn't cut it and getting a bunch of bounced tracks is only slightly better. If this is not an everyday thing for you then AATranslator (and an emulator if your on a Mac) is probably a great choice. It will translate to and from many formats so you can probably work with whatever you get sent. If you do this a lot it's kind of a PITA to have to translate in a third party app each time. Plus there are things that won't translate so you will have to work around the limitations.
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We are constantly improving and adding formats and support for more and more functionality for each DAW. While we can't support every conceivable feature (for many reasons some things just don't translate) where possible, we do try to respond to user requests
 
Great to see you participating in this forum to interact with users! :-)
(I assume you're also following jwsoundgroup and the various FB groups?)
 
Runaway said:
We are constantly improving and adding formats and support for more and more functionality for each DAW. While we can't support every conceivable feature (for many reasons some things just don't translate) where possible, we do try to respond to user requests
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Thanks for participating. I'm assuming you are with AATranslator.

In my current situation I don't really need AATranslator, but it definitely falls into the kind of tool I would normally own just because. I mostly deal with transcoding video these days so most of my converters are for video.

The problem of what doesn't translate well is not a ding. Even within ProTools to save to an earlier version you have to jump through some hoops or you can loose things that were not supported in the same way in earlier versions, and plugins just never translate worth a damn. The "pain" with third party translations is just that you have to go to a different app and deal with XY&Z. It's true for anything where you are using one app to get a file to translate from one app to another. I doubt that there is a way to take all the pain out. Having dealt with thousands of conversions (some just stupid like the ever changing AVID EDL that no editor seems to be able to spit out the same way twice) it's just the way it is.

I would seriously look at getting it ported to Mac OS, since in the US the lion share of post sound folks are on Mac's. And while yours may work well under emulation a lot of editors are working on company systems and the IT folks get strange about installing non Mac software on a Mac. And a fair number of independents are going to be leery of the possible complications of going that route also. Personally I would have purchased it back when I first looked at it except for the ??? of how to deal with troubleshooting of having to deal with an app that is dependant on an emulator. I have had apps like that in the past and it just gets crazy trying to find out where the problem is when something goes wrong.

IF I had a big need I would probably go for it because your the only game in town, that I know of, but instead of buying so I had the tool "just incase" I held off till I had a real need for it.
 
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