Managing Audio Layers in FCP for Final Mixing

by Isazaly M. Isa

Does this screenshot look very familiar to you?

Timeline full view of a 80 mins television project

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But that is partly true in this case. You can actually tell the “level” of an editor, just by looking at his or her timeline!

Just in case you are wondering why I (an editor) am discussing about managing audio layers, let me enlighten you. In Malaysia (also in Singapore and some parts of Asia), where I am based, editors are most likely responsible for the final sound mix of a project, especially when the project is for television.

An untrained editor with no basic understanding of audio mixes, would probably have a timeline that looks like this.

Close-view of the previous screen-shot. Notice that the audio layers are all over!

If you can tell the difference between an ambience layer, an effects layer and a music layer on this timeline, then you probably have “super-phonographic-powers”!

Imagine you are the editor and the Director has joined your editing session and tells you this, “Can you switch off the music, so I can listen to the rest of the sound design?” You are either doomed at this point or you are probably smart enough to do this - Right- click on every single music track on the timeline that you can spot and disable the “Clip Enable” selection. If you do that, then your timeline will now look like this:

The audio clips in dark green are disabled.

Lets divert to the old days of editing film on the Steenbeck - a flatbed editing suite, either on a 16mm or a 35mm celluloid. Back in the day when I was a student at the ‘Malaysian Film Academy’, we were required to complete our 16mm short films on the flatbed machine. We had to literally cut and paste both the positive prints (dailies) and the magnetic sound films (original oxide tapes were used to record direct sound on a Nagra 1⁄4-inch recorder and then later transferred to a perforated magnetic film for editing and syncing purposes). it was a long and tedious process.

A completed short film edited on a 16mm, can be represented like this:

If I were to write this whole film audio mixing process in detail, it will probably take half of this SuperMag pages to explain. This is only to give you a rough idea of how it was done in the past and to demonstrate that the moral of the story in both scenarios basically boils down to two points - Management and Accessibility.

And these two points actually apply to everything you do in Final Cut Pro. Without proper management of files or even folders (even within the Browser), you’ll probably end up searching for “a needle in a haystack”.

This is the key to being an FCP ‘power-user’. And these next few steps can help you achieve a timeline that is manageable and accessible for the final mixing stage:

Labeling layers in your timeline can assist editors to see the "bigger picture" and to spot them with ease.

Let's get started.

Step 1

Create a SLUG from your Video Generator in the Viewer.

Step 2

By default, it will create a SLUG with duration of 2 minutes. This is useful to note, other than becoming your audio layer 'label', you can SET the duration to match your intended final duration of the project, so:

You will know where you are on the timeline.

You will also know if the project be OVER or UNDER the final duration.

For this tutorial, I will set my duration to 1 hour and 20 minutes (80 minutes) equivalent to the final project’s duration or your intended final duration for the project.

Type “1200000” in the duration window in the Viewer.

(Note: you can drop the colons ":" and type just the numbers.)

Hit the TAB key. Now, the Viewer will show the duration typed in a timecode format and also has “extended” the SLUG to 1hr and 20 minutes in total duration.

Drag the SLUG into the browser.

Rename it to "AMBIENCE".

Then, highlight the "AMBIENCE" SLUG and go to the menu 'Modify > Duplicate as New Master Clip'. Repeat this process until achieve the required number of labels for your audio tracks.

For the purpose of this project, I will only need "AMBIENCE", "SOUND EFFECTS" and "MUSIC & SOUNDTRACK" for this project. You can also add some colors to it, for easy reference.

Step 3

If you have not prepared the number of Audio Tracks layer needed you can add these now by going to Sequence> Insert Tracs...

Here, you can insert multiple layers of Audio Track. I like to work in multiple of fours, although two is sufficient. It actually depends on your needs. In this case, I need a total of 24 audio layers as my basic audio layers.

Step 4

All you need to do is to place the 3 labeled SLUG respectively, either by dragging and dropping it into the timeline, or by using the target tracks to perform the Overwrite or Insert edits. You can now LOCK the tracks and also toggle the Audible button to OFF mode (green speaker button).

Now you are ready to start your edit with your audio layers prepared in advance.

The rule of thumb for this project will now be:

1) 'Sound On Tape' (SOT or direct sound on camera) to be placed on Tracks A1-A4 (not labeled)
2) 'Ambience' sound to be placed on Tracks A7-A10
3) 'Sound Effects' sound bytes to be placed on Tracks A13-A16
4) 'Music & Soundtrack' to be placed on Tracks A19-A24

By doing this you can now easily spot the audio layers to place the specific audio files, as well as monitor each track at ease, to either be MUTED or SOLO via the Audio Controls button:

So, the next time your Director wants to listen to a specific audio track on the timeline, you know the drill! Good luck and have fun organizing with your final audio mix.

About Isazaly M. Isa

He graduated from the Malaysian Film Academy in 98, with his short film achieving the “Best Film Project” title by the KODAK Worldwide Student Program of Malaysia. After freelancing for a period of time, Zalee sets up his very own film & television production company, with two of his friends and called it “Kino-i” (www.kino-i.com), which is based in Kuala lumpur, the heart of the
filmmaking industry in Malaysia. In 2004, he was selected as a participant to Berlinale Talent Campus and decided to focus his career in mainly in post-production. A year later, his “micro-movie” was selected as top 12 finalists for 'St. Kilda's Film Festival Micromovie' competition in Australia.

As of 2003, Zalee is an Apple Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro and has been conducting courses, workshops and seminars for video-related organizations and companies in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Through his vast knowledge and experience in both production and post-production, Zalee is able to provide professional consultation to other companies and filmmakers within the region. Zalee is also the founder of Malaysia′s Final Cut Pro Usergroup.

You can read Zalee's blog here or follow him on Twitter

This article was originally published in Issue 4 of FCPUG Network SuperMag. Available here

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