Virtual User Group 7 broadcast

I waited for 3 days to download the latest VUG:7, and I was shocked at the lack of professionalism displayed, this was by far the worst debtate/discussion I have seen for a very long time from a team of ultra-professionals.

The audio was a mess, at no point was there evidence of editing of correcting of the audio, it was uploaded with all the errors uncorrected, distortion and "off mic" audio. As a 20 year audio desk live studio operator, I am amazed that there was no rehearsal to set up mics, just to check.

Then the vision mixing, the cutting, nothing made any sense, it was truly awful to watch, and this is a worry, as it casts a negative shadow on FCPX, and users of FCPX as a whole.

In my 20+ year old studio, worn out audio desk, older mics, I could have done a better job, with a 6 year old Broadcast mixer, xdcam recoder, I would have slaved each mic to a channel, made a plan, what happened during VUG7 never should have happened.

I would have loved to have been there, doing the audio/vision mixing, as I have 20 years experience as a live studio director, audio desk operator, vision mixer.

For an hour broadcast, not much was covered, no planning it seems goes into this, it has become a mess, and I will watch the next broadcast, I really hope that they find a way to improve the basics of professionalism. It is not really that hard to do a great job, it just takes a tiny amount of extra effort.

Even if they do not go live, record and broadcast later, We make movies article on fcp.co had a great list of gear, clipmic from Apogee would not be a bad idea for audio. Shotnotes, sync, the video and audio.

In fact that might not be a bad idea, VUG8: 3 parts, 1-the setup, 2-broadcast,3-post editing. This was we as users unfamiliar with all the professional gear get to see it in action, this "in-action" explains how to use the gear, giving ideas to new users about new ways to use gear, and we get to see how different ways of ingesting, SAN v NAS, terms I am not exposed to, but would live to get more information on.

As a review of the broadcast, I felt sad that they had not done a more professional job, it was planned for weeks, so really no excuse, along with the fact it was at 5pm local time, what is the excuse???

Yeah, the audio did get pretty wonky.

I'd have to STRONGLY disagree with my buddy Steve Martin, about round tripping form FCPX to Logic Pro X not being something anyone would want to do. Especially, since he said later that he is doing it more and more. It's not about getting music score tracks into FCPX, it is about SPOTTING, TIMING, MIXING, MASTERING! Things that are infinitely a PITA inside FCPX still.

I can spot sound effects and such to other sound queues in LPX way faster, easier, with amazing precision. Something FCPX isn't as strong with.

I can time audio clips to other audio clips, and to video queues, way easier, and cleaner, and faster in LPX than in FCPX. in fact, retiming audio in FCPX S-U-C-K-S! Give me Flex and beat detection in LPX any day. And not just for music, but for anything audio.

Mixing, well, FCPX has no mixer, and it's been long overdue.

Mastering, well, no buses, no aux sends, no mixer, no multiple audio meters, no broadcast audio metering with precision, so that's plain not doable in FCPX at all.

So as an audio engineer, I can tell you, plugins don't replace necessary audio tools that are in LPX, that FCPX will probably never have.

But yeah, the audio was pretty messed up. It all seems to be on the mixer, who ever was doing that, was really sleeping on the job. Nothing else. But, it was just a bunch of guys sitting around, yapping about FCP related stuff. So, whatever. I got good info out of it, I couldn't care less about the production quality at this time. You should email them and offer your services.

No one on FCP.co mentioned sharing to multiple youtube accounts as a desired feature, until it was included.

Steve I agree was wrong, just because he does not see a need, a need is not present. I am not a musician, from all the podcasts I have listened to, it seems only logical, and well profitable for Apple to make LPX indispensable, that way people would be willing to buy FCPX, Compressor, Motion and Logic Pro, basically replace Final Cut Studio, like for like, minus livetype!!

If there was someone willing to produce a series of inexpensive episodes, along the lines of Ripple Training, how to, 1-read music, use 2-Logic Pro for complete idiots [me], 3-Intergrate into FCPX, I would find a way to buy this series.

No harm in learning new skills for a rapidly aging video editor!!!

As I wrote in the YT-comments: congrats to pixelcorps to publish that anyhow - CONTENT FIRST!

What I haven't wrote there:
isn't Pixelcorps a production company?
Then, this upload is some special form of committing business suicide.

Recorded in the kitchen… ok, why not, but please tidy up the background (the sink on the left??)
Looks like three China Balls on the left are the only light...
Cameras are not matched (compare Steve's skin tone…), color balancing should be in THIS room full of 70%grey quiet easy :silly:
Host has no light and no audio... and murmors, as usual... okayyyyy
Camera movements/reframing in 'on' - VUG as an action movie???
The Macs display seemed to be miles away…

… and for sure: putting a single omni-directional mic in the middle would have a better audio than that! Watched it on Apple-TV, constantly raising/lowering volume, plus the heavy breathing of one person louder than actual speaker … OMG!!

No idea what devil had them in it to record that way AND to publish it.....

my standards as hobbyist are low(est) - but I would never dare to show such a technical desaster to anybody.

_________

concerning S.Martin's comment on roundtripping FCPX/LX:
before he made his statement, his RT-twin M.Spencer used that "Those who know don't say..." to answer the Q.

You can interpret indeed, that round-tripping isn't on Apples agenda. As far as I understood MrMartins comment, 'finishing' audio in LX is nice and needs to be improved, but he/Apple(?) sees no need to bounce back the mix with all its details into the FCPX timeline.

Some - perhaps silly - comparison:
You don't have access to each layer and parameter of a M5 project in FCPX either, only the 'published' once.

No LX here in use, maybe completely off topic, off real life usage.

… homebrewn audio-plug-ins like M5>>FCPX, but from LX >> FCPX - maybe that is an idea....

All Steve said is, Audio-finalizing is a dead end in one direction.... in his opinion. Or maybe else's opinion....

The quality surprised rather it shocked me, it was the worst I have ever seen from what I had previously regarded as a rather professional company.

What made them decide to 1-produce this at this point? 2-publish it in the state it was in.
I would have done the editing, no problem, it may have taken a while to download, I would have loved to have tried to fix it. It would have been a great learning experience.

The content was light, not all that much was covered, it really was not required to produce at this point, they may have best advised to have waited until after NAB, we all expect something good from Apple. Then PixelCorp would have had time to settle in, arrange well in advance for equipment, decent table setup.

Business suicide, great comment, sad really that it ended up like this.

Karsten.

I totally agree. Wonderful comment!!!!!

- Andreas

I used to teach STP, and always thought it was super easy to use, intuitive, and everyone I knew loved it. The old mixer in FCP7 really did suck bad. It was a mixer, but no one every really used it. We went to Logic or STP for that. But as he admitted, Steve is not an audio engineer, and doesn't work on features or productions that require higher end audio work. Plugins in FCPX are fine, but no mixer, no mastering tools, and no "reliable" way to get to and from LPX is just without excuse. Thank goodness for XtoPro, but for that much money, really, I question that strategy, and feel it is sort of ripping off FCPX users who need serious audio work.

Basically, getting from FCPX to LPX with the built in XML is buggy for serious, professional level work, and XtoPro is really way too expensive, IMHO.

Audio finalizing, like color grading and effects, must go back and forth. A one way trip is just ridiculous. I do tons of audio work for a living. I did audio before doing editing. So there's my opinion.

I take Steve's comment that round-tripping with LPX is unnecessary in two ways. First, it is an ignorant slap in the face to all audio engineers. Second, it is hypocritical, because later he says he is going from FCPX to LPX more and more.

Content wise, yeah, it was really light. Most of the questions were poorly answered, with no real substance to move forward with. But a few interesting tidbits of information that I appreciated.

Yeah, whole production was slapped together very haphazardly and edited poorly. Not good for folks of the caliber who produced it. It will be interesting to hear what the reasons were, or if a re-edited version will appear.

Bottom line, very not up to par with what they people have previously produced and published publicly. For once I'm actually glad to see Justine's overly harsh criticism posted! But don't tell anyone I said that...