Thinking of moving back to FCP - but... Audio / Mixer etc

Hi - I'm running Premiere CS6 on a 2013 cMBP and all going fine. The latest FCP 10.1 has me tempted as I've just ordered a new Mac Pro, but there's one important workflow I have in Premiere that I can't see a simple way to do in FCP. Wondered if anyone could let me know how they do it.

I do a lot of short documentary / interview stuff and I like to have good control of my audio without going out to post / logic / Protools.

An example project in premiere would have Audio track 1 as the main dialogue, Audio 2 as background / FX and Audio track 3 as music bed. I have the audio mixer set up with an EQ > Compressor > Limiter on track 1 and a similar set up on tracks 2 and 3 but with different settings. I have a limiter on the master output and an instance of Izoptope Insight for Loudness metering.

I can't see any audio mixer in FCP - or any way to replicate this workflow.

Am I missing something?

Nope, you're not missing anything.

The Roles feature looks to be the start of an equivalent of track or bus submixes, and indeed Roles can export as separate tracks. However, within FCPX there's no interface for applying filters to Roles. Nor to tags, for that matter - I'd love to be able to tag clips with 'lav' or 'shotgun' and apply different EQ accordingly, or EQ by speaker, but have all of that audio grouped under a 'dialogue' role on which I chuck a compressor and limiter. Or... etc. etc.

This was one of the things I hoped was going to come with 10.1. Sadly, it hasn't. Which may make me explore the improved export to Logic Pro.

One thing FCPX does well, though: you can edit audio below the frame level. Being able to do that right in the editor is occasionally wonderful.

Thanks for the quick reply. Jeez - that seems such a simple thing to leave out of FCP. Sure, I can round-trip to Logic / PT but for a quick 5 min vid that's a pain. An audio mixer - even one where each channel is a 'role' is pretty fundamental in getting quick broadcast ready audio without going to audio post.

So - I take it that there's no way to use a pro level plugin such as Insight? - Not even on the 'master' audio output?

I think I'll stay on Premiere until there's a sensible solution to that in FCP. Shame.

Could you use Roles to do a filter in the timeline index, then use the results to cut and paste whatever EQs you want for that role on all other clips - as you used to do in 7 (EQ a clip then cut and paste the FX from that clip to all others you wanted it on)?

Well you could do what I do using compound clips as needed. Generally I will run a series of eqs and compressors etc for dialog tracks, but for my final, as you say I usually Select all my edits and alt -G to turn them into a new compound clip. Thats where Ill add any over lays visually, or add a final limiter or compressor if some of my edits had varying levels of sound. Almost becomes a node based mixer at that point.

Thanks everyone. I guess I'm so used to seeing an audio mixer with channels and having multiple instances of Izotope Insight open on the busses that I need to get my head around working in a new way. I do ride the channel faders sometimes with a control surface too, moving more than one channel at a time - I guess this is definitely not possible in FCPX at the moment.

I might try a couple of smaller projects out and persist at it to see how things can work out.

I still think the lack of an audio mixer is an oversight, but I'll give it a go.