Channel Configuration Problem

Here's a fun one. I have 6 source reels, all have multichannel audio... 2 mono channels, 1 stereo pair. Brought into X opened in timelines, and assigned roles as waveforms were drawing as I've done a million times. Config for all reels (and components in timelines) correctly shows 2 mono, 1 stereo. At some point, for some reason, 2 of the reels changed to 4 mono. The Roles assigned to the stereo pair are, obviously, gone. There is no option in the inspector to set as 2 mono 1 stereo. Resetting the parameter doesn't help. The two reels in question have the proper channel setting when imported to fcp 7. Files are set correctly internally as QT player and QT Edit both indicate 2 mono 1 stereo. So....

How can I get X to set the config correctly? I mean, it *was* correct when I imported them so uh... wtf?

This is what they should be (what they *are*)


This is what they changed to

Try setting them to Dual Stereo. Then I think you can break one of those stereo pairs out into two monos.

I wish you could set Roles for individual Audio Components in the Event Browser, rather than having to wait until they're edited into a Project.

"Open In Timeline", do it there, from the Browser.

That's a good workaround for now. But going forward it should be at least as easy to apply Roles as it is to name Audio Components, so I'd like to see the ability to apply Roles to multiple clips at once where the channel configurations are the same- either via a Copy/paste action, or multiple selection.

You can assign roles by selecting multiple clips at once.

In the Event Browser, you can only assign a single Audio Role to a given clip or multiple clips- not to individual Audio Components.

The whole point is to do as much Role tagging in the Event browser with Master clips, so that you aren't having to tag all instances of each clip once you edit them into a Project.

I was answering "multiple clips at once where the channel configurations are the same".

But no, you do have to open a clip into its own timeline to configure channels. Yes, it would be nice to be able to do that without that step.

BenB wrote: Try setting them to Dual Stereo. Then I think you can break one of those stereo pairs out into two monos.

Not gonna work, I need the channels to be what they are in the file. The files channel configurations are exactly the same. Is the analyses data for the clips stored somewhere? Or is it baked into the Event XML? Anyone know? In any case, the channels are the stereo music stem, which i don't need, but this would be a problem if I did need the stem. FWIW, here's a look at the metadata for Audio 3 (the stereo pair) from 2 reels. File on left is fine in X, file on right is wrong in X and there's no way to right it (that I'm aware of). I can see no difference... And when played in FCP 7 or something, Audio 3 is definitely stereo. I thought maybe someone accidentally put a mono pair in there by mistake. Nope.

BenB wrote: I was answering "multiple clips at once where the channel configurations are the same".

But no, you do have to open a clip into its own timeline to configure channels. Yes, it would be nice to be able to do that without that step.

It'll be very nice because when you export the AAF to the mix., if you have one time the HF Mic. in ch1 and Cam Mic. ch2, and another time the reverse, you cannot change the way it'll appear in pro tools, Pyramix ..., the only way to do this is to have role or sub-role for each channel, and the speed way is to do it for multiple clips in the event.

So, to steer this back to the topic... No ideas how to get the channel config to reset properly?!?

:sad face:

"Reset" always works for me.

BenB wrote: "Reset" always works for me.

Me too. Not this time. The correct config isn't an option. Might be nice to be able to manually set a custom config.

OK, I'm lost, no clue what you are "not" able to do. I tested, and not finding same results. What camera are these files coming from? Having one of them personally would help.

BenB wrote: OK, I'm lost, no clue what you are "not" able to do. I tested, and not finding same results. What camera are these files coming from? Having one of them personally would help.

I share your confusion.

These are not camera files. They are multichannel split feature reels exported in a batch from... FCP 7 I think. As I said, when I imported them, the config auto detected correctly. At some point, for no discernible reason, 2 of the 6 reels changed to 4 mono, which is wrong. Reset parameter does nothing. I can change it to 2 stereo (wrong) or surround (wrong) but it will not reset to 2 mono 1 stereo. The 4 other reels are fine.

It's really odd. If I re-mport the 2 bad files, they keep the incorrect config. I'm sure something is messed up somewhere, but I can't figure out what. The masters that X is confused by import fine (2 mono 1 stereo) into FCP 7. Pr sees it as 4 mono, but that's because Pr CC is kind of stupid when it comes to multichannel sources. It see all the reels as 4 mono. All the file metadata is the same in all 6 files. I'm not a casual user FWIW, and I'm hoping I just made a rookie mistake, but I have no idea what that would be. So here i am...

Hey Charlie,

When you open the problematic audio files in QT7 and you press CMD+J, do you see 3 audio tracks or 4?

- Ronny

ronny courtens wrote: Hey Charlie,

When you open the problematic audio files in QT7 and you press CMD+J, do you see 3 audio tracks or 4?

- Ronny

Hi Ronny,

That's the only thing I haven't done, but I'm gonna say it'll show 3. Did CMD-I in QT 7 and 10 and it shows the correct config. Also inspected in DR's QT Edit and the Media Info app, which display the same metadata as CMD-J in QT 7. Both show 3 as expected. FCP 7 interprets them correctly, as did FCP X before the waveforms finished drawing. I suspected maybe those 2 clips for some reason had 2 channels of the same audio grouped as stereo or something, but inspecting the waveform indicates that they are indeed a stereo pair. It's really perplexing.

Only thing I haven't done is Make a new Library, import the files, and see what happens. As I said, I don't need those channels anyway, but I need to figure out what's going on just... because.

I suspected maybe those 2 clips for some reason had 2 channels of the same audio grouped as stereo or something,

Exactly my thoughts, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Been breaking my head on this. I have tried every trick I know to mess up the channel configuration in FCP X but I cannot reproduce this issue. In the worst case i always can use "Reset" to get everything back on track.

What seems strange is that you have 6 files and it only happens with 2 of them. Which makes me suspect it's not something you did, nor is it related to FCP X. Do you have any way of getting the "clean" audio tracks back from a backup or so and try importing them again to see if X interprets them correctly?

- Ronny

ronny courtens wrote: I suspected maybe those 2 clips for some reason had 2 channels of the same audio grouped as stereo or something,

Exactly my thoughts, but this doesn't seem to be the case. Been breaking my head on this. I have tried every trick I know to mess up the channel configuration in FCP X but I cannot reproduce this issue. In the worst case i always can use "Reset" to get everything back on track.

What seems strange is that you have 6 files and it only happens with 2 of them. Which makes me suspect it's not something you did, nor is it related to FCP X. Do you have any way of getting the "clean" audio tracks back from a backup or so and try importing them again to see if X interprets them correctly?

- Ronny

I agree. I'm sure it's something to do with the files. I do have access to the originals, so that is the next step. I think we share the same obsession with figuring out why things are happening, so you can imagine how this is driving me crazy. The fact that FCP 7 and other apps interpret the files correctly only adds to my madness. lol I suppose the only thing X could maybe offer that it doesn't is the ability to force a "custom" audio config, as you can with project settings etc.

It's not the end of the world, as I said, But I'll of course post here if I figure it out. Thanks!