FCPX Audio. Stereo Tracks and L/R pan.

Hi, 

Been working in FCPX for a bit for bit now and I've been told something. Now this might be obvious to everyone but it was news to me and I want to confirm what happened. 

I do clips pulls, a lot, for work and normally I start with a ProRes file with the following audio spec. 

1. LT
2. RT
3. Diag
4. FX
5. Music R
6. Music L

9 times out of 10 I turn off 3 - 6 and just work with the 1 & 2 track. When I export I would just select the default Stereo L/R option. But i had a client get back to me and tell me that the track was not in Stereo. After some talking with some others was that I needed to PAN 1 and 2 to L and R before output to get both channels on 1 track and that by default FCPX pans the tracks to center. 

Is this true? 

In the end I just gave them track 1 and 2 as mono Left and Right split tracks and all was well. Feel like I was missing something here. Can someone point me in the right direction. THX. 

I have difficulties to fully understand your workflow. Allow me a few questions:
What is your source media? How was the audio recorded?
How exactly do you assign your audio to L and R?
Are you using roles?

Carlsen.

As stated above. I start with a ProRes of the mastered project with the above audio specs. This isn't me taking parts are putting them together. I'm working with a final Master making clips for promo purposes.

The tracks are PCM tracks.

I think this is the part where I'm making a mistake, I do not assign them to L/R. I assumed that if I exported the L & R mono tracks alone then the Stereo track would reflect that.

I am using roles. Especially when I need to export multiple mono tracks of audio.

Ok if the source material has the track layout of 1=L, 2=R, (etc) than of course you have to pan 1 to the left and 2 to to the right to have them correctly routed on export. It's all about how the audio tracks of the source are interpreted by FCP.
If you look at the audio of the source in the inspector you will see that tracks are either interpreted as all mono or as stereo pairs or surround. If the source clip doesn't have metadata to indicate to FCP which tracks of the source are mono or stereo (or surround) than FCP can only interpret them all as mono or all as stereo pairs (or surround). I think this is the your case and therefor you have to pan the source tracks manually to L or R.
(If you export a mix of mono and stereo tracks from FCP and import that clip back into FCP, you'll see that FCP can interpret a mix of mono and stereo correctly. But if that metadata is not present FCP doesn't allow you to set e.g. 1+2 as stereo, 3 as mono, 4+5 as stereo, 6 as mono. It's all mono or all stereo (1-2, 3-4, 5-6)

If LT and RT are the same material, delete one and keep the other mono. Panning the exact same audio left, then a duplicate to the right, does not make it stereo. It is still mono with possible phase issues.

I, too, am very confused as to what this audio structure is. This isn't a standard workflow.

FCPX reads the tracks as all mono. So this makes perfect sense. Thanks for the explanation. 

Cheers and thanks.

Sorry to continue asking ( and I know I'm in the FCPX forum but...) when working in Compressor. Would I then have to select the appropriate designation in Audio Properties for Track 1 and 2 to get a proper stereo output in say and h264 file?

thanks.

LT and RT are not the same material. 

I think the problem in Compressor is that you can't pan tracks. You can only specify how the source audio is interpreted and how the export audio channels are setup. You have no way to assign e.g. track 1 of the source to the L channel of stereo track in the destination clip, etc

I'm still confused what LT and RT are used for in that they need to be panned like that. Why not just make them one stereo pair?

Would not going to the Audio Properties section of the "Job" area and then designating Track 1 as Left and Track 2 as Right do it? So when I output the h.264 as a stereo pair Compressor would know where to place each track? 

When I looked at it yesterday I didn’t see that option.

Good one. I only had a clip wth stereo tracks so this didn’t show. Good to know :1)