TOPIC:

The latest version of X2Pro (4.5.10) always crashes and Marquis will not have the fix ready (4.5.11) with Apple for "awhile." Anyone know an alternative app?

Gloup!! You are right, I've updated to 4.5.10 and is totally useless. X2pro is not exactly cheap, I hope marquis fix soon this problem

Alternatives: Logic Pro and Resolve

Thanks Oliver, but I'm not looking for an alternative to ProTools -- I'm looking for an alternative to X2Pro so I can export to our network's own dedicated Audio engineer who uses ProTools exclusively.

You misunderstood. You can use Logic or Resolve to create the AAF for ProTools in the same manner as you would use X2Pro. Import the FCPXML and then export the AAF.

Thanks, wasn't aware u could use it for that.

But you would loose the Roles functionality with that, wouldn't you?

I just ran into the X2Pro v4.5.10 crashing problem tonight while trying to create an AAF for PT sweetening. I'm hoping that either a new, fixed X2Pro version shows up on the AppStore or they provide the previous version for those of us with deadlines. Carsten, I seem to recall someone saying that you lose Roles when going through Resolve. I too would love an X2Pro alternate that supports Roles and compound clips.

Carsten: "But you would loose the Roles functionality with that, wouldn't you?"

Audio roles have no bearing in any software other than FCP. It's really a question of whether the software that opens the FCPXML (X2Pro, Logic, Resolve) understands the Roles info in such a way that it's properly stacked in an organized fashion onto audio tracks. If that's the case, then the AAF that opens in ProTools will be correctly (rather than randomly) organized. I have no access to ProTools so I don't know how it looks at that end. Our mixers are out-of-house, so until they squawk, I assume it's fine for them.

I really haven't tested much audio through Resolve, since my roundtrips there are only picture for grading. In the case of my experience with Logic, the tracks did open in an organized fashion. The one caveat is that any speed changes made to audio in FCP are not translated when you open them in Logic.

The alternative is simply to pre-organize audio in FCP (add handles, assign roles, etc) in a way that would checkerboard your audio. Export this as a multitrack files as "stems", which could then be imported into any other application. This isn't the purest approach, since the audio is no longer the original. However, when you export audio files and trim them, you have transcoded those files anyway. So that's not technically the original either. But it works just as well in many cases.

Anyone having success with downgrading to 4.5.9 or using the 4.5.11 beta? Neither is working for me.

Our PT guy says that without the roles the organization of tracks (or lack thereof) is messy and time consuming to clean up. I don't have PT either so I can't confirm.

@Wondering, I got access to 4.5.9 and 4.5.11 this morning but same as you, both quit unexpectedly. Have you discovered any workarounds?

The roles come into play when you bring the file into Logic or Resolve. It's organized there. Once you export that AAF, the organization has already happened and it shouldn't be different inside PT. Do you have Resolve or Logic? If so you can test for yourself and see.

Thank you Oliver. I haven't used Resolve much and don't have Logic. I wasn't aware that Resolve respected roles and will test out that workflow.

I certainly haven't discovered anything but I am in touch with Marquis support and so far nothing they've sent me has worked. Their last email to me (this morning) was that they think they've isolated the problem in their lab and will have a solution "soon." They also said their new version will be available in Apple store "soon". I don't know what "soon" means... In the meantime, I'm exporting aiff files to our ProTools guy.

I ran some quick, simple tests at my end and X2Pro Audio Convert (4.5.10) seems to be OK for me. This is just a test with .wav files and both FCPXML export 1.09 and 1.10 worked. Those are different formats, though. X2Pro did not like leaving the files in place, so when that was disabled, everything was OK.

The test in Logic opened the 1.09 (FCPXML) and 1.10 (FCPXMLD) versions. These were music stems and each stem was numbered and I used that same number to create subroles. In Logic these imported as a track stack with the appropriate tracks in order in the stack. The one difference was that in FCP the sort was 1-10. In Logic, these sorted as 1, 10, 2-9, since there were no leading zeros in the role names or file names.

Resolve would not open the 1.10 version (FCPXMLD), but was OK with the 1.09 (FCPXML) and the AAF generated by X2Pro. The FCPXML stacked in the reverse order 10-1. The AAF stacked the same way as in Logic 1, 10, 2-9.

However, the same numbers were used as subrole names as were in the filename. So I randomly changed the subrole name to letters and exported new FCPXML versions. In Logic the tracks sorted alphabetically, so it was therefore honoring the subroles. In Resolve, the track sorted in reverse numerical order based on file name. This means that Resolve ignores the role information and uses file naming for its track order.

The last test was to export an AAF from Logic (with tracks sorted according to alphabetical roles) as an AAF. I imported this AAF into Resolve and the track order matched what I saw in Logic. So basically, Logic understands role info in the FCPXML, but Resolve doesn't. However, you can use Logic to create an AAF with tracks properly organized according to roles.

The bottom line is that if you can't get X2Pro to work, then use Logic if role order is important. Resolve will work, but it will ignore the role info in the FCPXML file.

Thank you very much for running tests Oliver and reporting the results! Very helpful.

Support at Marquis Broadcast say that the problem is affecting some but not all users. I'm curious, are you on Monterey 12.3.1 and FCP 10.6.2?

It happens with 10.6.1 too as I just tried. macOS 12.3.1

Thanks for the info Carsten. I did a screen recording so I could see how far it got before quitting. It quit when displaying the 3rd file of the "Adding audio to the AAF" step. How far does yours get? Just curious if there's any similarities.

"I'm curious, are you on Monterey 12.3.1 and FCP 10.6.2"

Big Sur 11.6.5 and FCP 10.6.2. I'd bet Monterey is the issue. It's not one of Apple's better OS moments.