How to really separate dual mono audio tracks before adding in a multicam

Hi there,

I have 3 cameras that film 6 persons, one mic per person, and those mic are recorded two by two on stereo input of the cameras.
So I have 3 clips, with each clip containing one stereo track, but in reality 2 mono track.

I know how to switch from stereo to dual mono in fcp.
I know how to sync those 3 clips in a multicam clip in fcp.

But once my multicam is in the timeline, when I expand audio, I want to get my 6 mono audio tracks to mix them. How to obtain that ?
What is the best practice or workflow to edit this kind of multicam ?

Vincent

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you'd like to do. You might consider creating separate roles/subroles for each person's audio.

Hi and thanks, but I'not sure to understand how roles could help?

My goal is to have a multicam clip in my timeline to cut video (choose angle and cut), and the ability to show all 6 tracks of sound to fine tune levels edit by edit. Where roles could help?

If I had separates mono AIFF files, it would be so easy: I would made multicam with 3 video tracks and 6 audio tracks (allways selected). But in my case...

Vinc26 wrote:

Hi and thanks, but I'not sure to understand how roles could help?

My goal is to have a multicam clip in my timeline to cut video (choose angle and cut), and the ability to show all 6 tracks of sound to fine tune levels edit by edit. Where roles could help?

If I had separates mono AIFF files, it would be so easy: I would made multicam with 3 video tracks and 6 audio tracks (allways selected). But in my case...

Okay, thanks for the additional info.

So, do you want the audio (all 6 mono channels) to be "on" all the time, where you are just switching between the 3 video clips?

Here are a few scenario overviews, one or more of which you might find useful (some details are not mentioned):

Scenario 1:
1. Create audio roles/subroles for each person. Assign those roles to the channels in each of the three source clips.
2. Create a multicam clip using one of your source clips (1V 2A). In the dialog, use custom settings and set the Video and Render options to what you'd like. Rename and open the multicam clip.
3. Add 5 more angles. Name them and the first one something like: V1, V2, V3, Speaker 1&2, Speaker 3&4, and Speaker 5&6.
4. Select the clip in Angle 1 and delete it. Set the "edit mode" to Video Only (shfit-2) and drag and drop the same first source clip into Angle 1 of the MC clip. Only the video should appear in Angle 1.
5. Repeat with the other two source clips.
6. Change the edit mode to Audio Only (shift-3).
7. Drag and drop each source clip into remaining the MC clip angles.
8. You might have to resynch the angles.
9. Once you've edited the MC into a timeline/Project, you can select the MC and expand audio (components) to see all 6 audio tracks. You can also set the timeline clip appearance to show roles, and in the Timeline Index you can adjust things to group clips into Lanes by role. By using roles/subroles and having lanes visible, you can make compound clips for each person's audio and apply audio effects, etc. (for final mixing).

Scenario 2:
1. Create a MC clip for all audio channels. It would have three angles, each one containing the audio from its respective source clip.
2. Create a multicam clip as above. Instead of having six angles you'd make four. Edit the video only into the angle editor for each source and then add the "audio only MC clip" into the fourth angle.
3. Edit the MC clip from Step 2 into a new Project/timeline and expand audio, as needed. All of the audio will be in one angle.

Scenario 3:
1. Use something like Audcacity or a DAW (QT Player won't work if you want to choose the export format) to extract the audio as separate channels/tracks from each A-V source file, yielding six separate audio files. Dragging and dropping a source A-V file onto the main Audacity window opens the audio. Using "Export -> Export Multiple..." (shift-command-L)  will let you export the audio in separate files.
2. Use the separate audio files with the 3 video files to create a MC clip with nine angles.

Comments:
- You may need to consider synching between the various clips.
- It may be good to edit the source A-V clips into the MC clips with the audio as part of the video for synching purposes. You could then deactivate the audio components for the video angles.
- I may have missed some detail, such as turning on the audio monitoring for the audio-only angles, etc., though the scenarios presented should work.

This should give you some inspiration for doing some experimentation if these scenarios aren't quite right. Someone else will likely chime in with a much better way to do this...

Hope this helps. Cheers.

Thanks for this so detailed response!!! It appears that the 1st scenario could be the most appropriate. I'll take de try.

Thanks again!!!

Hi, Based on your scenario 1, it works well! Thanks again !

Cool. Glad that helped...