Round tripping audio to GarageBand

Just needed to add a couple of music accents to a piece I'm working on and hate the audio browser built in to FCP X. So I thought I'd give GarageBand a go.

First you need to share your project to the Media Browser. Pick your res and then you're done.

Go to GarageBand and select Movie and your edit should be there waiting for you if you navigate the the project folder.

Drag the edit in the track editor and now you can lay up any track you like.
If you have two screens you can even pop out the video to a separate window and run it on the second monitor.

Add all your FX music and what ever else you like.

Then save the project and mix it down. If you still want to tinker with your projects main audio in FCP X then just pull the level of the movie track down to zero before you mix it down.

Now when you're back in FCP X go the Audio browser and under GarageBand you should find your mix.



Drag it into your timeline and your done! I was amazed at how well this works.

The other thing I tried was creating a new Audio Role and called it Final Mix.
Then turned off all the other audio roles so I could just listen to what came from GarageBand.

I'm really impressed at how well this works, and bodes well for when Logic X comes out.

Hmm, months ago I was joking that I'd replace my FCS workflow with an FCP X > Garageband > iDVD flow.... seems I wasn't too mistaken.

But, hey, if it works! Garageband seems to have gotten pretty powerful over the years (rarely ever used it... that's what I had STP for).

Ha ha. You were right on the money.

This only occurred to me when watching a friend who's a musician using GarageBand.
Got to say I'm suitably impressed. I know have a use for GarageBand.

Just curious why you hate the audio browser in fcpx. I find it to be a great tool. Obviously one must have their effects and music/stingers in place, but provided you do it's much easier to access them than in the past.

I agree the audio browser in X is a great feature and an improvement over legacy FCP. The only thing I regret is that you cannot skim through the audio files. If you want to choose a piece of music in the browser you must play the entire piece if you want to hear how it ends. Unless you drop it onto the timeline to be able to skim through the file and if you don't like it remove it again. Same thing in Garageband and STP. I wish they had a dynamic preview like you have in Adobe Bridge. Would make life easier.

I find that it is just way too small maybe it's just that my monitor isn't big enough for the task (Yes I know you can drag it bigger but at the cost of all the other screens which I find very annoying) also for some reason when I audition music it plays twice as loud as anything else. And as pointed out you can't sample a different section of the track unless you drop it into the timeline.
And if you want to work on all your tracks the timeline isn't big enough unless once again you compromise all the other screens.

Loops can't be extended indefinitely just by dragging

It doesn't have near the same search functionality as GarageBand or iTunes.

Anyway enough whinging.. It is nice to have it there it's just that I found this solution so much easier. I forgot to mention that your markers show up in GarageBand too.

My problem is that STP loops and effects are sorted by author, instead of genre. I think that is kinda messed up.

I actually put all my stock music into iTunes, give it a genre, collection, etc, and playlists, so I can find them easily in FCP X.

I've done the same thing with my SoundFX Library but how do I get these fields to show up in FCP X? All I can see is Name, Artist, Date and Time.

Yep, FCP X won't show all the metadata fields. I mostly use playlists.

but you can't actually really edit the audio from you edit from FCPX like you can with en OMF export form FCP7 to LogicPro, right? .... u don't get separate "tracks" or something ... u also could track that Quicktime Movie (with a mixed down FCPX audio) into LogicPro and do the (only) same as you did in Garage Band ... so i don't see the point of this "Roundtrip" .... just saying

Might try the Logic route then??

Marc Lucas wrote: Might try the Logic route then??

well its the petter app but as you can't export OMF in FCPX you don't get any more audio out of FCPX even if you use LogicPro

That is correct. That's why being able to send your FCP X timeline straight to the upcoming Logic Pro X would be an important next step in the FCP X workflow.

With Xto7 and Automatic Duck, you can get OMF from FCP X to Logic 9 right now.

What I've been doing is (and I have an article being published on this soon) is export my audio as Stems (using Rolls). That way I have separate audio files that are all the same length (of the original Timeline) and in sync.

I'd much prefer to work in Logic than GarageBand because Logic has actual audio engineering tools GB lacks.

Fill out the feedback page, everyone, and request round trips from FCP X to Logic Pro.

We don't have tracks, but we have Compound Clips that helps a great deal, we can trim, we also have all of Logic's filters, then throw in Rolls & Stem export, and it's pretty nice. I don't miss having a mixer at all. And I cam to video from audio recording studios and composing. Mixers are over rated for basic work done inside of an NLE. That said, a round trip built-in to get to GB and/or Logic would be fantastic.

As for iDVD, remember, it's dead. You won't find it on any new Mac now, Apple has dropped it totally. Toast Pro 11 is what I see as it's proper replacement.

FYI, I have a blog post about doing voice work in FCP X, as it's something I work with professionally almost daily. FCP X does have way more audio mixing ability than folks give it credit for.
www.fcproxuniversity.com/FCPro_X_Univers...rding_tricks%29.html

I'm still on Logic 8 but if you could do a simple FCPX to Logic roundtrip I would definitely buy Logic X just for that. It would open up things beautifully!

yes FCPX has way better audio ability than FCP7 in terms of plugins and clip editing ( clip volume control / fade in / fad out ) ... if it only had some sort of "rolls (track) mixer" and even more important an master channel it might be actually enough for a good sound mix

Like I said, think "Compound Clips". Put all of the same Roll type into a Compound clip, you can then Master them as a whole. Compound Clip = Buss + keyframable sub-mixer.

michaschmidt wrote: but you can't actually really edit the audio from you edit from FCPX like you can with en OMF export form FCP7 to LogicPro, right? .... u don't get separate "tracks" or something ... u also could track that Quicktime Movie (with a mixed down FCPX audio) into LogicPro and do the (only) same as you did in Garage Band ... so i don't see the point of this "Roundtrip" .... just saying

The usefulness I found is that I can add loops, drag them to the right length and add ducking and goosing easily. The only way I can think to do this would be to edit the loop in multiple times, convert them into a compound clip and then apply the ducking.

The other advantage is the interface has more friendly to adio editing and if you're a musician you can score the movie while it's playing.

I'll do a test on roles and chapter markers to see what happens.

You can control click to sort by Name Artist Album Genre, etc. You can also create custom folders within the media browser- such as hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20080608080454833