Files continue to be unrendered after render
 

I'm editing a feature, and our sound mixer just turned over 27 audio tracks to me for laying onto the image. I laid them all in and the bar at the top of the timeline went solid red the whole length of the film (needs render). When I try to play the film, I get that annoying unrendered cyclical beeping sound FCP does...

I started by selecting all, going to Sequence > Render Selection > Audio. Didn't work. The moment the render finishes (I get no errors of any kind), it appears to have worked, but when I click anywhere on the timeline, the red comes back and it's as though I never did the render.

I also tried rendering *everything* (Sequence > Render All > Both) to see if that would catch it, but still the same thing.

I went through and identified several tracks that weren't rendered. I selected one track - SFX3 - the shortest of all of them - hilited it, and rendered audio selection. It worked! The red segment for that whole length of film went away. Then I selected another track that I knew needed rendering (foley1). When that completed, the whole timeline (including the area that I'd just fixed by rendering SFX3) went red - and I was back where I started.

Any ideas why this would be happening, or what I could do to get the damn thing to render as it should?

While I can't look over your shoulder to see what's amiss, I will ask why your sound mixer gave you 27 audio tracks if he or she is the "Sound Mixer"???

Long story, long post-production process... Need to focus on getting it *done* at this point. Any ideas how to fix?

Bring them into SoundtrackPro and export a mix as a single stereo track.

Also check if the files are functional outside of FCP. Are they AIFF?

Yes, re-mix the audio down to stems, or a master mix.

maybe try to make a new sequence with appropriate settings, copy original and paste into it.
i remember trying that when i had a problem like that and it worked... voodoo???

You might try using the Render Manager. (Tools>Render Manager) Check everything and delete all your renders. Sometimes FCP get's mixed up when you render, edit, re-render, repeat....

Then go to Sequence>Render All and check everything. Then render everything in your sequence again. (keyboard short cut = Option+Command+R)

NOTE: You shouldn't have to check everything in the Sequence>Render All column. I've been editing for quite a while now with Video-Full and Audio-Item Level left unchecked.

Also, you might try Final Cut Pro>User Preferences and set the Real-time Audio Mixing to 27 tracks? (that's just a guess)

Going WAY out on a limb here but, when you're clicking on the track as mentioned above, you're using the arrow tool, right? Under certain circumstances (like 27 tracks for instance) cutting a track with the blade tool will cause all the tracks to become unrendered because they have in fact changed. Even using the pen tool to add a control point, EVEN UNCHANGED, will cause renders to become unrendered.

hey - thanks to all of you for your comments!

it ends up, the user preferences for my system were set to 8 tracks. i changed it to 18 (and combined the sfx1, sfx2, sfx3 & foley into a single track) and it works! praise the lord!!!

simple solutions are so so rare in post, i'm finding. thanks to all of you for your thoughtful replies!

D'OH! Of course! I have my system set to more channels as a matter of course so I didn't even THINK about that. Ocham's Razor (the simplest solution is most likely the right one) at it's finest...