Audio trouble in FCP6
 

Sorry for the non-specific title, I don't know exactly what to call it, so I'll describe..

Recently, in FCP6, my audio is acting up.. After anyhting from 0.5 to 10 seconds after I start playback, that playback start all over, on top of the original sound, so I get doubl audio, which is horribly annoying... Thing is, all the audio seems fine in Soundtrack Pro and the original clips etc, so this has to be something with FCP, but I have no clue what... Tried FCP Rescue, tried stereo-pair, mono-tracks etc.

When I disable one track, the problem dissapears however, but that's not exactly a fix pr.se..

Again, sorry for my lack of ability to describe this properly, and I'd be very grateful in anyone have any thoughts on what could have caused this.

I have this same thing pop up every once in a while. Although if I disable an audio track it doesn't fix the issue. I have to drag the playhead to the start for it to fix the problem.

Just wanted to confirm :)

Hopefully 6.0.2 will fix it.

Here is a quick example for the people who have not experienced this.

6.3mb H.264
http://www.oblivionfilms.com/movies/...ops_slowmo.mov

It sounded like that in the timeline and it obviously exported like that too. It sounds like Henrik has a slightly different problem because mine randomly does this and it's a problem with the channels. For eg. the right channel will play audio but the left will not. Then for no reason the left will pop on at a different point in the audio track so they aren't lined up.

I haven't experienced audio problem in FCP6, yet, but in Soundtrack Pro 2.01, I could not make DecklinkHD (as video output) and MOTU Traveler (as audio output) at the same time, the application seems to have problem separately selecting audio and video with different selections. If the video device is not selected, the audio device selection works fine, then by selecting an video device (in my case DecklinkHD Extreme) will force it to set the audio to the video device. I think it was okay with Soundtrack Pro 2.0 (edit:2.0 did have the same problem) and for sure it was fine with Soundtrack Pro 1.xx.

Also, while having that issue with Soundtrack Pro 2.01, in FCP6, it lets me select the video and audio device independently with no problem. So, the issue that I'm having seems to be because of the bug in the Soundtrack Pro 2.01.

It also seems to slow down one of the channels. I haven't done a test to see if it's actually slower or if it's just pitched down yet though.

Just an FYI.

I checked on my problem and Soundtrack Pro 2.0 had the same problem on not being to be able to select video and audio device separately.

Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one with a problem like this! I also got some pitch/slowdown-issues the other day, also in FCP, but that was only after I imported it from STP. :)
Still the same here though, but what baffles me the most it that is seems quite random. Sometimes there, sometimes not, somtimes it sorts itself out on the next clip etc, somtimes it doesn't. I haven't been able to get any closer to finding out what could be causing it..

I checked with an audio interface manufacturer and they said the core audio seems to be buggy at this point.
The duplicate audio is coming out probably because multiple drivers gets selected somehow. apple must have already recognized this obvious problem and working on it I hope.

I've had TONS of trouble with the new Soundtrack Pro including, but not limited to, the fact that all my audio plays back extremely slow if I even use the scrub tool once.

If I use the scrub tool, from that point on everything in the multitrack sequence plays back at something like 1/100th of the speed. Don't get me wrong, the playhead moves across the clips at regular speed, but what you hear is the very first microsecond of sound being stretched slowly across the whole clip. If I shut down the program and restart it, then everything plays back fine as long as I don't try to use the scrub tool again.

This is only one of many problems I've had. For my money, FCS2 was NOT ready to be released. The problems I've had are ridiculous IMO and so far the updates haven't helped.

Man, this issue is a HUGE issue with me now. It just doesn't work properly anymore... ever.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Still nothing on this?

Still very bad here, sometimes slow-mo sound, sometimes echo and sometimes no sound.

And then it all works some times too..
Terribly annoying, and right now more than that, as I have a DVD I was supposed to finish now, but the sound-problems follow the export from FCP, so I don't really know what to do..

This worked for me....
 

Hi Henrick

After taking a project created in FCP4.6 into FCP6 - I noticed that - aswell as various audio clips changing their levels, part of the audio track was ghosting itself (can't think of another way to put it) onto another part of the timeline - after hunting around for the mysterious audio clip and finding nothing, I tried the following.

Highlighting the whole timeline (Apple A) I then went into the render menu and hit Render Only > followed by all the 3 lower audio options - also did the video options for playback and full.

It worked - audio sorted....

Hope this helps....

Stu
www.studioscotland.co.uk

Thank you for your reply Stewart!

When you mention it, I do think the only files I have had problems with have been created in FCP 5, I don't think I've had thise happen in any of the recent projects I've made, maybe theres something there.

Anyway, I tried the rendering-tips, but it didn't kill the rather quick "echo" I get on some of my clips, and that's the main problem in this particular project. It's really strange, as the problem comes and goes with no pattern. I play the timeline; problem. Then play again, and it can be fine, with nothing else changed.

Eventually I managed to export a version with relatively litte (hopefully no) echo. But I can't seem to solve the problem, and trying over and over is a pretty bad solution when it's 2-hour sequence for DVD. :)

By the way, nice work on a lot of the clips on your site!

Not for me. New, old, it definitely doesn't matter. I was just sitting with a client today reviewing some dailies and the audio was wack. I had no explanation.

Apple needs to get on this now!

Until then I'm going to test a fresh install and see what happens. If that doesn't work I'm going back to 5.1.4. I'll post results in a bit when I get it up. 4AM here :(

fukem

True, very much not only happening in old files converted up.
Started a new project, made a rough edit with no sound, sent it to soundtrack pro, and when I get it back, the channelse play in different pitch or something, at least far from sync.. I just don't get it, there has to be something seriously wrong with my machine/setup, because if it was like this for a lot of people, I bet we'd here A LOT about it, it's crazy..

Yesterday I tested some DVCPRO HD clips that were having this problem on one of my boxes on another identical system and it works fine. The plot thickens :) So I just restored an older image I have with 5.1.4 and am going to have to finish this project on that. After it's done I'll do a fresh OSX and FCS2 install and test the heck out of it. It might take a month or so before we're finished though.

Henrik, what kind of system are you on btw? And what type of video? Codec? Camera?

All of mine have been 720pN24 and 60fps from an HVX.

PowerMac G5 2 x 2,5GhZ with 5gb, latest system and FCS.
I have mainly been doing DV-work earlier, but now I have an XH A1, so I've been testing a lot of HDV and also DVCPro HD-conversion of XH A1-footage (Mainly 1080f/p25), and I've had problems in all as far as I can remember. Which leads me to believe this is not codec-dependent. Today I did a large project in DV with LOTS of audio-problems, but finally got it right, so I was very happy to jump onto a DVPRO 1080p25-project I'm doing, only to find major audio-issues there too. (Stereo-delay/pitch-problems, I don't know exactly how to describe it)
So I took a little break, and when I restarted FCP the project worked... That's what kills me, it's random and on and off this problem for me..

What system are you on?

Edit: I did a fresh format/new OS-install before I installed FCS2, so that shouldn't be the issue, but I'm glad you're testing it! :)

Hi Henrik - Pitty that did not help..... you probably don't want to hear this, but our producer is just back from a doc festival where she was chatting with someone from a very large production house, and that company has decided to go back to FCP5 until FCP6 is more stable.... it has cost them very large sums of money in lost time....

While we are just a small company... we are getting really tired of the amount of problems there are these days with upgrades for this and that... I seem to spend more time sorting problems than getting on with my job...

Hope you get an answer soon to your issue....

Regards: Stu
www.studioscotland.com

Hey Henrik, yeah we definitely have the same problem. The computer I'm testing this on is a few months old MBP. The other computer I tested it on is an almost identical MBP and it was fine, which got me thinking about the differences...

On my laptop, it's not my main computer so I have lots of garbage installed. It's not that it's poorly maintained, it's mainly just that more apps are installed. Not as fresh. FTP client, adiumX, CS2, etc...

On the other laptop (the one that worked fine), it was a nice fresh install with only minimal apps installed.

Both systems have the latest software installed. OSX 10.4.10, FCP 6.0.1 and the rest of FCS2 is up to date.

Since FCS2 is a new app then everyone who purchased it can get free phone support from Apple; has anyone called this in and created a support ID for this issue? If everyone here did that then Apple would most certainly get to fixing this faster than if they read about it on the forums.

So far I haven't run into this issue but I'll be looking to test it soon.

I've done the "Provide feedback" on the web a couple times, as a bug-report, so if they read those they should be aware of it.

Yeah I did this also. However, I haven't called in. I most likely will after I get back to testing it though.

Soundtrack Pro
 

Hi:

I have been reading this thread with great interest as I am about to begin a new project with FCP Studio 2.0.1 and tend to use SoundtrackPro extensively.

I have noticed that current software, whether it be for 3D animation, video editing, audio editing, etc, written in the Universal Binary Format, does not seem to function as well or as reliably on a Mac G5 as it does on an Intel Mac. Of course, this is my personal observation, but I wonder what the majority of this thread's posters are using, i.e. G4, G5 or Intel Mac, and if the above observation is in any way related to the described audio issue?

Well, Henrik is on a PPC based G5 and I'm on an Intel based MBP.

Soundtrackpro
 

Well, so much for that theory.

Just checking, do you use 44,1 or 48 khz in your sequence settings? Switching that helps my slowmo-problem at least, not sure about the echo etc..

I'm always at 48kHz