Re: Motion TRACKS versus FCP X Trackless (now OT: organization in FCPX vs FCP7)

[Michael Gissing] "I would love to give you a race Bill, to select, fit and mix a voice over track. With a tool like Fairlight I can sort, select, trim, globally adjust levels, apply EQ and fit to a guide narration all in the timeline at a speed that would surprise. I can also stack alternate takes in preference order on the one track so the director can audition in place during the mix."

Sigh,

I think so many people are still missing the whole point. Let me try to be clear. FCP-X isn't the finest tool for all jobs on the planet in every case. Purpose built tools of all sorts will out-perform it every time. That's not the point of X in my estimation.

I'll try to explain it in yet another lousy metaphor. We're coming out of the age of steam train editing. Those hauled people and cargo amazingly well. They were what we needed at the turn of the last century. Big solutions to big needs. They've changed the whole planet. Then along comes this new "automobile" thing. It's useless to say "it can't haul freight like a train. Because it can't. Nobody's saying that it can.

And if you're moving big stuff between places where there are tracks but no roads, a car might even be a really stupid thing.

But what happened with cars in the early days? Some folks used them in cities. Some used them cross country. Some knuckleheads even RACED the darn things. Some of those folks got hurt, failed, drove into ditches, scared the horses, etc.

Eventually, because the fundamental idea of a fast, affordable, general purpose mode of transport that an individual could own and use for a lot of "individual" things - the ecosystem built up so it was a general use tool that everyone valued.

The parallel is only instructive, IMO, because editing has traditional been an "industrial" game - only recently in history an individual one. Now that is CLEARLY changing.

I think X is a fine early tool for a new era of personalized editing. And know what? It wasn't long before the smartest guys adapted the basic idea into everything from postal delivery vans to Indy race cars.

X is NOT a Fairlight. And putting it in a race with one is about as relevant to my thinking as putting a tractor in a race with a Kawasaki Ninja.

if you do 90% VO work, doing it on X is probably as silly as trying to harrow a field with a motorcycle.

I do 90% corporate video editing, and probably 25-50 paid VO gigs plus another 50 for my own projects a year. And for that. X is a fine tool, just like Legacy was. I didn't use it because it's the "best VO tool in the world." I use it because it does a competent job and I didn't have to waste my brain keeping up with FCP and something like ProTools.

Simple as that.

"Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions."-Justice O'Connor