Too many Tracks! - what to do?

Too many Tracks! - what to do?

by Nick Meyers

on Feb 6, 2015 at 4:14:45 am

hi there.

i've been presented with XDCam rushes with 8 tracks of audio, the last four of which are totally blank.

they have also shot 2 (occasionally 3) cameras in a pretty random fashion, making it simpler (it seems) to NOT create multiclips, but to work with stacked clips.

various mics were being sent to various cameras, so all useable audio need to be accessible.

if i bring in all 8 tracks i'll be trying to wrangle 16 tracks of audio in FCP as i edit.

i'm toying with the idea of using QT change to delete the tracks from the QT files themselves.
any one done this?

anyone got some other ideas?
FCPX might have been an option if i had more experience on it (than none!)

it's a big project that will go on for months, so i'm trying to simplify before i start

thanks,
nick

Re: Too many Tracks! - what to do?

by Shane Ross

on Feb 6, 2015 at 6:02:07 am

have 16 tracks JUST for camera audio...and then another 12-16 for music and effects. 32 TRACKS! Lately in Avid I've had to have 17-21 tracks...10 of them production audio. And we need all tracks because they are the various mics for the on camera talent....and we layer them. Yeah, it's a beast, but needs to be done so the mix goes smoother.

So when they brought in the XDCAM footage, they didn't uncheck the unused audio tracks, so the ones with nothing didn't come in? Boy... I've never used QT change to delete audio tracks...I've just used QT Pro to go in and do it. Fairly simple. But that's a LOT of work...easier to simply not patch them in.

Shane
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Re: Too many Tracks! - what to do?

by Michael Gissing

on Feb 6, 2015 at 6:02:25 am

Quicktime Pro might be able to delete the unused tracks.

Re: Too many Tracks! - what to do?

by Nick Meyers

on Feb 6, 2015 at 9:45:43 am

Thanks, Shane, MIchael.

the last 4 tracks really are empty, so better to ditch them, i think.
there are other empty tracks here and there, but there's no real pattern, so i'l live with those rather than spend time hunting them down

QTChange will do do what QT Pro does, but as a batch, so that makes it quite do-able.

i'm pretty sure that's what we'll do, just erring on the side of caution by asking around.

nick