Captured a single DV tape tonight with FCP to start familiarizing myself with the workflow. I already have a few questions:

1) During capture is there any way to hear the audio? During capture in Vegas you can hear an audio preview- I guess it just makes me feel more secure to hear the audio during the capture to know a) it's on there! and...b) it's being captured ok.
I believe the norm is to use the speakers in your NTSC monitor if you're capturing from a deck or the camera speakers if you use one of your cameras. For audio on the system speakers (or SoundSticks) during capture, you need to select the Preview option on the Clip Settings tab in the Log & Capture window. Search "audio capturing" in the FCP online user manual (in the Help Menu.)

2) The shoot was performed with a PD-170 with the built in shotgun on channel 1 and the wireless audio on channel 2. I'm probably going to use the wireless audio the entire time. I captured using the audio (unlinked) setting. When I dropped a clip in the timeline I noticed (obviously) that the audio waveform on the right channel were stronger (due to the wireless) yet the audio bars to the right of my timeline moved evenly????

Are they, by default, a "stereo pair" and the audio from channel 1 and 2 is being mixed into a single mono track?
The "default" is based on the preset used or the settings in the Clip Settings tab in the Log & Capture window.

How do I separate the two so I have my main wireless (which I want to duplicate over to both channels for a single mono track) and the channel 1 recording (onboard shotgun) on the timeline in the same manner but as back up and/or abience when the crowd applauds?
To split the pair and double them up for a total of four channels just in case you want to mix them, use Apple L will de-link the A/V, then Option L will split linked audio. Both commands are toggles, so the same command re-links. The easiest way to dupe the track is to double-click it into Viewer, then drag the little Audio icon back to the timeline where you want the second track. Pay attention to the Pan...


Thanks in advance!

What's the difference between dragging an extra copy into the timeline and panning one left and one right....to simply changing the pan setting for a single track to the center (0) setting?
No real difference except the track count, I don't need to tell you pan...

PS How do you normalize audio? It's my most used audio filter in Vegas.
You can normalize in Soundtrack Pro or any of several third-party products. Soundtrack Pro can be accessed from the timeline and "round-tripped", so that's nice...

Right click (cmd+click) on the audio event and choose "Open in Editor". Correct? As long as the "external editors" have been set in the prefs.

In Reply To

Thank you GmElliott! This is probably the best tip I've gotten from any forum. I have FCP Studio and have never been able to "do a round trip". I thought that I had installed the software incorrectly.

Thanks again,
Joe