[This article was first published in the July, 2011, issue of
Larry’s Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.]
Daniel Larson, from De Pere, WI, asks:
In my tape days and probably yours as well, we’d often make a split audio master for customers who liked to revisit projects for an update. The voice was on audio track one and everything else including the music was on track two. Re-editing wasn’t too much of an issue since the voice was split from the music and we could always relay a new music track when the basic edit was complete.
Are there any video file formats that allow for split audio masters. To date I’ve made XDCAM files that split the audio tracks. Making a video Quicktime file and then an AIFF file for each audio track would also work. Your thoughts?
Larry replies: Creating split audio tracks in FCP 7 is fairly easy.
All video formats support split tracks because all video formats support at least stereo audio. Most HD formats support 4 tracks of audio, or more.
The problem is Final Cut Pro, by default, is stereo out. You can get it to do split tracks on output, but only if the mix is done in Soundtrack Pro or ProTools.
Here’s an article to get you started, then you’ll need hardware that supports outputting AES EBU audio (AJA, Blackmagic Design, and Matrox MXO2 devices support this – FireWire doesn’t)
Techniques: Multi-channel Audio Output Tricks
Daniel followed up:
That’s it!
Exporting a master file to a hard drive via XDCAM HD with the track assignments as explained in your fine article with dual mono mode allowed me to split all four audio tracks.
Thanks!
