Local Tv Hero

Like my exhaustive over-long DAW shootout a few months ago, I’m now doing the same with my editing software. I’ve been a Final Cut Pro editor for years, but I gave Premiere Pro a shot back in 2009. Despite cutting a music video with it, and even liking some of the features, I found the CS4  experience to be clunky and buggy. It wasn’t hard to stay with FCP.

Flash forward to to the release of FCP X (and all that went with it), and a lot of folks are taking a serious look at Premiere again. I’ve begun playing with the new version and I’m amazed that I can pull T2i footage off the card, right into Premiere – no transcoding needed. To be fair, you could do this in CS4, but it didn’t always work (at least for me).

With CS5, the Canon footage played with little effort on my MBP. Again, I’m taking footage right off the card – I haven’t added color correction, fades or attempted to composite anything yet.

For now, I’m getting reacquainted with Premiere, and thanks to lynda.com, and it’s training series for FCP editors making the transition, I’m digging it so far. If editing Canon’s version of AVCHD doesn’t bring my laptop to a crawl, I can see the benefit of switching to it. I can’t count the hours that I’ve spent waiting for transcodes. I often shoot several commercials in bulk over a few days, then edit over several weeks. I batch-transcode with Red Giant’s “Grinder”, and that experience can be like watching paint dry, not to mention the crazy big file sizes associated with converting to ProRes.

With the added benefit of Photoshop and After Effects integration, this could be a no-brainer. It will take working through a project to see if I’m my cutting in FCP will be final. (yeah, I went there…).

I’ve been DAW hopping for most of the year, and have written extensively about it. I’ve grown tired of Logic and it’s extremely slow development. It’s competition (Reaper, Cubase, etc) have all surpassed it with new features and workflow improvements. Add the colossal f–k up of the Final Cut X release, and my faith in Apple has been shaken. Logic users are now holding our collective breaths to see if Apple will butcher it in the same manner.

While waiting for Logic X to arrive, I began testing the waters of the competition, and I spent 6 solid months with Reaper during the Alpha and Beta test cycles. The truth? I like(d) it a lot. Reaper is a powerful program, but I find that, at times, it can get in the way of creativity, mostly because of it’s power and sheer number of choices. An oft written refrain on the Reaper forum is “I just want to make music and not code a program”.

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That brings me to Studio One. I was excited by it when it was released over a year ago. However, it was too limited at the time (no AU plug in support was huge for me), so I passed and took a “wait and see” position.

Thankfully, PreSonus dropped a bomb 2 weeks ago with version 2 of Studio One. The biggest selling point for me was the Melodyne integration. Melodyne is THE ultimate in pitch correction software. It will correct damn near anything without the dreaded T-Pain effect (unless, of course, that’s what you’re after).

I’ve been a Melodyne user for years, but I often reach for Auto Tune because, frankly, I’m lazy. Melodyne requires some work, and a small dose of music theory. In short, you can do more harm than good if you don’t know what you’re doing. The bigger Melodyne issue for me is with the plug-in itself. It runs “in tandem” with your DAW, making file management tricky. It’s easy to lose the pointers to your corrected files if you work with multiple drives.

To solve this issue, Celemony created the ARA protocol for Melodyne and partnered up with PreSonus. ARA provides internal two way communication between the plug in and the host. The bottom line is it’s now easier to use. If you’re not interested in S1, but want the Melodyne integration, fear not. The ARA protocol will appear in other hosts early next year. PreSonus is getting the head start.

As you can tell, I’m a bit excited about S1, and I’ve been test driving it a great deal. Yesterday, I decided to use it for voice over recording and audio sweetening on a commercial spot I shot recently. Let me say that the workflow for video post is well… awesome is the word I’d use… It’s much faster than Tools, Logic and Reaper.

In the screen shots above, I dropped a reference cut into S1. Imported the audio. Opened the Video window. Set a level on the FirePod and within seconds was recoding my VO. After some EQ and compression, I had it pushed back into Final Cut. I did the final mix in FCP, but next time I’ll mix the entire spot (music, VO, and sound effects) in S1 and print the final mix there.

It’s never been so easy… I haven’t even touched on the music aspects yet. I’m sold, and Apple had better bring the pain with Logic X, or I’m staying with S1.  I’ve already transferred some Logic songs to S1 to mix, and I like what I’m hearing.

As always, your mileage may vary…

Every now and then, while walking the halls at work, I stumble upon something cool. We produce a lot of original programming here, and given that, we work with a number of local artist (musicians, authors, painters, performers, etc).

Today I came upon the audio setup for “Minnesota Originals” (MNO – for short). The music segments for the show are usually done in bulk – recording and taping 8 (or so) bands over several days. The performances are then edited with accompanying interviews and spread out over the course of a season.

Of course the audio setup caught my eye, and after a brief run through by Joe, I was allowed to take a few pics.

It’s a round-about way to record bands, but the setup offers a high degree of options for post. Eight discreet channels are recorded directly into Final Cut, so the editor has options for a rough mix while cutting. In addition, the audio is mult’ed to a separate system (through a MOTU/DigiMAX combo). Those tracks then get mixed by Joe in Pro Tools after receiving picture-lock from the editor, and that mix is re-synced in FCP for the final line cut.

It’s a round-about way to go, but it ensures that show will sound great for air.

I get to “look over their shoulders” for the next show taping. Now that is cool…

The “Gravity” music video was completed and posted to YouTube in the early morning hours of March 5th.

There was a great deal of discussion between Dan and I about the final cut, and after several emails and text messages, I’d like to think we reached a compromise that everyone could live with. After I cut the performance footage, I decided that another visual element was needed. This element (or “texture” as I began calling it), was derived from shooting a bunch of abstract stuff (close ups of roads, center lines, and the sky) and blending these images with the performance footage.

Everyone loved the idea, and it worked out great. The ensuing conversation focused on the amount of texture to be added. I believe that one can have too much of a good thing, and was hesitant (no, adamant) about over using the effect.

This is where one must divorce themselves from the process, and build a bridge to compromise. I’ll admit that I’m still learning to do this, but I’m very passionate about my work.

In any event, it got done, and the shoot was one of the best that I’ve ever run – smooth, relaxed and efficient. The best part – I was able to help out a friend, and the end product has been well received.

Thanks Dan, Bryan and  Derek…

www.myspace.com/spydivision

Since Dan is a musical beast and his output is considerable, check out:

www.myspace.com/razorroad
www.myspace.com/thespectaculars
www.myspace.com/hardsoul1