I'm editing a feature, and our sound mixer just turned over 27 audio tracks to me for laying onto the image. I laid them all in and the bar at the top of the timeline went solid red the whole length of the film (needs render). When I try to play the film, I get that annoying unrendered cyclical beeping sound FCP does...

I started by selecting all, going to Sequence > Render Selection > Audio. Didn't work. The moment the render finishes (I get no errors of any kind), it appears to have worked, but when I click anywhere on the timeline, the red comes back and it's as though I never did the render.

I also tried rendering *everything* (Sequence > Render All > Both) to see if that would catch it, but still the same thing.

I went through and identified several tracks that weren't rendered. I selected one track - SFX3 - the shortest of all of them - hilited it, and rendered audio selection. It worked! The red segment for that whole length of film went away. Then I selected another track that I knew needed rendering (foley1). When that completed, the whole timeline (including the area that I'd just fixed by rendering SFX3) went red - and I was back where I started.

Any ideas why this would be happening, or what I could do to get the damn thing to render as it should?

While I can't look over your shoulder to see what's amiss, I will ask why your sound mixer gave you 27 audio tracks if he or she is the "Sound Mixer"???

Long story, long post-production process... Need to focus on getting it *done* at this point. Any ideas how to fix?

Bring them into SoundtrackPro and export a mix as a single stereo track.

Also check if the files are functional outside of FCP. Are they AIFF?

Long story, long post-production process... Need to focus on getting it *done* at this point. Any ideas how to fix?

Yes, re-mix the audio down to stems, or a master mix.

maybe try to make a new sequence with appropriate settings, copy original and paste into it.
i remember trying that when i had a problem like that and it worked... voodoo???

You might try using the Render Manager. (Tools>Render Manager) Check everything and delete all your renders. Sometimes FCP get's mixed up when you render, edit, re-render, repeat....

Then go to Sequence>Render All and check everything. Then render everything in your sequence again. (keyboard short cut = Option+Command+R)

NOTE: You shouldn't have to check everything in the Sequence>Render All column. I've been editing for quite a while now with Video-Full and Audio-Item Level left unchecked.

Also, you might try Final Cut Pro>User Preferences and set the Real-time Audio Mixing to 27 tracks? (that's just a guess)

but when I click anywhere on the timeline, the red comes back and it's as though I never did the render.

Going WAY out on a limb here but, when you're clicking on the track as mentioned above, you're using the arrow tool, right? Under certain circumstances (like 27 tracks for instance) cutting a track with the blade tool will cause all the tracks to become unrendered because they have in fact changed. Even using the pen tool to add a control point, EVEN UNCHANGED, will cause renders to become unrendered.

hey - thanks to all of you for your comments!

it ends up, the user preferences for my system were set to 8 tracks. i changed it to 18 (and combined the sfx1, sfx2, sfx3 & foley into a single track) and it works! praise the lord!!!

simple solutions are so so rare in post, i'm finding. thanks to all of you for your thoughtful replies!

it ends up, the user preferences for my system were set to 8 tracks. i changed it to 18 (and combined the sfx1, sfx2, sfx3 & foley into a single track) and it works!

D'OH! Of course! I have my system set to more channels as a matter of course so I didn't even THINK about that. Ocham's Razor (the simplest solution is most likely the right one) at it's finest...