2 audio input with final cut express

[Chris J Martin]

I was considering switching to a mac and final cut express but wanted to know if it can capture from two mic sources. IE an on board mic on my Canon XL1S and a tie clip mic also attached to the audio 2 on the handle. I am loosing faith with premiere pro as it can only capture one mic source

[Ismail Aslam]

Yes, as far as i know

Regards
Ismail

[Jonathan Jones]

To my knowledge, and if I am understanding correctly the nature of your question, the answer 'MIGHT' be 'yes' and 'no'. I have not used FC-Express myself, but as far as I know, the apps on the Mac will allow you to capture ONE stereo field of left and right inputs - however, with FCE, FCP, and QTPro, you have some options available to you. These options include capturing one of the following 3: CH 1 & 2 (usually left and right stereo), CH 3 & 4, or CH 1,2,3,4 mix in a single capture with 1&3 on the left and 2 & 4 on the right.


Typically, alot of videographers working with multiple channels of stereo onboard (typically a 12 bit 32khz 4 channel setup) are required to capture the 2nd set of audio inputs on a second 'audio only' capture, center-field mono them in post (as well as upping them to 16 bit to match allow for audio locking.

In your situation, if both your mics are mono mics, and you have them connected into the left and right fields of the stereo field, you can capture them in one pass and then center-field mono them in post.

If, however, you are using the a multiple channel setup as I described earlier, all the apps on the Mac currently require a second pass, and most on the PC do as well...one exception I have read about on numerous posts in these forums is an app called Scenealyzer (sp?) available for PC only, and will allow you to capture all 4 tracks to dedicated audio tracks in one pass. This is very handy - so although I am a Mac guy, I have to say that if this is the reason you are looking to switch platforms, check out Scenalyzer first and see if it addresses your concern.

Hope this helps.
Best of luck.
-Jon

[Chris J Martin]

Thanks Jon
I downloaded and tried scenalyzer with premiere and it works just fine. You get the on board mic in stereo attached to the video (avi file) and in my case the other audio mic as mono in a seperate wav file but when imported, come split and in sequence. I really thought express could have done this, although if I have read you right, in essence you could capture 2 audio inputs seperatley but they would both be mono. Not worth the expense of switching to mac unless I have more headaches than I can handle.

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Chris J Martin

I really thought express could have done this, although if I have read you right, in essence you could capture 2 audio inputs seperatley but they would both be mono.

Yes, basically that is right. It would be stereo if both inputs were the left and right of a single stereo output from the single source (or a multipule channel mix - but not separate tracks), but otherwise...yes, they would be mono signals.

I'm glad scenalyzer fits your needs. I love my Mac, but the lack of such a feature as offered by scenalyzer can be a bit of a hassle with some projects that rely heavily on the multi-channel 'in-camera' setting.

Regards,
-Jon