Every FCPX Audio Clip is its own Track in ProTools

Thanks for the reply Graeme.

Yeah, I figured the magnetic timeline style of organization would be tough to translate back into a strict track-based layout. It sounds like the best thing to do is make sure everything is tagged with a Role and have X2Pro merge the Roles in the AAF for the optimal track layout.

The magnetic timeline style in FCP X doesn't translate very easily to the traditional timeline style in AAFs. For example:
•A clip only uses one track in the magnetic timeline, no matter how many tracks it contains. In an AAF, each track of audio must use a track in the timeline.[/li]
•Audio from different clips on the same track in the magnetic timeline can overlap (e.g. if using L or J cuts). In an AAF, overlapping audio must be on different tracks[/li]

X2Pro organises your clips in the AAF by role. The tracks in the AAF are grouped by role and all clips with the same role will be put on the same group of tracks in the AAF. By default roles are sorted alphabetically and sub-roles are sorted alphabetically within their parent role. You can change the order and choose what order to put the roles in the AAF, and you can exclude roles completely. You can also choose to merge sub-roles into parent roles which might help lower the amount of tracks in your AAF.

I have converted the attached FCPXML and it's not true that every audio clip is put on it's own track; many clips do share the same track (see attached "Converted.png"). There are some tracks that are quite empty (e.g. 13-18) but this is because at one point near the beginning there were 3 clips with the dialogue role that overlapped, so the third clips had to be put on a different set of tracks.

Merging sob roles into their parents greatly reduces the number of tracks (42 instead of 76), so maybe this is what you are looking for? (see attached "Merged.png").

When (my audio guy) opens the FCPXML, every audio clip is put on its own track. Is there any way to consolidate the clips into more specific track assignments?

Details:

• I have a 21 min project with multiple scenes, multiple audio sources.(FCPXML attached)
• I have a few, broad Roles & Sub-Roles assigned. In addition to the default Dialogue, Music & Effects, I have created Dialogue Sub-Roles for each of the recording devices (Nomad Recorder, Wireless, etc.). I have also created a Room Tone role.
• In the Timeline Index you can see that there are 76 Audio items (screenshot attached) - not including the two Cross Dissolves.

When the FCPXML is opened, there are 76 tracks of audio.
So, is there any way to consolidate these? The Role information is getting passed trough to ProTools if that helps.

The thing is, the audio clips are multi-channel WAV's - where e.g.:
Track=Character 1 lav.
Track 2=Character 2 lav.
Track 3 = Boom mic.
So assigning that clip a Role won't help in routing that audio to given track.

Any thoughts/strategies would be much appreciated.