Is FCPX still trash?

[Andrew Reid]

Yes.

Yes it is.

Running new 10.4

They added LUT support... wow only took 5 years!

First thing I tried to do was arrange the workspace... nope, can't move jack shit around. Just toggle on/off panels and resize panels.

No, scratch that - first thing I tried to do was a drag and drop of selected media from Finder to the media panel in FCPX. Won't work. Have to go through the shitty import panel!

Next... Tried to make a favourites bin of regularly used effects and basic transitions. LUT, colour correct, etc. all in one place, always present on screen ready to be clicked on. Nope. Too hard for Apple's programmers?!

There are still too many tacky presets and effects to wade through to find the basics. An overwhelming number of iMovie style transitions and gimmick effects. Why are these in a pro editor that costs £300?

Finally, at this point was tearing my hair out... So I tried something REALLY SIMPLE. Fade in and out of a clip. Ah but no...

Even this simple endeavour landed me on my arse. Perhaps I just don't know how to do it right, but the intuitive way is this... Drag transition onto start of clip, and one onto the end of the clip. It would only do the end. Oh, ok. No fade in for me then! Then, it brought up a complaining OK/cancel box about not enough source material to apply a cross fade... Whatever. Clicked ok, and it seemed to shift timing of the clip! WTF! But I had my fade-in and out! Want to hear something really funny? I then dragged the clip to somewhere else on the timeline to check the positioning tool and it dragged the clip there and forgot to bring the fade-in/out with it... WHY WOULD YOU WANT A FADE IN AND OUT TRANSITION WITH NO CLIP!?

Piece. Of. ShIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

But yeah... LUTs.

Performance wise it is good though... I'll give it that.

[mercer]

You have to do fade to color. And yes, there are some silly effects included and it’s silly that I can only save one effect at the top but then again everything else works better than any other editor I’ve used. It’s more intuitive than Premiere or Resolve.

Or I think there is a fade in in one of the drop down menus... maybe. 

[Dave Maze]

Ahh come on Andrew! 

I made the switch to FCPX the day it came out and haven't looked back since. Its light years faster on slower Macs compared to Premiere and once you learn the workflow, I find it so much more intuitive. Im a huge fan of this program and it's put food on my table for over eight years now and Apple hasn't charged me a penny more than that initial $299 EIGHT FREAKING YEARS AGO! 

You hit that price in 6 months on Adobe. 

I have been Adobe"less" for a while now and love using Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo. I also use Apple Motion for my graphics work. 

I made this VFX 3d heavy music video all on my base model $900 MacBook Air using Apple Motion 5 and FCPX. Would have been impossible using Adobe with their flawed CUDA crap. Adobe basically just wants everyone on PC's. 

I understand your frustrations, but it took me a solid 3-4 months to re learn how to edit. Im grateful I did. 

 

Apple FCPX is seriously lightning fast compared to Premiere. I couldn't live with that. 

 

[jonpais]

I don’t know. Sven Pape, who’s got an obscure YT channel called This Guy Edits, seems to love it.

https://youtu.be/zoE6x4xQh7s

I have however tried to do transitions just like Andrew, got the same message, and eventually gave up.

[Mattias Burling]

IMO, FCPX is the best NLE out there for what I do. Ive been working professionally with Premiere and Avid for many years now and Im seriously starting to hate them. So fiddely and flat out dumb. And of course slow.

Switching to FCPX is still the biggest leap forward in editing for me. But I remember the initial frustration. It all went away when I decided to learn IT instead of teaching it my way of working.

And I have always been able to use LUTs in Final Cut. 

A funny note. This is the reason why I was the first guy to really try the XC-10 and LS300. True story.

Ever since my epiphany in FXPX I started applying it to other stuff. When I see a product get super bashed by people based on specs or quick reviews my new way of thinking is:

"That cant be. No way did a big company do all this research and spend money but some how didn't know it would be like this. Its more likely the users that are trying to force their ways and preferences onto the product instead of learning it and how it was intended to be used."

So I tried the XC10, LS300, Leica T, Sigma cameras, etc. Had alot of fun with all of them. And now Canons new compact and the Leica CL looks very promising. 

A general rule for me is hate = interest

(And anything the camera store says is the worst probably rocks. Their negative to positive ratio is unmatched.)

BTW I also did a speed test once.

 

[Don Kotlos]

CMD+T adds a cross dissolve for the selected clip

To add favorites effects: add an effect you want on a clip (it doesn't matter the clip), and then click the "Save Effects Preset". You can make a custom folder in which you can have all the effects you use. 

Drag & drop clips from finder into the timeline/media panel works for me. 

@DaveAltizerWhile I agree with you on most things about FCPX, I disagree with this:

59 minutes ago, DaveAltizer said:

Would have been impossible using Adobe with their flawed CUDA crap. Adobe basically just wants everyone on PC's. 

1

CUDA is not flawed. If anything the only flaw is that it should be used even more like in Resolve. And its not that Adobe has a preference for windows, it is Apple that does not use/allow decent CUDA cards in their systems anymore. If you use the latest cards in the 2010 mac pro then adobe performs great:

The same happens if you use an eGPU like I have shown here .

And if you try to blame adobe for having a bias for CUDA then I would argue that FCPX has a bias for AMD:

The biggest feature that FCPX has, which you see published most often and has drawn many people to it myself included, is the use of intel QuickSync. That gives the most of the fluidity during H264 editing or speed during exports, and is what Premiere lacks. 

If it wasn't for that and the f*cked up subscription model of Adobe, I would have loved to stay with the feature-rich Premiere. 

[Dave Maze]

Thanks for clearing that up! Makes a lot of sense now

[Deadcode]

6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Yes.

Yes it is.

Running new 10.4

They added LUT support... wow only took 5 years!

You can stack tons of luts before things slowing down, that's unique. Much lower CPU usage for LUTs then any other NLE

First thing I tried to do was arrange the workspace... nope, can't move jack shit around. Just toggle on/off panels and resize panels.

The good ol' do it in our way by apple :D

No, scratch that - first thing I tried to do was a drag and drop of selected media from Finder to the media panel in FCPX. Won't work. Have to go through the shitty import panel!

In your library tab you have to select an event where you wanna drag and drop your footage.

Next... Tried to make a favourites bin of regularly used effects and basic transitions. LUT, colour correct, etc. all in one place, always present on screen ready to be clicked on. Nope. Too hard for Apple's programmers?!

Just like Don Kotlos said: "To add favorites effects: add an effect you want on a clip (it doesn't matter the clip), and then click the "Save Effects Preset". You can make a custom folder in which you can have all the effects you use." 

Finally, at this point was tearing my hair out... So I tried something REALLY SIMPLE. Fade in and out of a clip. Ah but no...

Even this simple endeavour landed me on my arse. Perhaps I just don't know how to do it right, but the intuitive way is this... Drag transition onto start of clip, and one onto the end of the clip. It would only do the end. Oh, ok. No fade in for me then! Then, it brought up a complaining OK/cancel box about not enough source material to apply a cross fade... Whatever. Clicked ok, and it seemed to shift timing of the clip! WTF! But I had my fade-in and out! Want to hear something really funny? I then dragged the clip to somewhere else on the timeline to check the positioning tool and it dragged the clip there and forgot to bring the fade-in/out with it... WHY WOULD YOU WANT A FADE IN AND OUT TRANSITION WITH NO CLIP!?

Press CMD + V on you clip, and you can fine tune fades in opacity tab. Or CMD + T for cross fades.

Piece. Of. ShIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.

You will get used to it :P

But yeah... LUTs.

 

Performance wise it is good though... I'll give it that.

 

[TARS]

I'm with Mattias. Once you learn how it wants you to edit, it's incredibly fast and intuitive.

Regarding transitions, one thing that's really cool about Final Cut and Motion is that if you create your own transitions, you can save them as titles and drop them over top of your clips instead of having to put them between. This also allows you to stack them.

For instance, if you make a wip pan transition and a spin transition and save them as titles, you can put them both over the same cut points and it will combine the effects. Ryan Nangle made a good video showing this recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UI8kjqt09A

So Andrew, in your case, you could create a fade as a title and it would stick to your clip. Or you could then make it a compound clip if you really wanted to. It's obviously more of a hassle than what you want, but it also provides more opportunity for creativity, IMO.

 

On the negative side, one issue with 10.4 is that the colour wheels only work for exposure in rec 2020, and the colour board works only in rec 709. See the explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESH7_p6aRk

 

[Andrew Reid]

Looks like I have a lot of learning to do then!

I just wish they'd make it more intuitive for Premiere users. They would gain a lot of lost customers back in an instant.

[Andrew Reid]

First basic question... CMD-T for transition... Then this appears. How do I avoid having to ripple trim the clip just to have a fade in and out to black?

Clearly I cannot use transition like in Premiere.

So where is the fade-in / fade-out tool and what's the short-cut?

Next basic thing...

How do I copy and paste clip attributes from one clip to other clips on the timeline?

So I have the LUT setup, bunch of effects and I want to apply these to all the clips on the timeline...

HOW!?

I don't agree FCPX is intuitive, by the way. The definition of intuition is not having to take 4 months to learn a weirdly designed workflow... This basic shit should be OBVIOUS!

UPDATE: PASTE ATTRIBUTES is in the Edit menu and has a shortcut. It's just that it's absent from the Right click menu on the selected timeline clip... Again this is what I mean by making things more obvious. Why have regularly used stuff absent from there?!

[jonpais]

@Andrew Reid Select a clip and copy (Command-C). Then, select the clips you want to apply the attrubutes to and choose Edit > Paste Attributes (or press Shift-Command-V). You can then choose which effects you want to apply.

[TwoScoops]

10 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Performance wise it is good though... I'll give it that.

It's a shame how far behind it is in some ways, since the rendering speed can be insane compared to other software.

[Mattias Burling]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

Looks like I have a lot of learning to do then!

I just wish they'd make it more intuitive for Premiere users. They would gain a lot of lost customers back in an instant.

This is true. It isn't trying to be premiere, vegas or avid. Its something else.
But believe me. It gets so good. Its like learning to drink Coffey. Nasty in the beginning but once your hooked...

And I can't stress enough how much I don't recommend trying weird stuff like empty blocks and such instead of learning to work with the magnetic timeline instead of against it. Now using an NLE without a magnetic timeline feels like the biggest step back ever.

Push through, I believe in you!

[EthanAlexander]

I highly recommend adding this audio crossfade: https://blog.alex4d.com/2011/07/11/fcpx-transition-sound-only/. I use it in every single project and it's one of the most glaring omissions on the part of Apple.

I also highly recommend you DON'T try to make it work like premiere. I tried that for the first few months and got nothing but headaches. EDIT: @Mattias Burling beat me to it. Definitely don't fight against it you gotta go with the magnetic flow

[Andrew Reid]

Doesn't having a magnetic timeline knock your audio out of sync constantly?

Say you have a separate WAV file of a band in a recording studio and 4 different takes, spread across multiple clips.

Just adding a fade in and fade to black (Fade to colour transition) wants to trim the size of a clip, which is nuts.

So you add that fade and suddenly your clip is a different duration and out of sync, and the ripple effect moves all the other clips in front of it out of sync with the WAV and your carefully positioned edit.

[EthanAlexander]

Couple things:

If you select a clip and press control+v you'll get a pop up menu, double click opacity, and drop the opacity by dragging the handle from the side. This will keep your clip length the same. (You can also do this in the inspector with keyframes but it's slower)

Also, (because it sounds like you're placing the video clips in the magnetic part), place the audio in the main magnetic part of the timeline since that will stay constant. Then, it's up to where the video clips connect to the audio. You can change this by holding down CMD+option and clicking on a specific location on the clip you're connecting (by default, it's the beginning of the clip you're adding, but it can get moved when making cuts). Then, no matter what happens to that (audio) clip on the magnetic part, the video clip will move with it.

There's also the whole other side of making compound clips but that's hard to explain in text. The above method is my general method of keeping audio in sync for live events or music videos. But if you've got one long video clip, you can use that as the anchor instead of the audio.

 

EDIT: also forgot to mention I use the adjustment layer add-on made by RGB House constantly. Another glaring omission but this is free so it works out: http://rgbhouse.com/?p=74

[JBraddock]

Also Andrew, for your second question, while you do ripple edit with trim tool, press ~. It prevents connected clips from moving when you ripple edit the main clip. 

[Mattias Burling]

30 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Doesn't having a magnetic timeline knock your audio out of sync constantly?

No, its the opposite. It keeps it in sync

[TARS]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

First basic question... CMD-T for transition... Then this appears. How do I avoid having to ripple trim the clip just to have a fade in and out to black?

Clearly I cannot use transition like in Premiere.

So where is the fade-in / fade-out tool and what's the short-cut?

How do I copy and paste clip attributes from one clip to other clips on the timeline?

So I have the LUT setup, bunch of effects and I want to apply these to all the clips on the timeline...

HOW!?

I don't agree FCPX is intuitive, by the way. The definition of intuition is not having to take 4 months to learn a weirdly designed workflow... This basic shit should be OBVIOUS!

UPDATE: PASTE ATTRIBUTES is in the Edit menu and has a shortcut. It's just that it's absent from the Right click menu on the selected timeline clip... Again this is what I mean by making things more obvious. Why have regularly used stuff absent from there?!

One thing that Final Cut is missing is an adjustment layer. So working natively can be a pain in the ass if you're adding something like a letterbox. The problem with the FCPX letterbox is that it gets adjusted along with the image if you use the transform tool.

To get around it, you have to create a title to use as an adjustment layer if you want to be able to add things like letterboxes, or to be able to drag a lut across multiple clips or something. Ryan Nangle also made one of those and it's available for free here: https://sellfy.com/p/Nxcc/ 

I would also recommend getting Alex4D's free letterbox effect because it's way better than the native one. It is here: https://blog.alex4d.com/2012/10/28/alex4d-letterbox-fcpx-effect/

 

For the fade in, are you just looking for something that brings up the exposure from 0 to 100% over a set period of time? If that's all you want, I can make you a fade in and fade out title you can drop over a clip in your timeline then drag to whatever duration you need if you'd like. It would make things a bit faster than manually keyframing it. For audio you can just use the handles.