Footage Audio Levels in Camera Vs FCP

[Michael Notar]

Why does the audio levels only reach -6 on Final Cut 7, when in camera they were at 0?

I kept my peaks at 0 in camera, as 24 bit audio, my FCP timeline is in 16 bit, but doesnt change anything when I go to 24. I do transcode the footage to Quicktime H422 in Cine-x, but there are not any useful audio setting options in there. Having the limiter on/off in camera also has no effect.

[Brian Ferguson]

What do you mean by 0 in camera? What color are the meters? Is this Epic or RED1? Zero in dbFS is where audio clips, dbFS is what FCP uses. The digital scale is different than analog.

[Michael Notar]

0 db on my scarlet i mean.

[Brian Ferguson]

Still don't know where that puts you on the camera meters, are you seeing , green, yellow, red? I say that because there aren't any numbers on the meters so I am trying to get a read on where on the scale 0 is to you.

[Michael Notar]

yes, i am seeing all the green, yellow and some red... not sure how to quantify how much red i am getting, like in mm/cm/inches?

[Brian Ferguson]

yes, i am seeing all the green, yellow and some red... not sure how to quantify how much red i am getting, like in mm/cm/inches?

The RED One had line level so setting up audio was easier from a mixer. The Epic and Scarlet have only mic input (so far) and you have to adjust the levels to some sort of reference - so you know a starting point. I took my Sound Devices 302 mixer and adjusted the output to some sort of mic level ( I just followed the procedure in the user manual). Then I turn on the 1k tone on the mixer. With the mixer output going to the Epic in this case (Scarlet should work the same) I adjusted until the input tone reaches the second hash mark on meters. I recorded a little on the SSD and when I brought it into FCP it shows on the scale at about -20 dbFS, which is what I expected. You can see on the mixer that tone is at 0dB analog and that is like -20 dbFS (digital). Zero dB in analog is middle of the scale, Zero dBFS is the top of the digital scale. Final Cut uses a digital VU meter.

It you Google digital and analog VU's you will find articles about the difference. I hope that helps!

Brian Ferguson
briferg.com

[Michael Notar]

thanks!

not sure why i didnt think of it before, i just took a mic and said "test" untill i hit each line for a couple of clips and looked at them in FC. my only other experience is using a zoom h4n, with a simple meter, digital all the way i assume. so i was able to determine on my scarlet that the first line is about -18, then -12, then about -6, then 0. but dam it wasnt impossible to get a clip lol guess that why 24 bit is so much better than 16bit. obviously its not a 1:1 translation of volume across the whole scale, but i think i got what i needed now. i understand how to set volume and not to clip but the db/dbfs is all new to me. i just want something simple lol. wish there were some audio meter preferences to change on the scarlet.

[Marc Wielage]

Why does the audio levels only reach -6 on Final Cut 7, when in camera they were at 0?

Actually, -6dBfs in Final Cut is pretty high. We usually tell our post clients to keep dialog peaks at about -10 or so.

I still think you're much better off recording sound on a separate timecode recorder.