Managing sound channels and multicam editing

Here's the set up...two camera both with shotguns attached to input 1 (supplying channels 1 & 2). On-board internal camera mikes record to channels 3&4.

Sound is pretty clean recorded with the shotguns; internal mics picked up lots of ambient noise.

Created a multicam edit in Resolve 16 with the two camera files. Designated angle1 (i.e, camera 1...which had the shotgun on a boom) as the primary audio angle. Then chose video angles according to the shots I want.

However that sound input appears as only one track in the multicam edit...how do I mute or delete the ambient noisy tracks. If I drop each file into a timeline, I see four tracks and can easily remove or mute the channels I don't want. But the multicam edit uses unedited source files directly from the media pool and when you create the multicam and drop it into a timeline you get only one audio track representibg the designated angle (and it sounds as though it has "compressed" all the original channels into one).

So my question is when/how do I clean up the audio and select only the tracks/channels that I want for the multicam edit? What is the proper workflow here?

Any help would be much appreciated,
Thanks,
Andrew

Delete multiclip audio track. Right click the multicam video clip, then click "open in timeline". Delete gaps. Copy all audio tracks from "multicam" timeline to your working timeline underneath the multicam video.

This is my workaround until Blackmagic makes a better solution for multicam sequences.

Thank you Ognjen for your help. However, I figured out a simpler solution myself this morning...you might want to look into it.

In the media page, select each clip in turn and right click. Select "clip attributes" and under the audio tab, mute any embedded channels you don't want. Then run the multichannel sequence.

That way, I was able to use only the channels with the boom mike and this really cleaned up the sound in the finished sequence.

Thanks,
Andrew

Yes, that works also. But sometimes you will ned to use more audio tracks on your project and later do a sound mix... so one track audio will not be enough.

Best,

Oggy

+1

I just tried multi-cam in Resolve yesterday and have ran into the same issue.
The way Resolve handles audio in multi-cam needs a serious overhaul.
I would be happy to be shown another method, however, after looking through the forum it seems like I am not the only one faced with the challenge.

While removing the multi-cam audio from the Edit Timeline and replacing it in the Edit Timeline with synced source audio is a workaround, it's not a solution in the instances you want to to use interviews cut throughout a long form edit and just edit in interview segments from the Mulit-Cam Clip withing the source window and need access to 3-6 tracks of recorded audio.

I agree that there has to be a better way of doing this. My issue is I have recorded a concert and I have 1 audio file with two tracks on it. One is a direct feed from the desk, one from a mic in the ceiling. I need both tracks because some songs and instruments weren't mic-ed up and didn't go through the desk. It was a 2 camera shoot (also with shotguns on them) and everything is timecoded so no problems with syncing. What I want to end up with is a multicam clip with with my two audio tracks recorded on a separate device synced up. In an ideal world I would also love to be able to access the audio from the shotguns mounted on the camera but for simplicity's sake, lets just leave that out of the equations for now. Only way I can think of is to complete the vision edit of the two cameras using the stacked audio and then manually line up the audio when that's all done and then mute/delete the stacked audi clip, do my tweaks where necessary, then relink it. If anyone else has a better workflow for this scenario, please let me know. Surely it must be a pretty common situation.

In the Fairlight page you add audio tracks (it also gives you a new camera-angle you don't use).
You can copy the multicam sound to these tracks and than adjust the (clip right click) Clip Attributes as you wish. Not ideal but also works.

+1 please give us an option to copy all audio tracks separately when inserting a multicam clip into the timeline. Even with the workaround of stepping into the multicam clip I only get one track per clip. But there's 4 tracks with each camera.

+1 please give us an option to copy all audio tracks separately when inserting a multicam clip into the timeline. Even with the workaround of stepping into the multicam clip I only get one track per clip. But there's 4 tracks with each camera.

You'll get the original multi-track audio if you Flatten Multicam then Convert To Linked Group on the resulting audio.

Don't Flatten Multicam until your multicam edit is final, as once you do you can't go back to the multi-angle editing method (at least not without editing another clip from the same Multicam).

You'll get the original multi-track audio if you Flatten Multicam then Convert To Linked Group on the resulting audio.

I will give that a try, thank you!

Hi,
this multicam-tutorial is great!

Minute 9:00

Best Daniel

Yeah that looks to be a pretty decent tutorial. Shows flattening the Multicam and Convert To Linked Group.

In the case shown in that video, the guy only wanted to use the audio from one camera/angle - his externally recorded audio. So he could flatten right at the start of editing. That's good when you can do that - which may be the majority of times I guess.

But if you need to use audio from multiple cameras/angles, you probably don't want to flatten until after the MC edit is done. Otherwise you lose the ability to change angle later.

Pretty cool, thanks guys!