Say goodbye to edit lock. Well, to be honest, it seems to be a practice nobody really wants to stick to any more.

Vordio 4.1 has a very powerful new feature that will allow the visual and sound editors to work in parallel much more easily.

Vordio is able to ‘re-conform’ a previously translated sound project to conform to a later version of the visual edit.

The re-conform process is completely non destructive, to avoid wasting any work already done by the sound editor, such as automation changes, fades, effects etc.

It creates a copy of the project and only changes the relative positions of audio items. It also adds any new media that wasn’t present in the previous edit.

Vordio will colour code any changes in the re-conformed project, so the sound editor can quickly scan by eye to see what the visual editor actually changed/moved. This makes it easy to identify the items where some sound attention will be required again.

Blue = Audio unmoved and unchanged (no change)
Green = Audio moved, no edge modified (duration unchanged)
Yellow = Audio edge modified (duration changed)
Orange = Audio is new (didn’t exist in previous edit)
Red = Audio can’t be re-conformed (doesn’t exist in new edit)

Below is a re-conformed Reaper project where the FCPX editor added new material in the middle. New material is injected into the project at the top and coloured orange.

Below is a re-conformed Reaper project where the FCPX editor removed material in the middle. Obsolete material is marked in red and muted so it doesn’t play.

If you are silly enough to accidentally re-conform a project against the same edit you get lots of lovely blue. No changes!

To reconform a project with Vordio, you must drop both the new FCPXML export and the previous sound edit RPP file onto the UI.

There are two basic scenarios for re-conform. Make sure you use the correct one for your purposes.

1) Local – The Reaper sound edit is being performed on the same machine as the FCP X edit. In this case it makes sense to put any transcoded files directly into the existing sound edit folder.

2) Remote – The Reaper sound edit is being performed on a different machine than the FCP X edit. In this case a folder is created with the differences which can then be transported to the sound editor’s machine. The sound editor should then copy and paste the new files in this folder into their existing sound edit folder.

More info coming soon..

Vordio 4.0 is now available for download. A lot has changed and there are some great new features.

NOTE: Vordio is no longer released as separate Free and Pro apps. To upgrade you now order a license file which is then imported into Vordio. This removes the 5 minute project length limit that is in the free download. Previous Vordio Pro owners can get a 50% discount on a license.

New features:

* Reaper project grid & snapping now set to frames.

* Audio component automation now translated, not only clip automation. If an audio component has automation that will override it’s clip automation.

* Mute regions are also now translated.

Audio component automation with mute regions

The clip automation (below) was ignored because both audio components (above) had their own automation.

Vordio 3.0.6 is an urgent bug fix release for bugs that were accidentally introduced in 3.0.5.

Fixed:

* Multicam clips sometimes lost their audio.
* Projects with non zero start times pushed audio items along into project, leaving a huge gap before audio began.

To download the update, please use the download receipt link in your email. If you no longer have it, please contact support to reissue a receipt.

Vordio 3.0.5 contains an important bug fix and a powerful new feature.

To get the upgrade please use the download link in your previous email receipt. If your email link doesn’t work, please contact support to reissue another receipt.

Bug Fix:

* Compound and synchronized clips that had a non-zero timeline start were positioned & cropped incorrectly.

New Feature:

* Now includes the most powerful feature I have been working towards in Vordio 3.x – full pipelining & remapping of all audio sources (separated storyline & connected clip audio configs are now understood). In simple terms, this means translation results in a much more convenient & accurate layout of audio items. Before, Vordio used a simplistic approach that only accounted for the first set of audio sources it found for each piece of audio and then ignored any others that may further modify it. Now Vordio follows and remaps them all, right the way up through the project hierarchy, to calculate a final channel mapping result for each item. In simple terms this means that a reverse stereo clip inside a reverse stereo compound clip will be flipped twice so as to come out as normal stereo once again. Complex configurations like the example below are understood and translated in full.

Vordio 3.0.4 includes important fixes and some great new features.

To get the upgrade please use the download link in your previous email receipt. If your email link doesn’t work, please contact support to reissue.

Bug fixes:

* Audio attached to titles was ignored.
* Media with file names that included the ‘+’ character were mistakenly considered offline.
* Occasional incorrectly muted audio items.

New features:

* Pro features have been moved into the free Vordio Lite version and timeline limit increased from 3 to 5 minutes. This allows free users to experience all of the Pro features.

* Project sample rate now forces audio interface to adopt setting automatically.

* Better track organisation with support for complex audio source mappings including surround sound, reverse stereo, dual mono etc. Items are also now cloned, reconfigured according to each source and put on different tracks. In the example below a 5.1 Surround file has been split into 1 stereo, 2 monos & 1 stereo with some disabled.

This results in separate audio items on different tracks (one for each audio source). This is much more convenient for mixing than before (a single 6 channel item).

Example project conversion using Vordio 3.0.4

Vordio 3.0.3 contains the following fixes and features.

* Auto conform bug fixed where some audio events had incorrect speed adjustments for conformed footage.
* Timebar now set to hours/mins/secs/frames rather than musical bars.
* Frame rate now set to same as original video sequence.
* Sample rate now set to same as original video sequence.
* Missing asset references caused Vordio to stop. Now fixed and counted in final report.

Your original email link should download the new version. If you have any trouble please contact support and I will reissue the email receipt.

Enjoy.

Vordio 3.0.2 is an important update to work with FCP X 10.1.2 who’s XML is now incompatible with previous versions of Vordio.

Changes in this release:

1. Compatibility with FCP X 10.1.2 (Export XML 1.4).
2. Conform rate is now supported. So 29.97p footage on a 30p timeline should play at correct speed. Rate changed clips are marked with *.
3. Pro version now has more accurate translation of muted source channels.
4. CAF audio file transcoding no longer lowers the audio quality.

NOTE: The free lite version now has a project timeline limit of 3 minutes. Audio events after this limit are positioned but left empty. So for longer projects please buy Vordio Pro to support me as it is a lot of work keeping up with frequent changes by apple, let alone extra features I want to add.

Your previously emailed download link should get the update fine. If your email link does not work or you have lost it, please contact support to issue another one.

UPDATE: Vordio 3.0.2 is ready for download and now works with FCP X 10.1.2

Apple have recently updated FCP X to 10.1.2 which uses a different XML export structure.

This new XML breaks Vordio 3.0.1. I will update Vordio as soon as I can.

Vordio does not yet support full time stretching but I am working on it for the next release.

If you have manually altered the speed of clips during editing, for example slowed one down to 50%, Vordio will create audio that is at the normal 100% speed, not 50% the speed.

Also, for certain combinations of mixing frame rates within the same timeline, FCP X will time stretch some clips automatically without explicitly informing you this has happened. Under these circumstances, Vordio may produce audio that seems to be very slightly out of sync. For instance if you put a clip recorded at 29.97fps onto a 30fps timeline, FCP X will automatically ‘conform’ it to play 0.01% slower to fit the new timeline. FCP X calls this process ‘conforming’ a clip but often does this behind the scenes without telling you.

NOTE: Vordio 3.0.2 now does support conform

This affects a few projects more than others when it comes to the way Vordio extracts & maps the sound. There are ways to avoid problems until the time stretching version is ready. In the meantime there are workarounds if you understand how FCP X manages time.

To avoid this happening, you should set the timeline to be the extact same frame rate as the recorded clips you are using on it. This means they will play at their native speed and Vordio audio will be in sync.

Here is a handy chart that shows when FCP X will automatically conform a clip without telling you.

Vordio 3.0 gives a summary report of the conversion process after it finishes that looks like this.

The numbers it reports are as follows:

Found – Audio items found in the original final cut project
Used – Audio items that were used when building the converted reaper project
Unused – Audio items that were discarded when building the converted reaper project
Sync – Audio items that were not synchronized with original & so need to be synchronized manually
Missing Refs – Audio items with missing asset references could not be added to project

Assets – Files that were referred to in the original final cut project
Missing – Files that were referred to in the original final cut project but offline so unavailable
Copied – Files that were copied to the reaper project without transcoding
Transcoded – Files that had to be transcoded to make them compatible with reaper

Out of these the most important to understand are ‘Unused’, ‘Missing’ & ‘Sync’ as these may indicate problems and require further explanation.

Unused indicates that an audio item has been cropped so much that it has effectively disappeared from the project. There are legitimate reasons this can happen during editing, for example putting many items inside a compound clip and then trimming the compound clip down so much that some of the contained items would never actually play. If this is not the case then unused items may indicate a problem and you should contact support.

Missing indicates that required audio is offline so simply unavailable or that it could not be transcoded to make it compatible with reaper. The most common scenario is a drive with required media is not mounted. If so make sure it is and try again. The other reason is that the transcoder could not understand the stream within the file which may be due to a missing or unsupported codec or a corrupt file. If it is the latter of these you should contact support.

Sync indicates that clips were time stretched in the original project and the stretching has not been translated. These clips are muted & marked with *SYNC* to make this obvious in the pro version.