Resolve imports multitrack field audio via XMLs and AAFs incorrectly. Sets timeline audio clips 'source channel' to 'mute' rather than the correct channel.

[Craig Melville]

I've come across this issue many times coming when exporting  and edit from Premiere via XML or AAF to Resolve 15-16 and 17.  

Audio clips from the field audio recorder come in correctly placed in the timeline - but the audio clips 'source channel' defaults to 'mute'.

I can manually fix each clip by individually setting the clips 'source channel' using 'clip attributes'. But it's a pain and it's not a workable solution on a complex job. You can apply those changes to multiple clips at a time, however on a timeline that has hundreds of carefully placed and manipulated audio clips, it's a time consuming process and prone to causing errors.  

Interestingly, if I go to the audio file in the media pool and view its attributes there (rather than via the clip attributes in the timeline), the channels are mapped correctly and not muted. So the source clips play as you'd expect in the media pool.  It's only the instances in the timeline that get imported with muted audio channel settings. I'm assuming the issues is the XML can't handle the multitrack audio clip and can't pass the channel patching information through. Which does seem weird - because on each timeline clip, I can see the label of the channel appended to the clips file name.  i.e. in the timeline I'll see the filename plus the "boom" or "Lav 1" appended. That's metadata coming through - not a file or clip name. So the clip is indicating what track it's supposed to be but the system is just not patching it correctly.   

Is there some way to solve this? 

This issue appears when I'm using multichannel field audio files from Sound Devices recorders. Music tracks and other audio comes in fine. 

One other note: If I open the Premier XML in FCPX, the audio clips are not muted - but they are also not correct either.  FCPX basically switches on all of the multitrack clips. So that's not ideal either.   

My guess here is these multichannel field audio grouped tracks are causing the issue. 

Surely for Resolve and Fairlight to be a viable solution to finishing audio there must be a way to do this in an automated way.  Or should I prepare the audio files in a different way.  

AAF from Premiere can be read by ProTools and other apps without these issues - so I assume it must be possible to translate the information.  

Thanks for any thoughts to solve this. Or ideas on how to better set this up in future.

  

Edited February 2, 2021 by Craig Melville
clarifying the information.

[Tom Evans]

Probably just a DaVinci Resolve bug, let them know about it.

[Danny Prussman]

Did you ever figure this out? I'm having the same issue.

[Craig Melville]

I did report it to the tech support at Black Magic back in 2021. I never heard back on that specific issue unfortunately.  I'm pretty sure I suppled them with example clips and the project.

I just had to manually assign the clips. You can group select similar clips and select their channels in a batch. But that's a stupid process to have to do on a complex edit and a complete waste of time - especially if the clips are scattered across the timeline in random spots as sometimes happens. It makes me wonder how anyone could actually import an XML into Fairlight/Resolve properly to do a sound mix. It kinda kills the whole process if that is a consistent issue.  I'd suggest reporting the issue too. I did try AAFs as well as XMLs but I don't think that improved anything.  Not sure how it works from other editing apps - but I have a feeling it will be a similar issue when there's larger multitrack files.  

[Craig Melville]

On 2/5/2021 at 6:42 AM, Tom Evans said:

Probably just a DaVinci Resolve bug, let them know about it.

Yes. I did do that.