The Voice Isolation feature in Final Cut Pro is absolutely awesome,
but if you're feeling a little bit isolated about how to use it,
this video will explain what it is, how to use it, and
also a GIANT problem that it has, and a simple way to fix that problem. 👍
So believe it or not, what the Voice Isolation feature in Final Cut Pro
does is it isolates voices. 🤯
But what that really means is that it functions more like a de-reverb effect.
Now you might know or use terms like "reverb" and "echo" when you're talking
about audio and they're very, very similar, but they are a bit different.
Echo is like, if you go to the Grand Canyon and you go "Echo, echo, echo, echo..."
and you hear it repeat over and over again, because there's a longer amount
of time between those sound waves bouncing off of something and bouncing back.
Reverb is sort of the opposite.
There's less time between sound waves bouncing off of
something and bouncing back,
so the effect of that is that the person listening to that audio
then becomes aware of the space that the audio is recorded in.
Sometimes that can be super cool, like for instruments and music, having
reverb can really make things sound amazing.
But when it comes to something like this, recording voice for video,
reverb can absolutely be a problem.
Because, for example right now, I'm in this room. It has walls, a ceiling–
as most rooms do– I also have this hard surface of a desk,
I have a computer monitor over there.
Those are all flat hard surfaces that sound waves bounce off of and come back.
And while the best way to handle that is to really treat and adapt
to the space that you're in by using things like acoustic panels or sound
blankets, positioning your microphone in the best possible location,
sometimes it's not always practical and it can be expensive and
sometimes it's not even possible depending on your filming situation.
So that's where Voice Isolation can really come in and save the day.
Now as great as it is, It's not absolute magic and you can push it too far.
But what it tries to do is get rid of all of those reflections,
all of that reverb, and just focus on the voice in an audio clip.
So for example, right now, the audio you're listening to is
just straight out of the camera.
It's not processed at all.
I am using a really nice microphone, so the quality should be pretty
decent and the microphone's not
too far away from me, but you can probably still hear a little bit of the space that I'm in.
But if I turn on the Voice Isolation feature just a little bit,
now you can hear it really brings out my voice a little bit more and de-emphasizes
all of that room tone, all those reverb reflections and all that kind of stuff.
So to use Voice Isolation, you just select the audio clip or the video
clip with the audio that you want to use,
you go over to your audio tab and then you click on Voice Isolation.
By default, it will start at 50%
and I think that is way too much.
The goal with these kinds of effects is to be very, very subtle.
You don't want to draw attention to the fact that you're using them.
So I usually start somewhere more around 15% and I try not to go past 25% if possible.
It could take it too far,
so right now I'm only using a little bit of Voice Isolation on the audio
you're hearing,
but if I take that all the way up to 100%, it's going to start
sounding a little bit funky and a little bit like garbly and wavy, and
it's kind of distracting to listen to.
But if I back that back down to a reasonable level, now it sounds
really, really good. Much better than this, which is the unprocessed audio
just coming straight out of the camera.
Now here's another example.
This camera over here is pretty far away from me, probably over
six feet, about two meters away from me.
And it has a microphone just on the camera, which is in an
absolutely terrible position.
And this is what that audio sounds like.
You can really hear the room in this.
It does not sound isolated at all. But if I turn on voice isolation just
a little bit, you can hear that it does make a little bit of a difference. (this might not be the best example...)
And if I crank it all the way to 100%
it's still not going to sound absolutely amazing.
So it's not like a Magic bullet™
that means you never have to focus on good audio.
Even when you're using Voice Isolation, your ultimate goal should be to record
good audio into your camera or into your audio recorder while you're filming.
And then after that is when you can use your editing software to make
it sound its absolute best. But that's really all there is to it
when it comes to using Voice Isolation: you just select your clip,
turn on Voice Isolation, and then select the amount you want to use,
keeping a light touch to help things sound natural and their best.
But here is where there is a giant problem that I've encountered with Voice Isolation.
I'll show you an example.
This video right here is my recent video about the M1 Mac Mini.
And for this video, I did what I normally do, which is I have a talking
head shot that has my main audio.
I put that in my timeline and then I start cutting it up, getting rid of all the
mistakes and all the unnecessary stuff.
But whenever you're cutting up a clip like this, unless you're able to cut
in a spot of complete silence, there's probably going to be a little bit of a
pop of audio that makes it very obvious
there was a cut.
So for example, if I just put a cut in the middle of this sentence right here,
and I play it, (video audio plays with small pop) I am cutting the middle of a word, but
if you hear there's like an actual
crack, a snap crackle or a pop– some kind of Rice Krispy™ is taking
place in the midst of this clip.
(audio plays again with popping sound at cut)
And that's just a normal thing that happens.
And an easy way to take care of that is just to add a
small fade on the audio track.
You can just grab this little thing right here
and drag it over just a little bit.
And then that should eliminate it (video plays with no popping sound)
I'm in the middle of a word,
so the context doesn't make any sense, but there's no more
pop on this cut right here.
(video clip plays again with no pop)
When you do those little fades, you want to be sure that you're not fading
too much, because if you fade out a lot (clip plays with long audio fade)
it sounds very unnatural.
And almost sounds like you're starting to run out of breath while you're talking,
and then you come back really loud and it just becomes really distracting for
the person who's listening to that video.
So you probably don't want to do that.
Now, what I've been doing up until now is basically just editing
like I always do, which is I'll just put a raw clip in the timeline
and before I edit it, that's when I add all my color correction,
and then I also adjust my audio
so that's where I will adjust the level to make sure it's
where I want it to be. If I'm going to add any kind of equalization or
something, that's where I'll add that.
And this is also where I've been adding the Voice Isolation.
So here's this clip right here with no Voice Isolation
(clip plays without V.I.)
It doesn't sound bad because the mic is positioned well,
but if I turn on Voice Isolation, turn it back down to, you know, 20%.
and then also you can just play your audio back and turn it on and off
to hear the effect.
(clip plays again with V.I. turning on and off for comparison)
(there really is a difference, even if it's subtle)
So I've been adding all of that to my clip, and then I start editing it
like normal, but here's where I start having a problem is when I'm cutting
between stuff, I'll still have those pops like normal.
That's OK I can just try to fix them like normal by adding in my little fades.
(clip plays with no pops)
But the problem I'm encountering with Voice Isolation is that even when I add
my little fades like normal,
sometimes there are still those pops and it's kind of inconsistent.
If I play that same clip over a bunch of times, sometimes it will have the pop and
sometimes it will not have the pop and I can't figure out what the difference is.
Same goes when exporting, it's kind of a coin toss
if when it's exported, there's going to be a pop or there's not.
So my brain is about to pop
because it's incredibly frustrating.
And it's gotten to the point where I've started using longer fades to
try and like counteract that effect.
(clip plays with longer fade that sounds distracting)
With a longer fade, like right here, there's still a pop.
So here's the easiest way to fix that issue.
All you need to do is add your audio and/or your video clips with your audio
to your timeline like normal. You can adjust the levels like you normally would.
You can add other equalization that you normally would.
Everything that you normally would, except for Voice Isolation.
DO NOT add Voice Isolation at this point.
Just make it sound good otherwise,
then go through and edit it, cut it up like normal.
You can add your fades.
You can even overlap audio, which by the way, if you didn't know
this, this is very, very cool.
If you have separate audio like this clip right here, I have the
clip and the audio and they're separate,
I can sometimes overlap the audio to make it sound a little more natural.
And you can just use the period and the comma keys to nudge
things over one frame at a time.
So if I select the edge of this video clip, I can nudge it over one or two
frames, and then you can do J cuts and L cuts, which I'm not JK'ing about,
those are pretty awesome.
But another cool thing you can do is if you don't have your audio detached
from a clip, you can just double click on the audio and then it will show
you the separate audio and video,
and then you can do the same thing.
You can click on the video
and use period and comma keys to nudge things over one frame at a time,
either the video or the audio, and then you can double click when
you're done and it puts it back.
So you didn't actually detach the audio, but it's a quick way to do that
kind of editing on any clip. But for this solution to this problem,
you're going to need to detach audio.
So I hope you're not too attached to your audio, because you're
going to need to detach from it.
So in this example right here, I've got my video all edited, but I don't
have any Voice Isolation applied.
I have some clips
that are separate.
I have music.
I have a couple sound effects in here and what I need to do
first is detach all of my clips' audio.
So the easiest way to do that is to just select all of my video,
right click and then click on Detach Audio.
And that is going to bring down the audio separately from every clip.
Now, the next thing I need to do is select only the clips that I
want to add isolation to which in this case is all of the dialogue.
If they're not already selected an easy way to do it is to just hold down the
Command key, and then you can click on different clips, or you can click and
drag to o select all your different audio clips.
In my case it's most of them. Just be sure that you're not selecting any music
or sound effects or anything that you don't want Voice Isolation applied to.
And if you're working with clips from two different locations, I would do
this separately for each location.
So if I had a bunch of audio from this room, I would do this separately.
And if I had a bunch of audio from, you know, somewhere else, then
I would isolate that separately.
Once I have everything selected, I can just right click
on any of those clips and then select New Compound Clip.
I could also press Alt (Option) + G and that will give me the same menu.
And now I can merge all of those clips into one
audio clip.
If you've never worked with compound clips, I can compound your interest
in them by letting you know that if you double click on it, you can
still go in and see all of your edits and all of your individual clips.
And then you can just click this little arrow here to go back out of your
compound clip. On your main timeline
it's just going to show up as one clip,
and then this is the clip that you can select and add Voice Isolation to.
And now it will apply it to all of these very evenly,
and it should look and sound great– or it should sound great,
the audio's not going look great. And it's not going to affect
any of your fades or your cuts.
You're not going to bring back any of those snaps crackles or pops into
your video, which is really going to make your audio POP in the good way.
So this is really the last step before exporting.
Once you've got everything edited, that's when you can compound all of your
audio clips together and then add Voice Isolation to that specific clip, right there,
and then export and you're all done.
I'm pretty sure that this issue of the Voice Isolation causing
unwanted pops and things is just a bug on how the effect is working
when it's turning on and off between like clips that are side by side.
And so hopefully there will be an update to Final Cut Pro in
the future that addresses this and takes care of that problem.
But in the meantime, this is a very quick and easy way to solve that problem
so then you can still use Voice Isolation on all of your audio tracks
to make them sound their absolute best.
And speaking of things, I don't want to isolate,
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And if you want a few more tips and tricks to help you become
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