Final Cut Pro Mono recording
When capturing in Final Cut Pro, it is important to take a look at your audio capture settings under the (clip tab) within the ‘Log and Capture tool’.
In most cases, it is unnecessary to capture two channels of audio if you are using material that was shot in the field (single camera). Recording two channels of audio will take up your timeline real-estate. Unless you are out in the field with two microphones (1 microphone into each channel on your camera), it is a waste a time to record two channels of audio into Final Cut Pro.
In Final Cut Pro 5.0, changes have been made within the ‘clip settings’ tab in terms of capturing mono vs. stereo clips.
To record clip(s) in a mono-format, unlink the (audio link) icon, and turn off the green audio speaker icon for the channel that you do not want to record. One strange caveat, is Final Cut Pro will still show an audio level, even though nothing is being recorded to that particular channel.
Using this method will improve your workflow and give you extra real-estate within your Final Cut Pro timeline. Otherwise, it can become frustrating dealing with meaningless extra audio tracks.
It is also important to note, that Final Cut Pro will automatically center a single audio track so it plays back on both speakers (left and right channels).
