Re: Audio Beeps and No Music?

I've been trying to put music to the movie in FCexpress but have hit a block. The track I put down says .m4p and I imported it from iTunes. All I get is a series of beeps and there are no indications of sound waves in the bar, just a straight red line. I'm pretty stuck, hope the description isn't to bad!

M

You can't use .m4p files in FCE or FCP. In general legal terms, music from the iTunes Store is encrypted with DRM metadata and cannot be used in any production (according to the iTunes Store terms of use and copyright law).

You'll need to contact the copyright holder of the song and negotiate synchronization rights to use copyrighted music.

-DH

At the same time Ive tried to import from garage band and have run into the same set of problems. There shouldnt be any type of issue with that should there?

Here's your solution, and I don't know if this is what you want to do, but after I have legally paid for a song that I have purchased from iTunes and I want to use what I paid for, I record the song as a wave file and then import it into my project like any other normal 41.000Khz 16bit piece of wave. It should be the same if I paid for a physical cd or paid for the song via a download. Let me know if someone thiks anything different.
Enjoy.

>after I have legally paid for a song that I have purchased from iTunes and I want to use what I paid for

There's always a way around the law and technology. That said, it is still illegal to do so. Just because you purchased the song doesn't mean you own the rights to it to do as you please. This is one of the reasons why the RIAA is up in arms and going around suing people.

But do as your own conscience allows. Just remember what you've done when someone steals your work to use as their own.

-DH

That sounds great! How do I record it? Sorry, Im just learning this stuff.

There are a whole lot of different ways of doing this. They are all very simple and easy to do. But first, do you have a mac or a pc? If you have a mac... Does it have Garage Band? And if you have an extra computer or a laptop or an iPod, it can be even easier. so a.... ???

I have a mac and it has garage band.

Here's one way to do it. It's kind of silly but you burn the song to a cd from iTunes as an audio cd like you normally would. Now the song is no longer an m4p file on the cd. Make sure to check your preferences under "Preferences" \ "Advanced" \ "Burning" to make sure it's set to burn an (audio) cd. Then you put the cd back in like if you bought the cd, to rip it into your computer. Import the song and then it should let you convert the song into what ever you want by control clicking on the song after it's in your list.
sort your itunes list by "Date Added" and it should be at the top of your list. But at this point you may not need to do anything else. The file will most likely work now in your project. If I'm not mistaken you can drag the song right from itunes to your desktop to then put it in your project.

The way I usually do this, but I don't know if you would have this type of cable..... Is that I plug a wire from the headphones jack of the computer into the microphone jack. Then I play the song from itunes while it records a normal wave into garage band. Then from Garage Band I drag the wave file and use it for my project.

If you still need help let me know.

Now its saying the file is in .m4a. I tried putting it into FCE but I get and error file unknown.

Burnt the CD, the pref. was on audio cd, imported it back, it went from m4p, to m4a. Not sure whats next?

I have an iPod too, dont know if that helps? Cant seem to find a way to record the song in garage band so far.

Oh the way I use the ipod just in case. I plug the same type of cable from the iPod to the mic input on the computer and record on an audio track in Garage Band and then use that newly recorded wave file.

What type of cable is that?

Do you think thats about my last option then?

That was strange that the import back into iTunes did not work. I'll be home in 2 hours. I'll have to try it and see how that didn't work. I'm sure I can figure it out. I'll let you know.

Thanks very much for the help!

Now that I'm in front of my computer, I just converted an .m4p file to a (.wav) using iTunes. Give me a few minutes and I'll post on here how to.

when you go to "export/save as" from Garage Band, make sure its as a WAV in either 44.1k or 48k, that should stop the Beeps (Audio needs to be rendered alert sound) in Final Cut, or simply render the audio in FC (the non .m4p type)

also I've used WireTap Pro to capture sound from many sources, such as when one of the team is on internet radio, it can record sound going thru the computer. Also when a composer gives me music in .m4p and i just don't have the patience to let iTunes convert it :)

hope that helps,
Ian Flynn

Actually it should be exported as 48k so that it can go directly into FCP without having to render. But yes that is
a great idea about that wire tap program I never heard of it. I think those screen recording
programs also record audio or music playing directly from the computer but I never used one so I'm not sure.
I'm sure I'll have this solved by tonight.

Ill give that save/export WAV a try, see how it goes. This is turning into a process.

I changed the options in iTunes to convert all imported songs into WAV instead of the default mp3. Seems to work, thank you very much for your help!