Sting once sang ‘History Will Teach Us Nothing’, as a fan of Mr Sumner I should have listened.

Let me explain. A few years ago I had become so frustrated with the music creation workflow in Pro Tools, it’s a long story and I won’t bore you with the details, that one day the straw broke the camel’s back. I then started using Studio One for much of my music creation with virtual instruments. Some years later I’m now a two DAW guy, Studio One and Pro Tools serve me well. You can read Why Is A Pro Tools Evangelist Using Studio One if you are interested.

Fast forward to this week and it seems I’ve found myself losing my sh*t with some software again, this time it’s Final Cut [Pro]. It’s an all-too-common occurence.

My work is both in audio and video, so I need to work in an NLE as much as I do a DAW. Final Cut has been my weapon of choice for over a decade. Partly because a post house I was part of a team of used the FCP workflow, also I’ve never got on with Avid Media Composer.

I’ve invested a decade of my life into Final Cut, I’ve also spent a lot of money on third party plugins. With any software it’s a little like a relationship you tend to take the rough with the smooth. You know the things you love and the flaws too. Over the years I’ve mostly been happy, it helps me get the work done and I’ve found workarounds for things that don’t do what I want, although I’m still not sure why Apple gave Final Cut such a terrible workflow when it comes to audio. It is an intrinsically clip based audio workflow with no mixer or lanes. Quite a lot of the third party audio plugins crash it, so I tend to ignore that they even exist within Final Cut. I created a workflow so I can send audio to and from Pro Tools and mix the audio in Pro Tools.

However, as in my previous aforementioned meltdown that made me learn Studio One, the same happened with Final Cut. This time it was 37.5px that broke the camel’s back, as well as some render weirdness. It made my client frustrated, I looked stupid and on Wednesday I decided enough was enough. I had given Final Cut one last chance and now the inertia of learning an alternative NLE, with all the associated costs was overcome by my sheer exaspertion. You can only push a man (even an Apple fan boy) so far.

One thing that sticks in the throat of anyone who uses any piece of professional software for years is having to learn a new application and the associated time/money costs involved. I’m not one for chem trails and other conspiracy theories, but I do wonder if the manufacturers know it’s harder to move from a piece of complex software, so often we just accept some things don’t work as advertised and plough on.

The video below explains a little more.

This story gets even more silly. A very smart friend from my native Birmingham, none other than Dr Neil Hillman, is a Fairlight and DaVinci Resolve evangelist and has been waxing lyrical about the benefits of Davinci Resolve. I think my AirPods Pro were blocking out his wise advice.

Anyway, I took a deep breath, downloaded the free version of DaVinci Resolve 18, and consumed copious amounts of YouTube videos. By Thursday night, I was certain I could start using DaVinci Resolve, with the caveat that there’s a decade's worth of Final Cut projects I may need to open from time to time. The plugins are as good as dead, as I can’t use them in DaVinci Resolve.

That’s a very long catharsis to lead me into saying that I ignored DaVinci Resolve - I was wrong, and here are some reasons why I’m blown away by it. Some of the features I mention are only available in the paid-for Studio version. Where that is the case, I’ll indicate it. I’ve also included a video that explains the differences.

A Full Video Post Workflow

This blog is about professional audio, so the first thing to consider in a video workflow is the end of a chain, audio. When it comes to audio, the built-in workflow in Final Cut is, to be kind, idiosyncratic.

As I’ve already mentioned, if you’ve never used Final Cut, audio editing and mixing is clip-based. There is no mixer and to create complex mixes is a series of workarounds, at best. Some third-party AU based plugins are available, but in some cases they don’t load in Final Cut or crash when instantiated.

To do any real mixing you need to use a DAW, like Pro Tools. Oddly there isn’t even a workflow that works with Logic Pro. There’s some third party solutions to convert an XML to an AAF which can move the audio out of Final Cut to Pro Tools, but it’s still not ideal.

In my case, I found the simplest method was to export full length audio tracks as WAVs out of Final Cut, into Pro Tools, mix them and then use the final stereo audio file for the mix. I’ve not used Adobe Premiere, but there is a much more complete audio solution included with Adobe’s solution.

However, I found the complete workflow in Resolve a more attractive proposition. It offers everything from ingest, cut, edit, motion graphics, colour grade, mix and final output. It’s tab based and simple to move from module to module.

Another reason I didn’t consider Adobe Premiere Pro is that I also gave up my Adobe licenses as I don’t like to use subscrptions if I can avoid them. All my graphics duties are now taken care of by Affinity, which offers a cost-effective and powerful graphics workflow that’s compatible with Adobe file formats. DaVinci Resolve is either free, or a single payment (for now). Adobe Premiere Pro is £19.97/mo inclusive of VAT in the UK, that’s £240 a year. DaVinci Resolve Studio is a one-off £245. For me, that’s a no-brainer business decision.

Special mention also needs to be given to their ‘grown up’ real training videos. Most last at least an hour and their product specialists walk you through how the system works and how to get things done. They also include the files so you can follow along. A great help to anyone new to the platform.

A Full Blown DAW… And Some

Back to the technology, when it comes to mixing, Fairlight, which is the audio component of DaVinci Resolve, is a full-blown DAW, not some bolt-on audio sweetening tool. When I say full-blown, consider this;

• 2,000 Tracks with Realtime Effects

• Built-in effects, including EQ and Dynamics Processing, with AU and VST support

• Elastic Wave (Elastic Audio)

• Clip Adjustments, including Elastic Wave, think non-destructive AudioSuite per clip

• Audio editing

• Track layers

• Transient detection and tab to transient

• Full audio automation

• Atmos/spatial audio support (Studio) up to 9.1.6 and Binaural

• Generate a personalized HRTF

• Loudness Monitoring tools

• Automatic Ducking

• Built-in ADR

• AI-based dialogue cleaner (Studio)

• FairlightFX (Studio)

• Automatic dialogue leveller.

• Searchable Sound Effect Libraries

When using Fairlight, one gets no sense of it being an audio option bolted into a video editing application. It stands on its own two feet as a DAW. If you never touched the other modules you would be impressed with it as a DAW.

Built-In Power Tools

If you are wondering how some of the features stack up against third-party solutions, check out the video below to hear the built in AI-based dialogue cleaner (Studio). He even uses it to isolate the vocal on a music track. It’s impressive.

Secondly, there’s a full ADR solution built right in, complete with scripts and on-screen streamers and cues. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Even better, DaVinci Resolve can transcribe from video clips so you can create cues for the ADR session in seconds without having to retype the script or import it from a cue list. (Which is also possible in Resolve.)

Again, to get that kind of ADR functionality in some other DAWs requires the purchase of a solution such as the utterly brilliant Video Sync 5, which alone costs £259.

Another common audio issue is syncing lots of audio clips from the shoot. Even on a simple shoot, you’ll capture guide audio on the shitty camera mics and get production audio using good mics and an audio recorder. In the past, I would have used a solution like Plural Eyes (now discontinued). I swore by it for years. Yes, there’s a clip sync option built into Final Cut, but Plural Eyes 4 had some extra features that allowed for drift and other issues.

Auto Sync of multiple audio clips is built into DaVinci Resolve. See the video below.

When you add the cost of a dialogue cleaner, you soon start to see the value proposition contained in DaVinci Resolve. Even using it simply as a DAW, it’s a remarkable value proposition. Let’s just add up the tools I no longer have to buy or use in a convoluted workflow.

• Dialogue Cleaner - £29 on a good day.

• Plural Eyes (NLA) - £250

• Video Sync 5 - £259

That’s just three applications I no longer need. I already own some of them, so I’m not having to buy them, but if you were starting from scratch, that’s over £500 in software costs.

Returning to the transcription feature, this can be used in a variety of ways. Such as marking up the text and making new edits of clips. Or searching for a word in a one-hour podcast… you get the idea.

If you want to see all of the features contained in the Fairlight component of Davinci Resolve then check out this.

I Was Looking For A Video Editor

While waxing lyrically about the powerful audio features found in DaVinci Resolve, I forgot this story started with me looking for an alternative video editing solution. It goes without saying that both the free and paid-for Studio versions of DaVinci Resolve offer comparable if not superior, video tools. However, as this is an audio blog, I’ve avoided talking about them. Suffice it to say. It’s a great video editing solution with a serious layer of audio icing on top!

Workflow, Workflow, Workflow

In my opinion, and having only used it for a short time, DaVinci Resolve is the most complete end-to-end video/audio solution on the market. Free or paid.

Oddly, given Apple’s walled garden philosophy and its mantra about interoperability across software and hardware, their video solution is the least joined up of all of them. They offer Motion, which is OK, but ask most motion graphics pros and they would use After Effects any day of the week. Logic Pro and Final Cut have little connectivity. Apple has the least end-to-end solution of all. It does offer XML interchange between the two applications. You can read how it works here

For some reading this, there’s going to be one big issue, in fact, one I’ve already mentioned, that is workflow. There are still plenty of professionals where workflow depends on Avid Media Composer and Pro Tools. If that’s you, then DaVinci Resolve isn’t a viable solution. After all, workflow is everything.

Again, some work in an Adobe ecosystem, and if that’s you, then a Premiere Pro workflow makes a lot of sense. Being able to move from Premiere Pro to After Effects, Photoshop, or Illustrator is an attractive proposition.

This means that for many, DaVinci Resolve is not for you. That’s not the point of this article.

I’m not here to convince you to move to DaVinci Resolve. It’s likely that you already have a solution that works great for you. However, if, like me, you’ve grown weary with your current setup (I refrained from using the term solution), then I strongly suggest you add DaVinci Resolve to your shortlist. Certainly, don’t make the same mistake I did and ignore DaVinci Resolve. That would be an avoidable mistake.