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Final Cut Pro → DaVinci Resolve

Final Cut Pro to DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve imports AAF as a timeline and mixes it on the Fairlight page. fcp2aaf writes that AAF from your Final Cut FCPXML, with the audio conformed from your own recordings.

macOS 14 or later · Apple Silicon

Resolve can open a Final Cut project's picture from FCPXML directly. What it cannot do from an FCPXML is build an audio session with the levels, fades and multitrack sound the edit carried — that is an AAF's job.

fcp2aaf writes the AAF. Resolve imports it with File ▸ Import ▸ Timeline ▸ AAF, the audio lands on the Fairlight page as tracks, and every clip has real media under it because fcp2aaf conformed it from your originals.

Keep the output standard

The default output is standard AAF. One optional setting, the Audio Channel Combiner, groups a clip's channels into a stereo track and is not part of the AAF standard — it is off unless you ask for it, so what you deliver opens the same way in every application that reads AAF.

Resolve reads standard AAF. The Audio Channel Combiner is the one setting that produces something outside the standard, so leave it off — which is the default.

Roles become Fairlight tracks

Each Final Cut role and subrole arrives as its own track, contiguous and in the order you set. Overlapping clips within a role are spilled onto extra tracks, and crossfaded clips stay on one track so the fade survives.

Before converting you see the whole session drawn, hear any clip, and set the track order, the names and which tracks travel.

Conformed from your originals, with handles

fcp2aaf does not pass audio through. It reads the paths Final Cut wrote into the FCPXML, opens your original recordings, and cuts from them exactly the regions the edit uses, with as much or as little handle around each clip as you ask for. WAV, BWF, RF64, AIFF, CAF, FLAC, MP3, MP4, MOV and MXF are read straight from the drive, at any size.

That means Resolve opens with something to trim at every cut, rather than clips that end exactly on the edit. You set the handle length per delivery.

Referenced media Resolve can relink

A referenced delivery writes the conformed WAVs into a folder beside the AAF under readable names. If Resolve ever asks where the media is, it is pointing at that one folder. An embedded AAF carries the audio inside it and needs no folder at all.

What lands on the Fairlight page

Roles as tracks
In your order, named as you name them, with overlaps spilled apart.
The edit and its sound
Clip positions to the sample, clip gain, automation, pan, fades, crossfades and split edits.
Real media at every cut
Conformed from your originals with handles, embedded or in a folder Resolve can relink to.

Questions about DaVinci Resolve

Does DaVinci Resolve import AAF?

Yes — File ▸ Import ▸ Timeline ▸ AAF. The audio arrives on the Fairlight page.

Free Resolve or Studio?

AAF timeline import is in Resolve. Nothing fcp2aaf does depends on a particular edition — it writes a standard AAF.

Should I use the Audio Channel Combiner?

No. It produces a non-standard AAF. Leave it off, which is the default, and every channel arrives on its own track for you to place.

Can I bring the video edit across as well?

Resolve reads FCPXML for the picture directly. fcp2aaf is only the audio half — it writes the AAF so the sound session is right. Do the picture import in Resolve separately.

Does timecode come across?

Yes. The session start timecode is written into the AAF, and each recording carries the source timecode the machine stamped.

Other destinations

The same standard AAF opens in Pro Tools, Nuendo, Media Composer and more.

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