Multicam in Final Cut Pro X has gotten even better.
The multicam implementation in Final Cut Pro X was exceptional from the time it was first introduced. The flexibility of the different options for syncing angles, including a very fast and accurate automatic sync feature made it fast and easy to create a multicam clip with up to 64 angles. You could mix and match different frames rates and resolutions in the same multicam clip. The Angle Editor made it easy to check and fix any sync issues, rename and reorder angles, and even add and remove angles. And the Angle Viewer let you cut your multicam clip in real time by clicking on banks of up to 16 angles or by simply clicking numbers for each angle. Trimming an edited multicam shoot was also easy by rolling edits or quickly replacing angles.
Plus, with an earlier update, you could easily enable/disable audio sources from different channels in an included angle, and even add in channels from any other angle in the multicam clip. So if the audio from one mic was not good, you could use the audio from any other mic used during the shoot, even mixing and matching as needed.
But the 10.1 update introduced several additional features that really rounded out multicam editing and made it useful in entirely new ways. These features included the ability to detach audio from a multicam clip, to fade individual audio components, and to edit just the audio or just the video portion of a multicam clip into a project.
The ability to detach audio in a multicam clip opens up the possibility of using multicam clips to edit material that was not shot simultaneously with several cameras. In this episode of MacBreak Studio, Mark and Steve from Ripple Training demonstrate an example of a single-camera scripted shoot in which they edit a scene by using a multicam clip composed of several setups and takes of that scene, employing the ability to detach audio in order to “borrow” bits of audio and move them around.