This tool was written in a hurry one afternoon to get a Final Cut Pro timeline into Reaper (via DaVinci Resolve) for a
dialogue editing/audio post job. It was updated later to handle an Adobe Premiere timeline.
Don't expect it to be very robust. DaVinci Resolve is used as a middle-man chiefly to clean up the source timeline and
to make things as easy as possible for this tool. The point is not to preserve every nuance of a picture editor's rough
sound mix from FCP/Premiere, it's simply to ensure that you can start your work on the sound mix with every item of
source media linked and synced.
Volume adjustments, particularly made using keyframed envelopes, are troublesome to convert and are probably best
ignored - after all, you're probably starting a mix from scratch anyway.
Finally, if (or when) this tool doesn't do what you need, please don't count on my having the time to fix or improve it.
Just go and buy AATranslator or Vordio instead - they're mature tools, well maintained by helpful developers, and excellent value for money.
When you use this tool, nothing is uploaded; all the work is done locally on your computer, in the browser.
The tool is open source and you can find the code on github.
Usage
Use DaVinci Resolve to import an XML timeline from Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere
Do some cleanup - remove any unlinked clips, all video clips, any unused tracks, etc.
Export an FCPXML timeline via File->Export->Timeline then 'Save as type:' FCPXML 1.9 Files (*.fcpxml)
Load the newly created file in Fcp2Rpp with the 'Choose file' button above
Conversion will happen immediately with the Log showing what's what - if anything's gone wrong, now is when you might spot it
Conversion runs again if options are changed
Click 'Save as...' to save the Reaper project to your local machine, with a custom filename if you'd like
Open the project in Reaper, at which point you'll probably need to search for the source media files which Reaper will do automatically if you point it at a root directory
Hopefully you'll see a very similar track/item layout to the one you saw in Resolve!
If you need to bring the timeline into an existing project, I suggest saving this one as a template track (opting to include media files),
then loading it from template in your existing project. Wrapping it in a named folder track first might make things less confusing.
This is ideal if you want to work in a project that's set up with your normal preferences and defaults,
since loading the rpp directly won't merge with your default project's options
Here's how it works (when it works, if it works):
writes some boilerplate structural XML for the output RPP file
gets all of the asset reference IDs, asset filenames, asset starting timecodes and asset durations (this is just info about each WAV, not about how timeline clips which reference these WAVs are laid out)
works out the timeline start time, factoring in an initial gap if there is one
goes through all of the asset-clips, getting name, ref ID, start, lane (which we'll use as a destination track number) duration and offset (this IS the info about each timeline item's position, with reference to the aforementioned WAV assets)
writes some Reaper media item XML for each clip in its appropriate track with these ITEM attributes set: POSITION (offset - timelinestart); LENGTH (duration); SOFFS (start - assetstartingtimecode); NAME; and SOURCE WAVE
Changes
2025-05-23
Added support for fcpxml timelines without a leading gap.
Now the conversion is performed when you select a file, so you can see if the converter has actually achieved anything before you download the (potentially blank) Reaper project.
Added the ability to import timeline clips from nested/child tracks, rather than just <asset-clip>
To Do
I should look into how to force Reaper to crossfade overlapping clips, though this might be determined by project settings.