Sync’ing two tracks without clapper

[Labrisher]

Did you try enlarging the audio tracks (vertically and horizontally) and doing a waveform match?

To enlarge vertically, grab lower part of audio box on extreme left of audio track and drag down; to expand horizontally, drag slider right at bottom of box.

[William Mcqueen]

Thanks for the tip of enlarging the audio tracks. However, in the case of the audio from both cameras, the audio was from a distance and the waveforms not as clear as I would like. Even when I get close to matching I can’t seem to drag the video/audio track smoothly or slowly enough to get a match. I seem to over shoot. I thought of possibly placing a key frame in each, but I can’t get them to match up “perfectly”.

Can you think of any other approach, or method.

Thanks so much,
Bill in Toronto

[Phocas Kroon]

Set the soundtracks as loud as possible. Make a keyframe in both soundtracks where you estimate the correct match is.
Enlarge the timeline as much as possible and move one track to put both keyframes exact above each other.
Listen to both tracks. If there is an echo sync is not perfect. By trial and error move one track frame by frame untill the echo disappears.

Good luck

Phocas Kroon

[Tom Brand]

Bill–
I’m just finishing a project with the same scenario you’re facing. Here’s what I did:

Track 1 had the audio from the wireless mic and Track 2 was from the camera (at a distance, but still picking up some of the audio).

To start, I processed track 1’s audio in Adobe Audition and muted the audio until the point where I wanted the sound to begin. Then, I watched track 2 with boosted audio levels until I found the same beginning. Since I was only going to use the audio from track 1, I could do whatever I wanted with track 2’s audio. So I processed track 2’s audio in Adobe Audition…noise elimination, normalizing, boosting, etc. until I had the best audio to listen to. Finding the same audio, I muted (don’t delete) the sound up until that point. Close both files in Adobe Audition, then return to Premiere.

Back in Premiere, I’d mute the audio from track 2 and shut off the layer 1 video, zooming in as much as possible. Matching the audio waves by site (after the flat mute, it’s pretty easy to see), I’d watch track 2 and listen to track 1 audio. You can visually see if they match.

If they don’t match, fine tune like Phocas suggested and you should be matched up in a short amount of time.

I’ve also zoomed into the mouth before and slow played the audio to see if they match…works pretty good (in fact, I can tell which camera was used from a distance…Cannon seems sharpest to me…even a home video camera vs. a 3 chip).

TrB
Show-Me Tractor Cruise
http://www.showmetractorcruise.com

[Jon Barrie]

Just so you know I’ve made a tutorial with the different ways to sync clips for multicam editing. It should be up any day now.
You can find something to sync at any point in time, a visual change when something moves, stops, flashes, bounces, lands, hits, etc. Set a numbered marker on each clips at that point in time make sure they both have the same number (0). sync to the numbered marker in the sync options (right click the two selected clips).
– Jon 🙂

[Vince Becquiot]

You can also set your tracks to samples instead of frames to get a maore accurate sync.

Vince

[Jon Barrie]

Hi Vince,
I know what you mean, but working with the audio samples in the timeline won’t help syncing the vision. Working with audio at a sample level won’t help with syncing footage, you might shift the audio 1/48000th at a time and that will shift your audio out of sync with the captured vision.
– jon

[Ross Bradshaw]

Bill you should try using audio units to get an absolute audio sync. To find these go to the pull down marker on the top right of your timeline and select audio units. Basically audio units lets you zoom into the audio tracks far more than frames (your timeline reader will be 00:00:00:00000 rather than 00:00:00:00)

Now just so you know, you will have to unlink you audio and video to move the audio clips but you will be moving the audio so slightly that the video will still be in sync.

Rather than going into soundbooth or audition (both are very excellent apps but not for this) right click on the audio track and go to your audio gain option, because tarck 2’s audio doesnt matter for the final piece normalise the track and this will boost so you can hear it. If you are on Cs3 you will see the wave form straight away.

I have done a lot of edits this way ( will nine track sometimes) and it has never failed to date.

Good luck and take it easy.

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