waveform do not match the actual audio sound

[Andrei Bocharnikov]

[Stace Carter] “Can you provide this info? Sorry if I missed it. “

You did not missed it, Stace. I did not mention it in my posts… sorry.

Project is DVCPRO HD 720p50 with 50 fps timebase. Settings for the sound is 48/24 because all the files i get from sound guys are 24 bit.

Other sounds on timeline are different format and bitrate but no other files has this problem but just this one with latest narration i got 2 day ago. Documentary is 50 minutes long.

— 4 video tracks
— 6 audio track for spoken word,
— 10 next audio tracks for live sounds, sfx and foley,
— last 6 tracks for movie score mixing

MacPro Dual Quad 2.8 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM, Leopard 10.5.8, QT 7.6.4, FCS3

[Andrei Bocharnikov]

Matt thank you for the tips… I did check the format in items properties menu exactly same way as u recommended. format is wav 48/24/140.6 K/sec

I did trying to convert wavs to aiff and it did not work either. exactly same delay.

I did also changing settings of the timeline from 24 bit to 16… deleted all waveforms, removed all audio renders with resrtarted FCP and… problem is still there.

i am cursed…

MacPro Dual Quad 2.8 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM, Leopard 10.5.8, QT 7.6.4, FCS3

[Andrei Bocharnikov]

Rike,

– removed file from the timeline and browser.
– in easy setup i selected HD as FORMAT, 50 fps as RATE and DVCPRO HD 720p50 as USE
– pressed SETUP, then saved the project and QUIT FCP.
– opened FCP again, opened the project file and reimported audio with drag and drop from the finder to FCP browser.
– dropped the audio to timeline

… and it WORKS!!!

thank you very much… you saved my neck.

for me from the first look the instructions were irrelevant to the problem because i have audio without video associated and PAL or NTSC or framerate do not so important. But i just surrendered to the instructions and adjusted it to my project settings and it helped … believe me or not 🙂

MacPro Dual Quad 2.8 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM, Leopard 10.5.8, QT 7.6.4, FCS3

[Matt Lyon]

That’s awesome Andrei, glad you sorted it out!

Rike’s tip is a good one to keep in your back pocket. There are many cases where Final Cut will change the way it interprets media based on the default sequence setting you have selected at the time you import the files. Even though audio files don’t really have frame rates per se, Final Cut seems to pseudo-assign them one at time of import.

If you really want to geek out, export an xml of the timeline. Each audio clip has two attributes, “NTSC” and “TIMEBASE” that can get set improperly:

<ntsc>"TRUE"</ntsc> —- can be set to TRUE or FALSE
<timebase>"24"</timebase> —— I’m not sure what all the permutations of this one are

So my hunch is your clips initially had either or both of these attributes set improperly when you first imported. Following the steps in Rike’s post is the surest (and maybe only) way to flush FCP’s memory and re-import the files with the right attributes.

This is also true of still frames, which can lead to headaches if the frame rate of the still image doesn’t match the frame rate of your timeline.

So sorry for the information overload 🙂 I’m hoping this post might help someone in the future, because I see this issue come up a lot!
best,

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Andrei Bocharnikov]

[Matt Lyon] “So sorry for the information overload :-)”

I prefer overload of information then luck of it :o)

thank you all to give your inputs to save me. I really appreciate it!

MacPro Dual Quad 2.8 GHz, 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM, Leopard 10.5.8, QT 7.6.4, FCS3

[Wes Day]

I got Final Cut Express and Im experiencing simular problems.
All the sequences Ive edited so far are great except for this one.
The audio and video are synced. The audio waveform and audio signal just dont match. It seems that the audio is faster than the waveform.

wes day

[Trevor Bajus]

”
– removed file from the timeline and browser.
– in easy setup i selected HD as FORMAT, 50 fps as RATE and DVCPRO HD 720p50 as USE
– pressed SETUP, then saved the project and QUIT FCP.
– opened FCP again, opened the project file and reimported audio with drag and drop from the finder to FCP browser.
– dropped the audio to timeline ”

How did you have it set up the first time? Was the problem that your Easy Setup did not match your source footage, and when you made your first cut, you had it change the sequence settings?

I’m editing a small concert that was shot with several different formats, including HDV, NTSC, and 640×480 point and shoot.

It’s bananas.

I thought that syncing would not be that big of a deal, as there are frequent quiet parts where there’s basically nothing but drums (when the band is playing, the automatic audio gain on the various cameras compresses the audio so that transients are hard to find).

However, the video and audio tends to drift significantly after only a minute or so.

So, I’m having 2 problems, really:

1) how do I get FCP to accurately draw the waveforms (seems like this should, you know, just work, but…) for multiple formats in the same timeline.

2) how do I get them all to stay in sync for more than a minute at a time?

Do I really need to render all of the files out to be the same size as the largest file, then reimport and crop? Seems like that would take up an unnecessary amount of space, especially for a long format project like this one.

It would, however, be preferable to syncing 4-5 cameras every minute or so.

Thanks!

[Matt Lyon]

Hi Trevor, you’ll probably get more responses if you start a new thread, since this one is pretty old.

But that being said the most surefire way to get everything to work more predictably is to convert your footage to one common format. But you need to post more info about your footage formats and frame rates. Certain footage, like the point-and-shoot material, may never stay in sync with the rest of the material, just due to the nature of the camera.

Matt Lyon
Editor
Toronto

[Ed Riew]

I just tried this technique on some troublesome footage that was 1080i24psf. My Easy Setup was set to 1080p23.98 ProRes, but didn’t think it was affecting this current project. Turned out it was. Worked great. Thanks!

[Ty Ford]

Hello Adrei,

Did you ever find a solution for the “waveform doesn’t match the audio” problem?

Regards,

Ty

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