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Need help syncing audio
  • Hi there guys =)

    Went to see some friends sound performance. As the only lighting was a desk lamp facing the wall I initially thought it was pointless to film anything. But then curiosity made me take out the camera and, much to my surprise, at ISO 1600 light was "enough". So I recorded one shot here, other shot there. My friend recorded the audio with a little Tascam.

    Okay, now the problem I have is syncing shots with Tascam audio. I tried premiere built in sync, nothing, also tried plural eyes which managed to sync last bit (screen grab below). It seems to me, that the challenge is bigger because the kind of sound (mostly noise) and the distortion that both the camera and specially the Tascam picked up. Also both recordings suffer of what appears to be an in-built signal compression limiter

    General timeline view of shots and audio


    removed the audio files, there's no need of wasted bandwidth


    In case you wonder, the audio doesn't make justice to massive wave of sound, distortion, reverberations and harmonics these two guys were "trying to tame". I'm not crazy about the noise musical genre but this one was goooood stuff, also got my ears clean, je je.
    So if you know a method or analysis tool that can help me sync this particular audio and video, I'll be much appreciating your hand :-)
    Good beginning of roman measuring time legacy new sector • max

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • Maximize the frame and fill the entire screen, change the gain temporarily so the peaks are exactly the same size, and eyeball it, using your eyes and ears to zero in on the general area.

  • Hey @maxr! I don't know if you've used the Premiere synching much, but my experience has been that synching is a bit tempermental in Premiere, and actually I've only been able to sync one audio clip at a time. Maybe I've been doing it wrong and someone can illuminate me, but what has been working for me is if I select no more than two audio clips, one with its associated video. If that fails to sync then I move on to the next clip, but if it does then I cut the longer clip at the last point where both synched, and those clips I group together and move on to the next material.

  • I've never done it, but what i would try is to batch process all the audio tracks to maximize the audio contrast, to make it easier for the synch algorithm. Normalize is the easiest, but maybe you've already done that. Some nonlinear amplification may be combined with some filtering/ equalization. it may help create more contrast in both amplitude and frequency domains.

    after (hopefully) successful synch, just replace with the original audio tracks.

    maybe not all the tracks, it could be too much work for the experiment, but at least with the tascam track

  • As Dr Dave says, use ears and eyes for manual syncing. Look for sounds with a pronunciated attack as reference points.

  • Done!!!

    @DrDave I did as you (and @dtr) suggested ,-) problem was recordings were spacially different; while Tascam was static, cameraman was moving around like a cockroach, je je. If you add to that the nature and amount of the sound and own limitations of recording devices you get Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde waveforms. Anyway, I tried to adjust audio levels but what helped the most was to EQ both audios to a specific frequency and then pan them L&R and manually sync with a couple aspirins. Curiously first clip was the last and hardest to sync. Not 100% accurate but will do =)

    @Alienhead that was what I first tried, but in this case was worthless, both merge and sync options.
    Me likey temperamental ;-) Un abrazo amigo

    @kankala are you cosins with mahakala? :P As I wrote above, EQ the audio to 4Khz greatly helped focus on the syncing process. What I also did is cleaning the myriad clicks and inner distortions of Tascam's recording.

    You guys rock XD, @DrDave , @Alienhead , @kankala and @dtr thank you so much

    gashô

    PS
    When it's done I'll be posting here the video :-)

  •  
    As promised, here's the result - headphones are advised 'cause of environmental pollution :P
    Though I highly doubt it, case someone watch till the end, enjoy =) Once again thank you guys

    tech jiberishing
    GH3 / mov24p (long GOP) / shutter 30 FPS (around 288° angle) / ISO 1600 / wide open panny 20mm f1.7 /
    Natural -5 -5 0 -5 / monopod / integral shots / SOUND from a very scared Tascam dR05 / encoded with handbrake and A2 settings