this is one of my favorite things about vegas. It sounds difficult, but it isn't with just a little practice. You can stretch the timeline out to a ridiculous resolution. Another trick I've learned when it's close but maybe doesn't look exactly right with speech, for instance, is to loop a small section, select your new audio track, and use the 1 and 3 keys to line it up just right. You can also pan the cam audio hard left and new audio hard right to hear the delay get shorter or longer.

I've done a couple of 2-camera shoots (not the same thing as what you describe, I know, but in principle it is, as it still involves synching) and it's VERY helpful if you can get the talent to make some sort of EASILY NOTICEABLE gesture that also MAKES A NOISE----a handclap, a footstomp, a cymbal crash, or something before the action begins.

These audio/visual cues make for easy synching, I've found.

Sometimes I work with talent who forget or refuse to supply this simple yet crucial courtesy. I work with them ONCE. I figure if I'm busting my hump to get things right for them, they can at least supply a handclap, a footstomp, or a cymbal crash at the beginning.

the last wedding I did, right as the mother of the groom was coming down the aisle, a photographer in the balcony dropped what sounded like a bowling ball on the unfinished concrete floor. No problem synching that up!

Just finished a 6 camera comedy show for the troops.

For me it is easier to leave the master audio track in place and align video/audio clips to that. The 1 and 3 nudge keys rock! Video switching on the fly is a breexe with the Mackie Universal Controller.

Keep in mind that sound travels though air at about 1100 feet/second (depending on temperature, altitude and humidity.) For the sake of this discussion, let's say it travels at 1 foot per millisecond and a frame of video in NTSC-land is 33 ms. If you're using the audio captured with the camera's microphone to sync up the picture to soundboard audio reference, you will need to slip the video one frame ahead on the timeline for every 33 feet that camera was away from the sound source. In other words, the sound that arrived at the camera was late with respect to the visual and also late with respect to the soundboard audio, so if you're using camera audio for sync reference, you should compensate for the delay... one frame slip for every 33 feet. Of course, if you have a common visual cue on all the cameras, use that instead.

John

Thanks for all your replies. Just to make sure I'm on the right page, I just drop both audio tracks on the timeline, magnify and visually compare (line up) the two audio track fingerprint and then delete the one I don't want?

::::Just to make sure I'm on the right page, I just drop both audio tracks on the timeline, magnify and visually compare (line up) the two audio track fingerprint and then delete the one I don't want?::::

That's where I start, but I don't delete the unwanted track until I'm sure the tracks line up not only visually but audibly as well. Sometimes you can THINK things are synched by the appearance of the waveforms but they still might be slightly off.

When I think they're synched properly, I play the clip in various places, both audio tracks active, listening carefully to see if one track is ahead of or behind the other. If they seem OK, then I mute first one then the other track, to see if the audio still seems to stay in sync with the video.

One problem you MAY have in long projects is a slight difference in sync from the beginning of the clip to the end, depending on the recording device(s) used. The sync may drift slightly in, say, an hour-long project. So it might be prudent to check the start AND finish of the clip!

I record recitals and use a hard disk recorder for the audio. I also feed the recording mix into my GL2 so that I have two sources. I like backups. This also gives me two identical sound tracks (well almost) that are very easy to sync up. However, I am usually about 3 frames longer on the audio recording than the video over a ten minute section. If the section is less than ten minutes I just sync it in the center of the clip and live with the slight variation. On longer clips I will either cut a frame of the audio or duplicate a frame of video to bring things back into sync. I always use a quiet section of the clip so the change is not noticable.

When I use multiple cameras, I sync video to video to fine tune the clips. Picking out a change in bow direction works well for this. Camera flash is great, but they usually request no pictures. The camera audio is usually so different because of location that it is very hard to use it for sync. I do the use the audio wave forms for a rough sync first.

It really isn't all that hard.

Good luck,

Charlie

Hi Guys,
I'm not having any luck with this. I'm going to explain the problem a little more in dept. I captured this concert from a vhs via an ADVC-100. The audio is low and muffled. I have the show on cd-r. The audio from the vhs(on timeline) is a flat line with no peaks or valleys, so comparing them is pretty hard. I'm a few nano seconds off and can't control moving audio well with the cursor. Is there a way to nudge the audio left or right with the directional keys as if it were video?

Can you zoom in on the audio file by holding the Shift + Up Arrow? Normalize it so the wave is bigger? Can you hear ANY audio on that track at all?
On your Numpad, nudge audio by pressing 1 or 3 to move right or left. If moving less than one frame is needed, then zoom in deeply and turn off Quantize to Frames.

I can zoom in. I've been muting the main track then I can hear the wave. Thanks for the info on using the number keypad, I'll try to get it in line that way.