Not your typical "audio wont sync" issue. Well...

ryan brown

ryan brown

lOwEr CaSe Member
EDIT: PROBLEM SOLVED. It was only that one scene that keeps falling out of sync. I believe it was initially imported and stamped by final cut pro with the wrong settings. I went into audio/video settings, sequence settings, matched it to default to my current project, started a new project and clips now sync. Except for that one scene, but I believe I need to get the original audio again off another hard drive. Here's where I found info on the matter: http://library.creativecow.net/lyon_matt/fixing-fcp-assets/2 It may be that, or maybe there was just issue's with the audio recording from that one scene. I won't know until I get the original audio back, but either way, I'm back to work. Thanks for the help

So im just starting the edit on a feature and im tearing my hair out with the audio. Footage was shot on red epic at 24, sound guy recorded wav files at 48.0KHz with microsoft PCM format. Ive converted audio 10 times and cant figure it out. Ive used 'switch', quicktime and itunes to convert from wav file to aiff at 16bit, 48KHz and it falls out of sync (audio runs fast). Ive tried trashing fcp prefs with no avail. Ive also taken the original files and synced them in quicktime pro itself, and it even falls out of sync in quicktime with the original wavs, and converted aiffs. HELP. I havent been editing much the past couple of years, so i may just be overlooking something simple.
 
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There's no reason for you to convert .aif. What happens if you bring the .wav into FCP and try to sync?
 
I believe FCP works best with aiff files. At least that's what I learned when I started, and I've stuck with it. I just tried to sync with the wav file, and same problem. Falls out of sync. I start to notice around the 3 minute mark, and by minute five it's about a frame off. I don't get it... audio settings in FCP are set at 48KHz, 16 bit, and so are the audio files. Why aren't they syncing... makes no sense to me, but I've just wasted an entire day.
 
Hi Ryan,

I had a problem where files that really should not be out of sync, were out of sync. I didn't get it right. Checked all the settings, just like you.
Searched forums, found nothing, until after hours and hours, I read this tip. It sounds like this NOT should help, but it has already 2 times helped me in issues where I can not find any other explanation for why the files fall out of sync and I don't have an explanation why this method worked, but it did.
I read it from someone at a board at creative cow, try these steps exactly and see if it persists... I hope they help, because I also lost a lot of time because of these issues, and I could NOT get these right in FCP:

This issue had me pulling my hair out, but there is a fix.

Export your video out as a quicktime file without the audio (use export via quicktime conversion) from FCP.


Next Export your master mix audio as AIFF from Soundtrack Pro.


Open both of these files in Quicktime 7 (not Quicktime X).


Set an in point and out point at the beginning and end of both the audio file and the video file.


cmd+c the audio or use edit>copy then select the video file and go to edit>add to selection & scale.


This will insert the audio into the file and stretch it to match the length of the video.


Voila, the video and audio are now together in one file and in sync.


Save the movie as a self contained file and return it to FCP. Now you are free to either use this movie file, or just it's audio.


Don't try and export the audio from that movie as a separate AIFF because it doesn't work.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the replies guys. Sidderke, while technically that would work and I appreciate the response, it's not really feasible on this project. This is a feature film with a 100K budget and hundreds of takes and clips that need to match up. That would take FOREVER...

Anyone else chime in on this???? I really need to get it sorted today
 
I'm glad it worked out. BTW, In FCP 6 & 7 you should be able to use any .aif, .wav or .bwv audio file.
 
Sidderke, I updated the original post to show how I sorted it. Seems that if you initially import audio incorrectly into FCP, it stamps it with a "timecode/framerate", and it reads it that way from then on.
 
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