Synching audio from a standalone recorder

lestimides

lestimides

Member
hello,

when i go out on one-man shoots with my DVX100B i use an on-cam shotgun and a standalone pcm recorder (that doesn't have an XLR out). i like the sound quality of the recorder quite a bit. to sync the audio with the video i usually clap at the start of each tape (for long interviews this works out ok).

the problem is - when i try synching the audio track in fcp i notice that the "clap" on the track recorded by the on-cam mic and the "clap" on the track from the pcm never quite match up. they are about half a frame off (judging by the waveform).

is there a way of moving the audio track less than a frame up or down in FCP? is there another way of dealing with the problem? should i give up the scheme altogether? my timeline is 23.98FPS (does this make a difference?)

thanks
 
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Yes, FCP lets you do subframe editing for audio, but only in the Viewer. Double click the audio track to open it up in the Viewer then hold Shift while you drag the playhead. This will let you set in and out points at 1/100th of a frame.

Alternatively, you could line it up in Soundtrack Pro if you have it.
 
Half a frame is not that big a deal for sync. It's also possible that the waveforms don't quite match because they are represented differently by each recorder.

Noah
 
No, I think NoahK simply means that since two different devices recorded the audio, the waveforms can't be identical in the first place.
 
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