Syncing Audio for Long Takes (30+ minutes) with Premiere Pro

S

SDub

Well-known member
I recorded a long take with my GH4 and clapped at the beginning of the take to sync my audio w/my video in post. What I'm discovering is that even if I line up the clap as I can (enabling infinite zoom on the timeline) by the end of the take the audio is still really out of wack. Before anyone comments, my recorder and my camera are both recording at the same frequency so this isn't really a drift issue more just a compounding sync inaccuracy that gets worse and worse as the video goes on.

The GH4 breaks long takes up into multiple segments. This makes using the "merge clip" functionality impossible from within Premiere Pro because it operates on strictly video files and not sequences of any kind (please correct if wrong). This still leaves the synchronize function available. You can make a sub sequence of all the GH4 clips, and then "synchronize" the audio from this and the audio you recorded by highlighting (just the audio tracks) and right clicking on the selection in the timeline. When I experimented with this I got absolutely terrible results; much worse than me doing it manually.

How do you guys sync longer takes? Am I doing something wrong?
 
If this helps (and it may not as I did it in Final Cut) I have on occasion had to sync split audio tracks to a full movie that were at different rates. If I synced at the head it would start okay then slowly drift out of sync. What I ended up doing, and this was purely by ear, was select my in points where I knew they matched at the start, then went towards the end of the clip, found an easy sound to match to and selected my out point at the same sound on both clips, then cut in the audio using the FIT TO FILL tool. I don't know if Premiere has a fit to fill tool like Final Cut but it will stretch or compress the audio to fit the space as needed. If it's in sync through the whole clip, you can then pull the head and tail out to fully cover the entire clip. Another route is just to cut in at the clapper, then adjust the speed of the sound in increments until it matches.
 
Paying a decent chunk of change for a timecode on my footage isn't a high priority, unfortunately.

Batutta, I don't necessarily understand what you're saying, but it made me think of something similar I could do in premiere. I could do a sync clap at the beginning and end of a take. First I would line up the clap at the beginning of the take and then rate stretch the audio to match up with the scratch track at the end of the take and that should get me pretty close.
 
SDub said:
Paying a decent chunk of change for a timecode on my footage isn't a high priority, unfortunately.

Batutta, I don't necessarily understand what you're saying, but it made me think of something similar I could do in premiere. I could do a sync clap at the beginning and end of a take. First I would line up the clap at the beginning of the take and then rate stretch the audio to match up with the scratch track at the end of the take and that should get me pretty close.
Click to expand...

Yes, same principle. If you had an end clap then you'd put your in point at the front clap, and your out point at the end clap on both the sound and video, then hit fit to fill. The program will rate stretch the audio so the in and out points on the audio and video match.
 
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