Hi everyone:

Kind of an embarassing because I'm all thumbs today. Outside of trial an error (with a fine eye and ear) What's the easiest way to sync up an audio clip from one file with another?

I would suggest a program called Dual Eyes. You can download a trial version here.

Singular Software - DualEyes (http://www.singularsoftware.com/dualeyes.html)

Actually someone had suggested Plural eyes 3, but what is the difference between Plural eyes with Dual eyes?

Manual syncing works like eyes - using the waveform. Manual syncing is generally faster and more accurate, but requires experience and shooting long clips.

IIRC, Plural Eyes can work within Vegas, and Dual Eyes is standalone. Or maybe I have that backwards.

Users I've talked to say that Plural Eyes is the schizz, and won't go back to any other synching method. I think there is a 30-day trial; try it and see if it works for you!

when syncing two audio sources, a technique i use is to pan one source all the way right and the other all the way left, then listen with headphones. it's pretty amazing to hear the difference when they come into sync... suddenly there's no "echo" and the sound is in the "center" of your head rather than off to one side.

Dual eyes is the stand alone version of Plural eyes.

Plural Eyes is integrated within Vegas. I haven't manual synced audio in years. Simply drag in all your video in the timeline press Plural Eyes button and walla everything is in sync. Manual sync has to be the most wasteful use of time there is. If you have a stubborn clip that won't sync, you "lock" the one clip and select both clips to be synced & tick "Try really hard" & walla.

Just make sure you sync BEFORE you edit! Plural Eyes won't work the other way. Other than that, its awesome!

I still prefer manually syncing. Find a good common element in the clip and use that.

I still prefer manually syncing. Find a good common element in the clip and use that.

No offense, but that's madness! ie I was working on a gig recently with 120min of a talking head, that took plural eyes literally a little more than 60 seconds to sync.

I usually sync by listening to audio. You can also sync via a frame with a flash or something else of that nature. And there's nothing wrong with using Plural Eyes as well but I'd still double-check by listening.

I still prefer manually syncing. Find a good common element in the clip and use that.

Wow really in this day & age? This is like saying "I still prefer to waste time." You must not be filming many events? PluralEyes is dead on accurate unless you have really bad audio footage, I don't even trust my own manual sync's anymore. During a wedding ceremony for example I can have up to 50 cut-way clips all filmed on DSLR at 10-20 seconds a clip & PluralEyes will find & sync them all perfectly with my other stable angles, the very though of doing that manually will drive me crazy.

Nicolas, half the time I use Plural Eyes it does not sync up. When it does it works great. I'm looking forward to the new version working within Vegas. All the best, james

I record band and orchestra concerts and a 2 hr concert is 8-12 pieces of 5-10 minutes each. So i end up syncing 8-12 pieces and each one takes me only 15 seconds or so. Thus, not a huge time waster *for my workflow*.

The saving grace for me is that i let the camera run for 10 minutes at a time, so i only have 12 syncs to do rsther than dozens or hundreds.

To the poster who has lots of short clips... You may want to try leaving your camera recording nonstop then cut/splice what you want to keep. An added benefit is that you may catch things you'd otherwise miss if the camera wasnt running.


Side comment... A rant... The original poster asked for help on manual syncing. Many people replied with their techniques. Others pointed to plural eyes. IMHO, these are both valid and helpful responses. But saying someone is crazy to do it manually or saying it's a waste of time is not appropriate for a forum. First off, it doesnt *help* anyone. Second, We dont know their situation or their entire workflow or other constraints they may have. For example, in my case i do this as a volunteer. So spending $100 on plural eyes isnt going to happen; it's a waste of money *for me* because (a) i'm not making any money and (b) it only takes me a minute or two to sync manually. As i said, we dont know everyone's situation so we should IMHO keep our posts to helpful responses rather than judgemental or attacking ones.

Roberto, the original poster only asked for the easiest way to sync clips, he did not specify he wanted to do it manually. Robert Benda said he preferred to do it manually, and then others chimed in with differing opinions.

@ Robert Lee: How you choose to sync (manually or with Plural Eyes) depends on how much you have to sync, how many hours worth and how many cams, clips, etc.

A four camera shoot ceremony, over an hour long, with two voice recorders, and then a two or three camera reception that runs for several hours is a lot to sync manually.

The people that prefer to sync manually, I suspect, do not have 6 hours of footage and hundreds of clips to sort through. I did it manually for years. It generally takes a minimum an hour, and I've had times that took a full day.

Since I began using Plural Eyes it takes 10 minutes or so to do what used to take me hours.

For only a few large clips, it's not worth buying a program, but if you are spending 30 minutes or more on a regular basis, you would want to look at Plural Eyes 2. Plural Eyes 3 does not work in Vegas. Plural Eyes 2 works within Vegas, and comes free when you buy Plural Eyes 3. If you bought Plural Eyes 3, you would likely use the Plural Eyes 2 that comes along with Plural Eyes 3, and you probably would not even use the Plural Eyes 3.

I don't know if you can buy Plural Eyes 2 separately any more, don't think so.

Jeff--i stand corrected about the original post.

Also, your reply shows that a response can be helpful and thoughtful and can point out pros and cons of various approaches without resorting to insults. Thanks!

No problem, Roberto. I, myself, have misread, misunderstood, so many times it would be embarrassing to admit if I knew the number of times I have done the same thing.

Not that it matters, but It seems we're both correct... The original post mentions manual syncing in the title.
:-)

Well, there you go. I missed that completely! Not the first time, nor will it be the last. Thanks for pointing that out. It did not sound like he needed too buy a program, sounded like only a couple of items were involved anyway.

In short - If you start all cameras at the very beginning and they run all the way through, syncing is very simple to do manually. Good examples of this are a wedding ceremony or a play/concert.

If you have multiple cameras that are starting and stopping and starting and stopping multiple times throughout the event, that can be a nightmare to do manually (I know, I've done it - and it was before Plural Eyes existed). In that case, something like Plural Eyes can definitely assist in the process. Looking at weddings again, a good example of this would be the reception. A TV program would also be an example of this.

And then you get to the third case - an external audio device that was started and ran the whole time. Easy to sync at the beginning but drifts over time! I've also had to split an audio track roughly every x minutes and get it back in sync because it was drifting over time. So split, move it left or right a frame every x minutes, and keep it in sync that way. Sometimes those are even more difficult to find!

There is a trick I learned in the audio forum for audio tracks that do not match perfectly, it's a simple solution to the issue of drifting, no splitting of audio clips needed, takes only minutes.

1. If you have multiple video tracks to sync up, do that first, before bringing in your audio clip.

2. Add your "out of sync" audio clip normally.

3. Find a sync point at the beginning of the video, match up the audio clip at that point, trim the "front of the clip to that general area.

3. Now locate your end point sync spot in the video audio, place a marker there or do whatever you need to mark the spot. Trim the end of your audio clip to around that spot.

4. Grab and stretch (or shorten) the audio clip so that the end point of the audio clip matches the waveforms of the audio from the video.

5. You now have a synced audio clip that does not drift.

I forget the genius who shared that with me, but I will be forever indebted to him.

I dont have the numbers in front of me, but i thought at 29.97fps drift was only a few frames per hour. I would think that any decent modern audio recorder wouldnt drift -- given that its being driven by a stable crystal oscillator.

Regarding time stretching... Ive done that with multiple performances of the same piece. Thus each recording has slightly different timing. Id split and stretch to resync every 15-60 seconds to keep the timing right. It's time consuming for sure but allows me to use the best clips for all the various takes.

If you timestretch it correctly, it can be good for an hour, no need to split clips.

Jeff, your welcome and I don't know about being a genius, but thanks anyway.

It is important that you trim the audio clip to the exact spot at the beginning of the sync before you "stretch" the end of the sync or else the start point will "stretch" out of position. Same applies for the end of the clip if you need to adjust the start of the clip. It may just be a few frames but will be enough to hear if you have two audio tracks open at the same time. After the clip is sync you can expand the tracks back out if needed and everything stays in sync.

Jim, thanks for clarifying about the need to trim the beginning of the clip precisely. I have shared your trick with several local editors and they were amazed a the simplicity and effectiveness of the method. Great stuff!

Do keep in mind that nesting sequences in Vegas requires making a new project file for each shot. Stability cannot be guaranteed on the nested sequences and it has to render the audio first before you can use a nested sequence. This is kind of where Creative Suite wins out over Vegas. Vegas doesn't (in my knowledge) have merged clips yet.

Why would you want to nest a sequence/use merged clips? To edit multiple audio tracks along with the video in the Trimmer whilst everything has been synced up.