Work flow for camera w/external audio recorder for audio in Vegas 8

[Glenn Bailey]

Howdy folks,

Wondering if any of ya'll can tell me about working with video files that have had the audio reordered on a external device (digital audio recorder). I got a project that's coming up, and my DP and audio guy want to use the DAR to record all interviews with using the camera audio as only a reference.

Problem is, they ain't editing the thing ;-) Both video and audio will have and be synced up, but I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around the work flow without making it overly complicated.

Been poking a bit today, and I think this would work OK if I could just replace the audio for each raw clip grabbed from the camera, as I don't want to do this on the time line as there are going to be a ton of cuts ..

whew .. so ya, there ya go. wanting suggestions!

[Mark Holmes]

Our solution on our HVX shot feature was to be careful to slate everything, make sure the person manning that slate produces a nice snap when they slate (doesn't take much to produce a nice peak in the waveform) and be careful with your naming of clips and file management. By organizing your audio and video into daily folders where each day folder has a video folder and an audio folder, it should be pretty easy to just match up the audio to the video using the pop in the waveform on the camera audio and separate audio and then lock them together.

[Glenn Bailey]

Originally Posted by Mark Holmes

Our solution on our HVX shot feature was to be careful to slate everything, make sure the person manning that slate produces a nice snap when they slate (doesn't take much to produce a nice peak in the waveform) and be careful with your naming of clips and file management. By organizing your audio and video into daily folders where each day folder has a video folder and an audio folder, it should be pretty easy to just match up the audio to the video using the pop in the waveform on the camera audio and separate audio and then lock them together.

so do you do this on the time line or on the clip itself inside Vegas?

[Mark Holmes]

We just did it on the timeline - line them up, use the select tool to select the audio and video, right click, select group. Easy. But you mentioned in your original post replacing the audio - it's always good to keep it around for reference - just mute the original camera audio track. If down the line you are thinking the audio sync looks a little off, you can double check it with the original audio.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Mark Holmes

We just did it on the timeline - line them up, use the select tool to select the audio and video, right click, select group. Easy. But you mentioned in your original post replacing the audio - it's always good to keep it around for reference - just mute the original camera audio track. If down the line you are thinking the audio sync looks a little off, you can double check it with the original audio.

And make sure you have the snap to frames turned OFF when synching audio, since you dont' want your DAT recorded audio snapping to frame borders . . . you want it EXACTLY synched up.

I do this all the time with a Minidisc redorded audio feed and the on camera audio. For my live events I have a LOT of audio sources (usually almost 1.5 x the number of cameras.) So I tend to have many more audio tracks than video. Especially because I also have the cleaned audio tracks on top of the native MiniDisc tracks on top of the in cam audio tracks.

[Mark Holmes]

Thanks Jason - good advice - make sure you are not snapping to frames...

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

And make sure you have the snap to frames turned OFF when synching audio, since you dont' want your DAT recorded audio snapping to frame borders . . . you want it EXACTLY synched up.

With Vegas Pro 9, this happens automatically. When Quantize to Frames is turned on, a new feature allows audio events to be adjusted as if Quantize to Frames is turned off while video will be adjusted snapping to frames.

[Glenn Bailey]

Thanks for the suggestions guys, we do plan on slating every shot and also keeping a decent log book of all shots as well. I believe we will be slaving the DAR to the camera, so that + the slate should give me a good point of reference.

[Chris Swanberg]

On really long takes, it is not a bad idea to also slate the end of a take, so if any adjustment for length is needed you can easily accomplish that. By long I mean long like in recording a presentation (or interview) lasting half an hour or more... It seems more and more that recorders at lower price levels do a decent job of maintaining synch for a decent period of time from reports I hear.

[John G. Thomas]

All the previous advice is right on.

We used a small DAT recorder and good mics. Keep the track recorded in the camera and use it as a backup. We needed it several times! Also helpful when you need to get nice sound from several places. And, if you get out-of-sync, the camera's track will get you back where you need to be.

Have fun!

[Ron Evans]

With both camera and DAR audio one above the other you can also stretch the audio of the DAR so that it is in sync with the audio from the video camera that way it will stay in lip sync too. For theatre shows that we do we often record audio on a Zoom H2 or Zoom H4 at the stage and I have to sync these up by stretching as they go out of sync ( they are not locked so any free run clock will drift in the 1 hour that a show runs). Use the audio from the camera as reference and move the DAR.

Ron Evans