Syncing sound, need help! :)

Hi mate

You may have seen in the films where they have that chalk board with the snap bit on it. They generally say 'action' and then they snap down the chalk board to make a bang or click?

The reason they do that is because they can then sync the sound to that chalk board banging down on the footage, and this lines all of the audio up perfectly. Any other audio from that point of recording and footage from that single recording can then be synced.

What you will need to do is break your footage down into sections or scenes, and have a cue that is both visual and audio, like the chalk board, at the beginning of all recordings, so that you can use that to sync each piece of footage and audio, and then edit them all into the one video.

Hopefully this makes sense. Remember it doesn't have to be a chalk board being snapped together...it can be anything that you can see on your footage, and hear at the exact same moment, and it must be loud enough to show up in the audio track as a sudden audio spike. After that, let things go silent for a few seconds at the least, before beginning your intended audio/video material.

The question I have is... Are you recording the sounds and instruments at the same time you are recording the video? If this is the case you'll still need an audio sync track with a count-off and appropriate cues. Depending upon the track you may want/have to rough mix each performance before moving on to the next sound/instrument. You'll also need excellent production sound to very cleanly record all of your performances, otherwise you'll be piling noisy audio track on top of noisy audio track when you finally cut is all together. This is a tough gig.

Your other option is to put all of the audio together prior to shooting and doing it exactly like a music video.

Alcove Audio said:

The question I have is... Are you recording the sounds and instruments at the same time you are recording the video? If this is the case you'll still need an audio sync track with a count-off and appropriate cues. Depending upon the track you may want/have to rough mix each performance before moving on to the next sound/instrument. You'll also need excellent production sound to very cleanly record all of your performances, otherwise you'll be piling noisy audio track on top of noisy audio track when you finally cut is all together. This is a tough gig.

Your other option is to put all of the audio together prior to shooting and doing it exactly like a music video.

Click to expand...

Yes, I will only have one audio track which will be my intro then a progression into my track.
I guess I can record the videos afterwards. But how would I sync the visual hits with the audio? Like if there's a shaker sound being played, I can play the shaker and record the video of myself playing it just for the video. The audio will already be recorded.

dcb83 said:

... if there's a shaker sound being played, I can play the shaker and record the video of myself playing it just for the video. The audio will already be recorded.

Click to expand...

That's how a music video is done - you play/sing/dance/whatever in sync with a playback track; this goes all the way back to "The Jazz Singer" in 1927, well over 80 years ago.

These days the playback track is recorded to all of the cameras in addition to a verbal and visual slate to make syncing later much easier. The editor (you, I guess) then cuts it all together with the original playback track.

After editing it all together you can go back and remix to highlight what is being seen on the screen.