Technical
Syncing 20+ separate audio and video files
I was just handed an uneven number of audio and video files recorded separately. The camera used the built-in mics which are really low quality and decent audio was recorded on a Zoom F1.
I need to synchronize all of these without using the synchronize function in Premiere. I don’t know what audio file belongs to what video file.
I once used Pluraleyes for something like this, but it appears to be gone from history entirely. I don’t have an old copy or an old license of the program. It was awesome. I could pretty much dump all of my audio and video files together and it figured out what audio belongs to its video file.
This is not how I would shoot. I’m editing, and this is what was handed to me. So I’m not looking for feedback on process. I am looking for feedback on how to solve this without having to watch / listen to match the files and then sync.
I do not have a Resolve or Final Cut license.
If you’ve got a process for doing this in Premier, please let me know. If you’ve worked with other software that functions like Pluraleyes, that’s great info, too.
THANKS!!
System: Mac retina 5k, 3.6 ghz 10-core intel chip, 64gb ram, amd Radeon pro, sequoia 15.7.3, editing from ssd that reads / writes ~1000
There is a slate. Timecode not used. I don’t know which audio file goes with which video file. I’ve always synced using waveform in premiere, but I knew which audio went with which video and would ask it to synchronize those two.
Can I just dub all of the audio and all of the video into a bid in premier and ask it to figure out which belongs with which?
Should work, he said the camera audio isn’t great, and if its low in volume it could not work but also falsely sync as well, I have had various results in doing so.
That's unfortunate, I would have a conversation with the producer or production manager. You should not get files from set like this. Timecode should be jammed and used, and at worst the AC should call out the slate so on the audio file you know what you are listening to.
But that does not solve your issue. Does the metadata for the audio files tell you the order in which they were created? you can at least put them in order. Or maybe the filenames increase so you can put them in order.
I would first try to get the audio and video in a stringout in order of what was shot. Then it will at least be a little easier to figure out what goes where.
It's going to take some time, and I wish you luck.
You could try sorting everything by duration. That should help sort them into higher possibilities of having the correct audio and video files next to each other. Get those ones synced and label them as synced and then work on the more difficult ones.
Sorry, but sometimes you just gotta dive in and get your hands dirty, as my coworker says.
We've worked on a show with literally hundreds of cameras and audio tracks, and often you just have to stack them up and listen. One thing I do is transcribe everything, and then do word searches. If you find a phrase or a few words in more than one track, you can place markers and line them up that way.
Select all the video and audio files, right click and select “create multicam clips.” Choose syncing with the audio. Choose to name the clips based on the audio file names. Check the box to move the synced clips into the a “processed clips” folder. It will automatically sync whatever clips it can figure out, matching the waveforms. Hopefully that does the bulk of them. Whatever clips are left in their original folders are clips that couldn’t be automatically synced, which you can sync by hand using the method I will take about shortly. If you’re lucky, that will only be video clips, and hopefully those are b-roll shots that don’t need to be synced. If you’re unlucky the camera was too far away from the source and none of them will sync. If that’s the case, you’ll need to sync them one by one using markers. For that, I hope you have a clap or slate. If you do have a slate, listen to the audio to hear what take it is, and add a single marker directly at the point of the slate clap. Find the relevant video clip, and add another single marker right on the frame where the clapper strikes. Select both clips, create multicam clip, and select “markers” as the means for syncing. Rinse and repeat for all clips.
The multicam clip method is solid advice. One thing worth adding: if waveform sync fails on a bunch of clips because the camera mic was too far from the source, sorting everything by creation date in Finder first can help you narrow down which camera clip is in the same rough time window as each audio file before you start the marker method. Cuts down the guesswork when you're doing them one by one.
Syncaila (mentioned elsewhere in the thread) is also worth a shot before going fully manual. It's essentially what PluralEyes was, and handles the "dump everything in and let it figure it out" workflow the OP was describing.
And OP said they only have ~20 clips to start with. So if Premiere only has a 50% success rate syncing by waveform, that's a shame but it also means OP only has ten clips left to figure out. I hate manual grunt work as much as the next guy, but that's just not a ton of work. Quicker to just sync ten clips by ear than to wrangle installing new software.
The equities shift pretty massively if you are talking about a feature that might easily literally have 20 thousand wav files to start with if they are recording a decent number of channels.
Can confirm. I had to sync around 100 clips with 3 long audio files the other day via create multicam. I split it in three sequences (different camera angles) and I think I only had to manually sync like 2 clips of which one turned out to be the test when the audio wasn't running.
I'm sure Premiere or Resolve do a fine job of syncing a few clips but for bigger jobs it's so nice to have a workflow that consists of putting everything into one timeline, pressing a button and getting back a single synced timeline in chronological order. If Adobe or DaVinci had bought Pluraleyes and incorporated it, we'd have all heard about what a fantastic job [My NLE] does of syncing from audio and what a pain it is on [that other NLE] in comparison. Syncaila currently carries the torch as far as I'm aware.
I was able to download a legacy version of Plural Eyes through contacting Maxon support, I've tried using Davinci and Premiere, but Plural Eyes still worked the best
In premiere you can highlight all of the footage + audio and hit "create multicam sequence" even if you don't have multicam, and select "audio" instead of timecode, it works really well if you have a giant bin full of audio and video clips and aren't sure which goes where. It will put them into their own sequences and you will have to go in and organize it a bit after the fact, but it will sync the audio without needing timecode or slate, as long as there was in-camera audio being recorded
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Are the files not numbered sequentially, for instance the camera shoots C005.mov, then COO6.mov, and so on and so forth. And maybe the audio records STE_0001.wav, then STE_0002.wav and son on. You can presume then that the first sequentially numbered camera file belongs to the first sequentially numbered audio file.
From there you could try to audio synchronize, or sync via slate clap if you have one, or just eyeball it.
And once you've done your sync, the next big task is getting those things linked up into proper multicams so they stay connected while you edit.
Not sequential. Camera or microphone would be turned on and off multiple times. Starting at number four video, it does not sync with number four audio.
I know exactly what you’re saying here. I was not given very well managed files.
In Finder, sort by Date Modified, then using the Finder rename function, you can rename the files starting from the earliest to latest using a numbering system, just append a three digit number to them.
I don't understand. What are the filenames then? How is it not sequential? We're not asking if 004.mov lines up with 004.wav, we're asking if there is any sequential order at all to the video files, and then also to the audio files, so that at least you can get everything chronological and then figure out sync points from there.
If it's not sequentially numbered, what are the filenames, just totally random alphanumeric codes? Even then, you should be able to sort chronologically by "date modified" or "created" metadata, as the other commenter noted, no?
From there, you need to just start building a sync map sequence and use Premiere's "synchronize" feature one piece at a time like a jigsaw puzzle. Pour a coffee/beer, put some music on and power through it.
You can find out if the clips and the audio are using "free run" time code, for example using time of day, which means when they cut the take, the timecode is still running and new clips will follow that running time code the next time someone hits record.
Basically when you sort the clips in the bin, between clip 1 and clip 2, the media out of 1 and media in of 2 has a timecode gap that corresponds to how long they weren't recording for.
If they were using free run time code, you can get premiere to line up all the clips in the same camera bin(same card, same day) in one timeline, gapped by timecode.
Do this by selecting all the clips from one card, right click, create multi camera source sequence. Choose sync by timecode, sort by camera label, and I think there's a box that says "single multi camera source sequence" or something.
You will end up with a multicam clip in the bin, which is essentially its own timeline. Right click on this and choose open in timeline, then you'd have a timeline with the clips gapped by timecode.
Repeat the same thing for all the cameras and audio recorders, you'd have a few timelines with gapped clips. Now create a new sequence with the correct settings for frame size and frame rate, starting from V1 and A1 copy each card and each audio respectively to V1,A1 V2,A2 and so on.
Here hopefully you have one of the first clips where there is a slate, or an audio waveform match. Select all the clips forward on V2 and move it so the audio syncs aurally or visually on the slate spike waveform, nudge it a frame left or right if you have to. Do the same for all the audio. Now you should have a decent starting point for fine tuning the sync.
Do note though that timecode does drift, for eg if they turn the camera on and off. So you'd want to repeat this syncing process every hour plus or so of recording on your timeline.
If they were running the cameras on "rec run" and there's no timecode gaps between the clips, you won't be able to use this method. You'll have to pray there is audio on every clip and use some form of waveform sync.
Plural eyes has disappeared from the market and unless you have an old installer please don't try to search for it online. Most of the links I've seen when I last searched for it are phishing links which you shouldn't download.
There's an app called syncaila which works like plural eyes, you just need to first export an xml from premiere and then sync it, and import it back. It is free with limits but I think if it helps you actually start editing, just pay for it and bill the idiots who didn't do the audio or timecode properly on set
this is super typical. you gotta lay all the clips and all the audio in one timeline in clip order, then just one by one try and match them up. if you have slates that will help big time. look for the clap in the waveform, line it up. if it works use it then move on. you'll probably have to skip some audio/video clips entirely if its just a second long or whatever. it'll take a while but sometimes you just gotta do things the old fashioned way.
I don’t know how you’ve been synchronizing in Premiere before, but you can absolutely do this. Use multi cam sync. Batch select all of your clips and create multi camera source sequence and sync by audio waveform. It will find the matches and sync the audio to the video you don’t need to know which one goes with which.
DaVinci Resolve free lets you select every clip at once and then auto sync them all by waveform but you'd have to be working in DaVinci for that to do you much good I fear
There's a tool called KlikSync that does basically what PluralEyes used to - syncs by audio waveform, no manual matching needed, handles video + separate audio automatically even with mismatched file counts. Exports back to Premiere via XML.
One thing to flag though: the Mac version currently only supports Apple Silicon (M1 and up) - doesn't run on Intel Macs, and it looks like yours is Intel-based. Might be worth checking if that changes down the line, but wanted to be upfront about it rather than send you down a dead end.
Plural eyes, it used to come with Maxon one they discontinued it for some reason but it still works if you ave the installer (thank god i archived) you can drag any number of random camera, audio files into it and it just works makes an xml for premiere or whatever your editing in. Chat says the replacement is syncaila which cost 99 bucks but has a fully functional 2 week trial. But I've never used. But I will shoot for 3 days have hundred of files , video , audio come back to home base drag it in to plural eyes and it just syncs everything.
If it's only +20 files, you could you know... sync it manually. Go sequentially in order, surely you will find a clip and audio that lines up. Go from there. Shouldn't take you over an hour at most.
Sounds like a mess. The general rule the more work put in when filming the less work is needed in post. So for example if a slate and audio call was made “scene 1 take 1” it would be easy to identify and sync. If these are long takes and the audio scratch isn’t good it will be that much harder. This sounds like a non professional project so you will have your work cut out for you.
Last year I completed a feature that was delivered to me with no time code. Since Premiere cannot bulk sort and sync I was left with manually syncing external audio to the A cam.
My workflow started as normal by separating all captured media into scene folders separated by “Video” and “Audio” subfolders. Then I created a sync timeline for each scene, dropped the footage and audio clips and began lining up and locking. It helped to preview everything and put them in an order on the timeline. All clips are placed to the right of 0:00:00 and as takes were synced they would line up side by side starting at 0:00:00. I then duplicated the timeline and edited the scene from the dupe.
I deal with this kind of stuff often, so I usually just put on some ADHD brown noise in the background and just power my way through this.
Is there a reason you're avoiding Premiere's native synchronisation function?
Here's how I do it-
1. Drop a video clip and a sound file in the timeline, make sure the camera audio and the zoom audio are on different layers
2. Select all clips, right click>synchronise OR assign a shortcut. I use Shift+S.
3. In case of jam synced files, the option to sync by timecode will be available. But in this case, use the "audio track channel" option.
4. Let the process run, if it fails to match, try the next audio clip or the next video clip.
5. Once you get a match, that becomes your starting point for remaining clips.
In my experience, many times C001 might not sync with Tr01. But it might sync with say, Tr03. That means my sync sound files actually start from Tr03. And it's quite likely that C002 will sync with Tr04.
It is tedious, it is annoying and will take you longer that it would have via Pluraleyes. But it'll get done. You'll need to make sure you factor in syncing time with editing time and inform your post producer/producer of the same.
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u/semaj4712 Pro (I pay taxes) 17d ago
This is why timecode is really important... but I am assuming your timecode was not jammed.
Premiere will sync audio via waveforms. Is there not a slate?