Zooming In

AlEebee

Noob question and I did a search but did not find and answer to what I want.

Basically I am editing videos of various bands I play in, and as part of that edit process I and replacing the camcorder audio with better recorded and mastered audio from another dedicated digital recorder. To do this I am looking for spikes on the two wave forms from the original and replacing audio track and then dragging the new into line.

To do this I have been zooming in on the timeline, but it is that last little bit whether using the NUM + key or the slider or + magnifying glass. I always seem to go from not quite in enough to far to far in.

Is there a key combination, say Ctrl and + that will allow for a finer zoom?

[deleted]

Matching up two soundtracks shouldn't cause any problems normally provided they are both identical in respect of their speeds. There isn't a "fine zoom" setting but if you left click the slider of the zoom feature at the bottom right of the screen you can then use the scroll wheel on your mouse to "zoom in/out" to better than 1/10 second (which is about the limit and perfectly adequate for lip synch)

Just drop your replacement recording on the first soundtrack lane and slide it along until it visually matches the audio track peak for peak. Now zoom in and adjust the replacement track by dragging left or right until it is as good as you can get it.

Note If you repeatedly right click-left click the track you can nudge it fractionally to the right each time.

You can then play the sequence to see if there is a good match i.e no echo or fuzziness, or simply mute the audio line (or remove it) and then play the sequence.

Provided the two sound tracks have the same length (and therefore pitch) you should get a precise synch.

Nat

AlEebee

Thanks. That's sort of what I am doing, it was just that last close zoom that was / is evading me.

I am running a video of a set of around an hour, and replacement audio that I tried to start around the same time, but which is never exact and is then run through a mastering suite for level & fine tune.

I lined up the start pretty well, but the closer in I could get the easier it is to match the waves.

Then I throw in cutting bits of dead time between songs for guitar changes out and because I cannot select both video and replacement audio before splitting deleting a snippet and shuffling back I end up having to resync the tracks.

Still I am in a learning curve at the mo & I'm sure I'll get there sometime

[deleted]

To avoid having to resynch after every cut proceed as follows....

Click the "Options" tab on the toolbar and then the "Other" tab.In the top box relating to the action to take when sound clips overlap, select to "Push clips to the right"

Put VP into timeline mode and load your video onto the sequence line with the dubbed sound onto soundtrack 1.

I am going to assume that they are identical as far as speed etc.and that the video is in one long block.

You now therefore have two audio tracks visible, the original audio track connected to the video and the track to be dubbed over the video.

Zoom in as mentioned in my last post and get the two tracks in synch at the start. If they are identical then they will (or should) finish together. Play the video to ensure that the tracks remain in synch to the end. If this doesn't happen then you will have to reset the synch manually every time you make a cut or VERY carfully adjust the speed of the video to obtain a match. I am going to assume they play OK.

Right click the audio track and choose to "Adjust clip volume" In the window click the box to "Mute clip" followed by OK. Your dubbed track will now be the only one playing.

Right click the video to select it and then play the video (or drag the cursor bar) to the point where you want to make a cut at the start of your edit.

Right click the "Split" button to make the cut. Note that the cursor will remain in place.

Now RIGHT click (NOT left click) soundtrack 1 followed by the "Split the track" button at the left end of the soundtrack by the black star. This will split Soundtrack 1 at the same cursor position as the video track. (Cursor hasn't moved)

Move the cursor now to the end of the edit and repeat the process. You will now have cut the video as well as soundtrack 1 at the same precise points.

Right click the video clip you have just created and choose to "Remove selected clip". The video will readjust itself end to end leaving no gap. This, of course puts the soundtrack out of synch but no problem....

RIGHT click the soundtrack 1 clip that you wish to remove and choose "Remove selected audio" Unlike the video track, sound clips dont jump left to fill the space left by the deletion. So simply grab the soundtrack on the right and pull it left so it overlaps the section (which is in synch) on the left. Release it and it will set itself immediately into position without leaving any gap.

As the sections you removed from both tracks were identical in length, the soundtrack and the video should continue in synch following the cut.

Hope this helps

Nat

AlEebee

Again, thanks for this. I shall try this with the next one to be built