Syncing two audio sources, and combining two clips without a click sound.

[Jasmin]

Hi there... I have searched the internet, and browsed through the manual. I think the terms I am looking for are not the cakewalk terms (or anyone's) ? Or I'm just really bad at searching. I am not big into audio and don't know much, but I'd like to learn more.  I have been using Davinci Resolve's Fairlight page to edit the audio for videos, but it kept crashing.  

Two things I could do easily in Fairlight are joining the two audio clips from a song that my camera split, and syncing two audio sources together by waveform. There is an audible click when I put the split clips from my camera together in cakewalk. (It could possibly be my camera's fault, but that's never happened before, or I'm doing something wrong in cakewalk.)  And if I want to sync external audio to my camera's audio, I can do it with a few mouse clicks in fairlight which analyzes the waveforms and puts the clips in sync. I have no idea how to do that in cakewalk. I'm guessing it has something to do with the audio snap, but when I tried to follow instructions from the manual it didn't help. If that's where it's at, I'd be happy with just a confirmation on that, and I'll try harder. I'm hoping there's something automated in cakewalk, because I suck at doing it manually.  

Sorry for the probably dumb questions. When I search for things, a lot of the results don't make sense to me when I'm working with a live performance  all recorded at the same time with a couple mics. (What would that be called in the audio world?) 

 

P.S. I'm not mixing anything, but I'm really curious... How do you lay down live recordings in a mix and have them in sync with everything? I mean, what's the term I should search for to understand how people do this?

 

 

[Blindeddie]

I may be wrong, but I think you are talking about crossfading. Check out Page 439 in the manual, to see if that is what you are looking to do. basically it fades out one clip while fading in another which gives you a somewhat seemless transition between two clips (eliminating pops or clicks). if I am off the mark, sorry!

Peace,

Blindeddie

[user 905133]

Have you considered using a wave editing software and abutting the "clips" at zero-crossings?

[Jasmin]

Thanks!

 I think the crossfade is what I need.   Now to figure out how to get rid of a poorly placed crossfade and start over.  Thanks for the page number... I have some reading to do, lol.

I have not considered a wave editing software or doing that.  I'll have to learn what that all means...  I'm pretty clueless, sorry. 

[fitzj]

Maybe  Vocal Align Pro will help as its best to sync audio etc but not cheap.

https://www.thomann.de/ie/synchro_arts_vocalign_pro.htm?glp=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA5JnuBRA-EiwA-0ggPQnOK6OlGoE7p_xOL6KejV-sATXBGwz36Y0XeW4y_mdIef97vrpKSRoCsCUQAvD_BwE

Edited November 9, 2019 by fitzj

[Jasmin]

6 hours ago, fitzj said:

Maybe  Vocal Align Pro will help as its best to sync audio etc but not cheap.

https://www.thomann.de/ie/synchro_arts_vocalign_pro.htm?glp=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA5JnuBRA-EiwA-0ggPQnOK6OlGoE7p_xOL6KejV-sATXBGwz36Y0XeW4y_mdIef97vrpKSRoCsCUQAvD_BwE

Thank you. That does look helpful.  I'm cheap and broke though, so I'll spend hours aligning it manually, lol. 

[Jasmin]

How do people get their tracks in sync if it was not recorded with cakewalk? Like, if someone used other recording devices, and the timecodes were not the same... how would they go about putting them together in cakewalk... or is that not what this program is intended for?

 

This is the only other audio software I am familiar with - https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/fairlight

 

Maybe it's a whole different animal than cakewalk?

[Blindeddie]

If the start points of the clips are different, then you would need to align the clips manually to get them in sync.  One thing you would need to do is turn off "Snap to Grid"  see page 380 of the reference guide.  this would allow you to move clips at no specific resolution.  There is also a Nudge Command "Process --> Nudge" (see page 376) that will move clips based on settings that you choose "Process --> Nudge --> Settings".

And the reason I point you to the manual is that there are a lot of Grid and nudge settings and I am too lazy to type it all out...?

 

Peace,

 

Blindeddie

[Jasmin]

2 hours ago, Blindeddie said:

If the start points of the clips are different, then you would need to align the clips manually to get them in sync.  One thing you would need to do is turn off "Snap to Grid"  see page 380 of the reference guide.  this would allow you to move clips at no specific resolution.  There is also a Nudge Command "Process --> Nudge" (see page 376) that will move clips based on settings that you choose "Process --> Nudge --> Settings".

And the reason I point you to the manual is that there are a lot of Grid and nudge settings and I am too lazy to type it all out...?

 

Peace,

 

Blindeddie

Ok... that helps a lot. Thanks!

[azslow3]

Another term is "Slip stretching" (f.e. ctrl+shift dragging clip border). That allows make clip length what it should be, f.e. align clips recorded at different hardware clock.

Note that is the subject of complex algo, you can set it in Preferences, separately for "preview" and "rendering", the quality can be significantly different.

[Noel Borthwick]

On 11/8/2019 at 9:30 PM, Jasmin said:

And if I want to sync external audio to my camera's audio, I can do it with a few mouse clicks in fairlight which analyzes the waveforms and puts the clips in sync. I have no idea how to do that in cakewalk.

If all you have is camera audio and external audio that you want to sync together its pretty simple and doesn't require any special automation tools. I do this frequently to match audio recorded from a camera with audio from a more high res source from live recordings. All you typically need to do is this:

1. Import your camera audio into cakewalk. File | Import | Audio and choose the Video file itself if you don't have the audio extracted already. Cakewalk will rip the audio directly from the video assuming the Video format is compatible. If not you will have to use an external program to rip the audio.

2. Import the external audio into Cakewalk on a new track

3. Maximize the two tracks and zoom in so that you can see the waveforms in detail.

4. Drag the second clip to align the waveform start. If the waves don't start at the same time you will first have to manually locate the start of the audio in the recorded track by listening.

5. Zoom in as far as you need to make sure you perfectly line up the start of the audio. Even in live recordings you can find a transient peak and line up the audio accurately. Use your ears to test. Once its aligned you should be able to play both tracks and not hear any significant flamming or phasing. Note that for live recordings you won't get perfect phase alignment. Its not something I worry about too much since you don't typically run into phase cancellation with such sources.

In most cases this is all you need to do. In rare cases if the clocks on the devices are very different or bad you may get some drift if its a very long audio file. I personally have never encountered this with any current generation cameras. Even with audio lasting an hour or longer the drift is negligible. 
If you have drift, locate the areas where you visibly see the waveforms diverge and split the clips at that point. Now you can manually align by repeating the process above. 
You can also time stretch one of the clips to match but if the drift is non linear the manual method is the only way. To time stretch a clip, hold down CTRL and SHIFT simultaneously and drag one of the ends of the clip.

If the audio is just dialog you can use our built in VocalSync, which is designed primarily for the purpose of aligning two different vocal clips. 

[Jasmin]

Thanks Noel and azslow3. My email notification got buried in spam, and I just found these responses. Lots to learn, but it's a fun process. Thanks!