Audio syncing problem?

[yohin]

So I have been trying to do some new covers to put up on Youtube, but I can't get the audio of my drumming to sync up with the original audio of the song I'm playing along with. I've made a good amount of drum videos in the past and this is the first time I've ever had this problem. It seems like one of the tracks is playing slightly slower/faster than the other one; the two tracks start out perfectly synced, but they get more and more off as the song goes on. When the audio from my mics wouldn't sync up, I tried using just the raw audio from the video camera instead, but that didn't work, it still went out of sync exactly like the mic audio.

Someone told me to check the bit-rate of recording vs. bit-rate of editing and make sure they were the same. They were, so that isn't the problem. Someone also suggested I clean out my hard drive, internet cookies etc. because that might be slowing down my computer and causing the problems. Did that and it's still not syncing. I've also tried using another copy of the original song, I've tried doing the whole thing over from scratch, filming and all, about three times, and I've tried a bunch of other things and nothing seems to be working.

I'd really appreciate if you guys could help me out here, as this is really bothering me. Normally I wouldn't be so annoyed except for the fact that I have gone through this process of syncing two audio tracks for all my past videos and it has worked perfectly every time! Why should this one be any different?

[Larrysperf]

Send Funkyruss a pm I think he will be able to help Only other thing I could guess is your other videos are slowing comp down but thats just a guess. This is a wierd one as your others were fine. Sorry Im not more help

[VIbes]

Are you sure you have the starting points the same at the beginning? If the audio is getting ahead of the video, slide the video forward just a frame or two. When they are together at first and start to drift apart you don;t have the start time of the audio and video synced exactly. When thats the case it will be in sync at first then drift farther and farther apart as the song plays. Try lineing it up by sight and sound. Like, make your video count off and first downbeat be right with the audio.

[yohin]

Are you sure you have the starting points the same at the beginning? If the audio is getting ahead of the video, slide the video forward just a frame or two. When they are together at first and start to drift apart you don;t have the start time of the audio and video synced exactly. When thats the case it will be in sync at first then drift farther and farther apart as the song plays. Try lineing it up by sight and sound. Like, make your video count off and first downbeat be right with the audio.

The problem is actually not between the video and audio, but the two audio tracks (one audio track is my drumming, the other is the song I'm playing along with).

[late8]

Yohin- Can you clarify what source you are using for playback? Is the track you play along with played out of your computer or is the playback source a separate device (ie iPod, CD player?)

The reason I'm asking is the playback source speed you are drumming to may be in sync while you are playing "LIVE" but once you've downloaded your drum part to the computer, there may lie your problem.

You said that you haven't done anything different from the many videos you've posted on the internet, can you walk us through that process so we can fully understand the pathway in which you post your videos?

That will help others who may not know the exact steps you create to get your audio clips recorded. Thanks!

[yohin]

Yohin- Can you clarify what source you are using for playback? Is the track you play along with played out of your computer or is the playback source a separate device (ie iPod, CD player?)

When I'm playing the song, I'm just listening through my isolation headphones which are connected to my iPod. The song is not recording from the iPod directly to the computer.

You said that you haven't done anything different from the many videos you've posted on the internet, can you walk us through that process so we can fully understand the pathway in which you post your videos?

Alright...so the first thing I do is record myself playing the song. I listen to it through my iPod while playing it like I said above. I record the video with my Flip camera, and the audio with my mics. Then I import everything into Adobe Premier, a video editor software that I also use for audio syncing. It's the same software I've always used for my videos and it's always worked great. I sync the mic audio with the Flip audio, then delete the Flip audio, leaving just the Flip video and mic audio sync'd with each other. And finally I sync the song that I'm playing along to with the mic audio. I get the song from my computer, and not directly from my iPod, although they are supposedly exactly the same since the one on the iPod came originally from my computer.

BUT it should be noted, that I tried repeating this process with several old songs that I have already done videos for, and it works fine just the same as it always has. So I only seem to be having trouble with this particular songs that I want to do a video for at the moment. I'm thinking it might have something to do with length; the new song is almost 5 min as opposed to the 2 or less min of most of my vids, and I figure longer songs have more time to get un-synced.

[late8]

I record the video with my Flip camera, and the audio with my mics.

Thanks for a great description of your video making process. Most video editing software has an option to "drop frame" to force the video and audio to remain in sync.

Video plays back at 30 frames a second. Each frame is like a looking at an indivisual film cell on a roll of film. There are situations when video is rendered on a computer hardrive, it will loose some data when transfered from a camera.

To compensate for this loss, most video software editing systems have a "Drop Frame" option. When this option is activated, the software will drop frame the video in tiny increments that the human eye cannot detect. This forces the video to remain in sync with the audio.

As you have mentioned, the prior videos were two minutes in length. The current video is at least five minutes as you stated. The longer the video, the more chapters or sections will be created as the video is recorded.

My only other solution if the drop frame option doesn't work is to edit the video into smaller sections which will create shorter chaptering which may keep your audio and video sync'd and lay your audio track over the edited video.

[yohin]

Thanks for a great description of your video making process. Most video editing software has an option to "drop frame" to force the video and audio to remain in sync.

Video plays back at 30 frames a second. Each frame is like a looking at an indivisual film cell on a roll of film. There are situations when video is rendered on a computer hardrive, it will loose some data when transfered from a camera.

To compensate for this loss, most video software editing systems have a "Drop Frame" option. When this option is activated, the software will drop frame the video in tiny increments that the human eye cannot detect. This forces the video to remain in sync with the audio.

As you have mentioned, the prior videos were two minutes in length. The current video is at least five minutes as you stated. The longer the video, the more chapters or sections will be created as the video is recorded.

My only other solution if the drop frame option doesn't work is to edit the video into smaller sections which will create shorter chaptering which may keep your audio and video sync'd and lay your audio track over the edited video.

Thanks but the audio syncs fine with the video, it's the two audio tracks that I'm having trouble syncing---the audio track of my drumming recorded with the mics, and the song that I'm playing along to which I have both as a file on my computer and on my iPod.

[late8]

Thanks but the audio syncs fine with the video, it's the two audio tracks that I'm having trouble syncing---the audio track of my drumming recorded with the mics, and the song that I'm playing along to which I have both as a file on my computer and on my iPod.

Where is the audio from the mics being recorded? In camera or straight to computer? You haven't mentioned this in both posts. You keep refering to mics. Are the mics plugged into an anolog mixer then fed into the PC via firewire?

Are you feeding the drums mics directly into the PC via USB interface using the PA mixer that your dad had in the garage?

All of these make a difference if you are doing audio recording and trying to sync back the audio using software and playback devices that are external while you play verse files that sit on your hardrive that you are trying to post via hardware.

Is your OS Windows? If so, go to Media Player and go to Options, check to see where you stand as far as what buttons are highlighted. There may be an option that has not been assigned that might help sync both track at the same speed.