I have a rough recording of an improvised electric guitar solo that I recorded in Audacity using an M-Audio M-Track, as well as a video recording made using a webcam. Both turned out how I expected, but I have no way to match up the audio and video. How can I go about this? What is the best free software to use, and what techniques should I employ when I re-record?
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Is this a Mac or PC?– LaurenceMar 2, 2015 at 23:30
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PC ----FILLER----– Liam AMar 2, 2015 at 23:36
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When you say "when I re-record" do you intend to play the solo again and video it or do you mean when you put the two existing files together and make a new recording consisting of the video you already have and the audio you already have? Did you record the audio while you were recording the video?– Rockin CowboyMar 3, 2015 at 4:56
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This might be better suited to the Video Production site, but I'd encourage you to search there first.– user28Mar 3, 2015 at 19:00
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3 Answers
I have through trial and error, learned a few things about enhancing the audio for a video of myself playing guitar. And here is what I have learned.
If you record the video and audio at separate times, it is very difficult to synchronize, even if you played to the same drum track each time or lip synced to the audio recording.
I have tried to lip sync and there was always a part that you could tell the audio and video did not match up. If you have already recorded an audio track and a video - and there is no audio on the video to help with the matching process, you can use a video editing program such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier Elements to slow down or remove frames from the video and/or alter the playback speed of the audio to get them to line up. But this can be a painstaking tedious process.
After all my trial and error, I finally arrived on what I believe to be the easiest and most effective way to produce a video, with a separate, clean audio track to go with the video.
To do this, you will want to record both the video and audio - (with all the ambient noise and extraneous sounds you want to eliminate from the room), with your video recorder - at the SAME time you are recording your clean audio from the direct signal being output from your guitar. In order for your video recorder or web cam to pick up the audio, you will need to be able to send the sound from the guitar to an external monitor and feed the clean direct audio output to your interface - at the same time. Your M-Track should allow you to do this easily.
The reason you do this, is to make it easier to synchronize the clean audio to the video (by lining up the two audio tracks). On any decent video editing program you will be able to import the audio only file saved on your computer in Audacity, and line it up under your video's audio file. By having both audio wave forms on the screen, you can zoom in to any section and match them visually and just drag one to line up precisely with the other. Find a part that has some obvious dynamic peaks. Then you mute the sound from the camera while playing the clean audio file, to be sure it syncs up perfectly with the video. If it looks good with the web cam or camera's audio muted, you can then delete the audio track from the camera and replace it with the audio track recorded into Audacity with your M-Track on the final rendering.
You end up with a video of you playing your instrument, and a perfectly synchronized audio that is nice and clean. Having the the audio from the video to visually align with the clean audio wave form will save a ton of wasted trial and error time.
You might have better results using your smart phone or other recording device. I am not sure about potential latency issues that might be encountered with using a web cam. It might not be a problem, but if there is some obvious latency between the video and simultaneously recorded audio, try recording the video (with it's own independent audio) using a video recording device not connected to your computer and then import the video into your computer for editing with a video editing program.
For further more detailed discussion on using audio interface and video recorder to produce clean (and editable) audio to use with your video check out this link:
answered Mar 2, 2015 at 23:53
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Thank you for your detailed and personalized response. I actually have some audio on the video recording made via webcam, but it wasn't intentional and thus is not optimized (it's pretty quiet...). However, I plan to re-record the entire thing anyway, so I will make sure to get that webcam audio. As far as matching up the direct audio with the video audio, would you still recommend Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premier Elements as starting points? Any free options?– Liam AMar 4, 2015 at 4:15
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Glad I could help. I have not found a free video editor that allows you to import a separate audio file and have it show as a wave form on the timeline along with the audio from the video. But that does not mean they don't exist. I can't figure out how to do it on Windows Live Movie Maker. Try searching for free video editing software and look for one that allows you to import an additional audio track that you can turn on and off during video playback and move it forwards or backwards by a millisecond at a time. Be wary of spyware sneaking in on the free stuff though. Mar 4, 2015 at 4:58
For rerecording, start by clapping your hands once visibly at the start and the end of the recording. It's the cheap version of a clapperboard.
It also makes sense to let the video camera record audio. It's pretty much guaranteed to be synchronous to the video and is thus perfect for realigning with the high quality audio recording. Just make double sure that only the high quality audio is left in the final product.
I want to shares on how my way to records some stuff of music recording with videos :
so you will need these prerequisites : 1. keyboard 2. soundcard (e.g behringer UCA222) 3. jack cable 4. DAW (e.g nuendo) 5. Video Editor (e.g adobe premiere)
tips :
- connect your keyboard to soundcard via jack cable, and plug that soundcard to your PC-DAW installed.
- prepare your camera to record your videos, and get recorded
- while your camera is role-on, just plays your keyboard and records it you your DAW
- so you have a video(recorded on camera) and audio(recorded on your pc), merge them in your video editor(e.g. adobe premiere)
that's all
