Sync Audio with PiP

Hey folks -

I'm new to FCPX and am churning through the 30-day trial to see if I can make it work for me. My videos are primarily of me on a race track in my car, with two cameras recording footage. One pointing forward and the other rear. I also have a Roland R-09 sound recorder in the car, because pulling audio from camcorders pretty much sucks.

The resulting vids have the rear camera horizontally flipped, bottom cropped by 33% or so, and scaled down about 50%. It's then place basically over top of my rear view mirror (corny, but it works).

Before starting the track session, I get the 3 pieces of gear recording, and then do a clap inside the car as a sync point. I'm trying to figure out how to use FCPX's audio sync to line all that up for me, but I think I'm trying to use the wrong tool? It wants to make a single clip out of the WAV file and 2 pieces of footage from the cameras. With that, there isn't an apparent way to doctor the rear image such that it's PiP'd onto the front.

If I instead drag each piece of footage from the 2 cameras down to the timeline, I can edit the rear camera's image and it PiPs perfectly. I just can't get the audio to sync automatically. Setting markers on the clap noise is easy, and if that's what I have to do, then no problem. I was just hoping the audio sync would do the deed for me.

Suggestions? Thanks!

I'd had to try it, but I think you can sinchronize the cameras with the audio, open the sinchronized clip in its own timeline (right click, open in Timeline) and then scale the rear mirror (you can add Alex4D 8-point matte plugin to make it fit perfectly inside the real rear mirror). Delete the camera audio channels, exit the sinchronized clip timeline and that way you should have only one clip with both videos and the audio.

Other option (but it won't sync the audio automatically) is to do everything manually, select all and create a compound clip, to get just one clip with everything inside,

Jason, creating a multiclip might be what you're looking for. Choose the necessary clips in the event, right-click --> new multiclip.

In your rather simple case that might not be necessary, though. Just put the main clip into your project timeline. Put a marker where the clap is. Then put your rearview-mirror clip on top of it (shortcut q). Put a mark where the clap is. Align your markers. Add the sound-recording in the same way. Voilà.

Multiclip doesn't allow you to use two videos at the same time.

I know. You might use it for syncing, though. Then just put one multiclip on top of the other. Choose camera 1 in multiclip below and camera 2 in multiclip on top. Resize camera 2. All set.

Just a different way to do it. I'm not saying it's better or worse.

canelson wrote: I'd had to try it, but I think you can sinchronize the cameras with the audio, open the sinchronized clip in its own timeline (right click, open in Timeline) and then scale the rear mirror

This is what confuses me a little. If I sync the clips via audio and then open it in the timeline, it's an all-assembled clip and I can't just scale/crop/flip the rear camera. Unless I'm misunderstanding you.

In the Event Browser, you select the 2 video clips and the audio clip, right click, sincronize clips. In your Event Browser a new clips will show up with the text Sinchronized clip at the end. Select that new clip, right click on it and select "Open in timeline", this will open that clip in its own timeline, showing you both video clips and the audio. Now you can apply the resize to the rear view video to fit it inside the rear view mirror, delete or mute the audio that you don´t want and the jump back OUTSIDE the sinchronized clip timeline.

canelson wrote: Select that new clip, right click on it and select "Open in timeline", this will open that clip in its own timeline, showing you both video clips and the audio.

OK, I'm going to have to go back and have a crack at this. I thought I'd tried that already and ended up with a clip that wouldn't let me see the individual pieces.

I'll report back (after work... stupid job... ) when I've had a chance to try.

Thanks for the suggestion.

canelson wrote: In the Event Browser, you select the 2 video clips and the audio clip, right click, sincronize clips.

Thanks much; that seemed to work. I'm not sure why I was having so much trouble before, but it did the trick as far as being able to crop/resize/etc the rear camera. Unfortunately, the actual synchronization via waveform didn't work too well at all. But, I can't say I'm terribly surprised by that.

Next up: how to sync via marker? ...

Add a marker on every clip and sync them manually, if you have the snap option turned on, it will be easier.

For multicam clips, Larry Jordan has a tutorial for automatic and manual sync.

www.larryjordan.biz/fcp-x-syncing-multicam-clips/

canelson wrote: Add a marker on every clip and sync them manually, if you have the snap option turned on, it will be easier.

Yeah, that turned out to be a lot easier than hoping the audio sync would work. Thanks for the help.