Sync Audio to Video in Resolve 18 using auto sync or manually

hey Curtis is there a way to sync audio and video clips, then export the synced clips back on to the hard drive?

Hi , I was wondering if there was a way to do multiple clips at the same time, I have a short film where the sound was recorded on a separate recorder ( zoom) with only reference audio on camera, It was a single camera shoot, we also did clap slates as backup to waveform sync, but obviously I have ended up with a mountain of footage which all need to be synced to the respective audio recorder files, I can do one clip at a time or perhaps there is a way to simultaneously select multiple videoclips( with embedded sound) and multiple audio clips ( from recorder) and have them all sync together. I have tried the one clip at a time method and waveform sync works perfectly, I am just trying to speed up my workflow. Let me know your thoughts.

dang, came here to see if i was doing something wrong. but glad to know the issues are with the C70 audio. Still frustrating though

Can someone help me please! When I go to auto sync, the option to do it with the waveform for some reason I can't select. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thank you so much Curtis. Editing and + looks so easy when watching your videos ... Such a great job !

Thanks for the effort. Do you know you to link an Allen Heath SQ desk to Fairlight as a controller, that you can mix with real faders?

what do you do if you need to manually sync a single camera clip?

Hi Curtis, this was really useful, i plan to test this very thing next week so i will come back and leave another comment after that, thank you so much!

It would be great to have AI auto-detect the slate clap or human clap in a clip and add a marker by itself. It would speed things up when having to sync "manually" !! - Blackmagicdesign, if you're listening ... heeeelp!

Is this only in the paid version? I don't show this option in mine and I have 18.5 downloaded.

My audio wont sync no matter what I do. In premiere it works easy, plural eyes works as well. But NEVER in resolve. I hate this.

It can't be just me... but the zoom is soo limited in Davinci, you can hardly zoom in at all! When trying to manually sync I'm basically guessing where to put it, when I should (just like in Ableton and other software) be able to just zoom all the way in to the samples and shift it to being in sync.

I shoot with a Canon XA 55 camcorder. I'm pretty old school and often just want to record straight in on channel 1. The audio set up is sooo convoluted. But, they do have switches on the outside AND things buried in a menu. To improve my chances of getting the audio I want, I got a Zoom F6. It is a beast of another type. But I really like the preamps and the 32 floating bit.
I have had mixed results synching the F6 recordings with the Canon MXF audio. I get those same error messages that are in this video. So, I am not totally loosing my mind. But, sometimes it synchs!
I'm trying hard to standardize my technique to get standard results. Oh, Curtis with all your sway, please lean on Canon and Blackmagic to get this straightened out. Thanks. In the meantime, thanks for the workaround. I'll just have to resort to it after a couple of tries with the waveform synch, instead of going down a rabbit hole trying to make it work like it should. That's pretty old school too!

when I right click that menu that you show in your video, is non existent on my version of resolve

loved this video, waiting for fairlight video eagerly

In my first short ( ~8 min) with an actual crew - I learned some significant lessons - which is good. I let the crew place me in a dire place regarding synching video and audio. I know better and take full responsibility.

One video clip from the camera could encompass many takes. Or one. And a chunk of time, the slate was done at the end.

Similarly, The boom did not always start and stop with the camera. And thus, the number of takes on a give audio clip could be distinct from any video clip.

And don’t forget the Lavilier’s and another recorder device used (a table top used for a poker game scene). I have not yet investigated what the soundman did within those clips. I am frightened to find out :)

Also, for each boom and laveilier track has an second identical track with a 6db difference. I think this adds only a bit more complexity as I will take the same action for each pair since they are exactly the same, except for the 6db difference.

Effectively, I have a many-to-many relationship between the number of takes on the video clips to the number of takes on the audio clips.

What do you think I should do?

My thought: I take 10-20 hours and break everything into defined takes. I would then attempt the auto-sync and/or auto-align. One benefit of this approach allows me to optimize organization and the use of metadata, keywords and smartbins.

I surely could use some advice.

Thanks!

How does this work when you have a a show audio file that is 2 hours long. Will it synch to camera audio that is not as long?

I can't find the auto sync on the right click menu

For the life of me.. why doesnt davinci offer a feature which syncs multiple clips together? Its like something which seems totally ignored by developers. Ive got a wedding with 2 cams and multiple clips of each cam to edit and I need to be able to sync all the clips. I tried using plural eyes but it just doesnt work right with davinci. Does anybody know of any software which can do this for davinci? Or is there some secret hidden setting in davinci which can do this? I used to do this quickly in premiere pro and plural eyes.

I've never been able to get a good sync with Davinci for some reason, I have to use Final Cut to sync files and that works like a charm almost every time.

If there's one thing I understood from this tutorial is that Davinci is doing a crappy job of syncing audio to video

Curtis, the Deity timecode generator works just fine with the Sony FX30 and the Sound Devices MixPre3 II. Just finished testing and jamming and removing the Deity to see if the two stay in sync. After jamming I waited 30 minutes before doing a recording. A mix was sent to the FX30. The video was recorded on an Atomos Ninja V. The video was transferred to a hard drive along with the wave file from the MixPre3 and both files were imported into DaVinci Resolve Studio 18. The video and the wave file were synced using timecode. I don't know how long the timecode generator can be removed and the sync maintained. It is possible in situations where the session is not too long that the sync will not be affected. I was interested to see if it could be accomplished with just one timecode generator. I may do a more extreme test later.

I started always using a Rode mic go 2 on the C70 and setting level to auto for cleaner scratch and have not had a sync issue since😉😀 before that it was always mess🤦.

Happy New Year. Do you have a tutorial on syncing audio with a MixPre3 using Tentacle Timecode with Log or BRAW in DaVinci Resolve?

Well I have 200 video clips and audio clips that need to be sunk up before I want to start editing. Obviously as wonderful as resolve is, it ain’t gonna do it.
I’ve been told pluralize no longer exists… Anybody know a program that can do this for me?

Great demo of why timecode is the best way to sync assets. 😅 For real!

Happy new year bro
Please do review and recommendations for headband microphone ( wireless mic) like shure akg, Sennheiser, etc

Thanks for this Fairlight has so many options, any additional education is very helpful. Looking forward to the course.

Everyone fails to mention if your audio is 32-bit and not 24-bit - DV will not automatically sync audio - at least in my experience. BTW - I never have trouble syncing C70 Video and External audio as long as everything is 24-bit - 32-bit never works. Just my 2 cents.

I have never used fairlight features in davinci and I can't wait watch next tutorial :)

Thanks for this video Curtis!

This is the only avenue where Premiere is far better than Resolve. I wish BM would work on their algorithm a little, it would save a lot of editors a lot of time! :/

Thank you, thank you, Chris. I have a question which follows on as the next step to consider…do you edit audio in Izotope RX before ripple deleting various parts of you video/audio?

Nice in-depth walk-through tutorial

Great video! One question: Is it possible to offset an embedded audio track by a certain duration? You mentioned in the DJI mic review that it has a delay of about 26 ms, so I it would be nice if it's possible to just repair that delay for each clip.

Hey Curtis! Thank you! I love DaVinci Resolve! I do music. I use Cubase and they sync wonderfully. Even though I add a bunch of VST's through Cubase I've learned to NEVER add reverb in Cubase to my audio file. It will NEVER sync. I will add reverb in Fairlight, or use my raw file from Cubase and add my reverb file and match it up, then remove the raw file. Thanks again Curtis! As always great content!!

Nice video Curtis and happy new year. Same that Resolve still seems to have problems with a simple sync for multicam. something that Pluraleyes could do years ago. Especially with all the new AI that BMD ha engineered into Resolve - it still looks like they need to go back and fix things like this.
cheers

Curtis your great! I do think there is an easier way to do this.

If you make a multicam, and it doesn't sync properly you can right click the multicam and click open in timeline. Then you can manually sync everything. Once you sync, you then close that timeline. Your multicam is now ready for you to drop in your normal timeline. It keeps it much cleaner than the way your doing it IMO. I have learned a lot from you over the years. Thanks for all the free content.

You can also drag the multicam on the left side of the timeline by the track section to open the multicam in a new timeline.

pro tip
clap twice for best results

Is the a maximum amount of time a video should be so it's unlikely to get any drift? At the same time, I guess you could clap again in a video to have addition sync points if needed.

Sometimes it's a hit and miss with 32 bit files. Also, even when sinced metadata still shows 16bit audio. Davinci user here

What if the Scratch audio Isn't good enough to sync and u are spending days trying to sync or u didn't clap at the beginning Wouldn't time code make it easier than using audio? There are times Where Scratch audio is very hard to sync manually Especially looking at waveforms that looked totally different on each audio track.

Although I already understood the value of timecode, after watching this video I can see why timecode is so valuable in terms of saving time in post-production and generally simplifying the audio syncing process.

Great tutorial! I have a question. On your edit page after all the alignments your multicam video shows as 1 track of video. I would expect it would be shown as two clips one over another. What am I missing here?

This is very helpful, I'm more a FCP person but slowly getting more and more into DR. Thanks..... Happy New Year

Thank you for this 👍

Thanks ! Great Video and Happy New Year!