Noob trouble with playback speed.

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hello all,

I am not used to working with audio recording and files so please bear with me if this is a stupid question. I searched in the forums already and couldn’t find an answer for this, but I’m not really sure what to call the issue so I couldn’t search very effectively.

I am recording gameplay videos and machinima footage. I am recording dialogue and commentary to go along with the video using Audacity.

Recording and exporting for the audio goes great, but when I try to edit the audio together with the recorded video they don’t quite line up correctly. For my longer recordings, upwards of 30 minutes or so, the audio seems to playback quicker than the video. Its not very drastic, I may have to stretch the audio clip by 1-2 seconds for a 30-45 minute recording. But it is pretty difficult to get them to line up exactly. Just wondering if there is something I am doing wrong with the recording that is causing this.

Not sure what information you will need here:
Sony Vegas 10 - Editing
Open Broadcast Software - Recording Video
Blue Snowball - Mic

I’d be happy to answer any other questions you may have.

Thanks very much.

2

It’'s a common problem because, unless you spend a lot of money on professional hardware, the absolute speed of camcorder / computers / sound recorders … are not very accurate. Perfectly good enough on their own, but problematic if you want to synchronise 2 or more devices.

The workaround is to give yourself timing points at the start and end. A “clapper-board” is ideal, but almost anything that is both visual (for the video) and audible (for the sound) and “sharp” (for precise timing) will do. Then there is this plug-in with which you can stretch the audio to match the length of the video: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/change-speed-stretch-audio-to-a-specified-length/23332/1

3

Thanks very much, Steve.

I have been doing a sync at the beginning, but I hadn’t thought about doing one at the end as well. I really appreciate the advice. That should help out a lot.