Sync external audio with video for every lav and recorder

How to sync audio and video recorded separately, the long way

In an editor you do it a pair at a time: a clap on the slate, Merge Clips in Premiere Pro, Auto Sync Audio in DaVinci Resolve. That is fine for an interview. A wedding is dozens of camera files against several recorders that each started and stopped on their own schedule, and checking every pairing by eye is where the night goes.

Hailo does the whole set in one build and hands your editor the result. It is audio sync software for Mac that ends with a timeline open in Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro or DaVinci Resolve, not a list of clips to finish lining up.

Sync external audio with video for every recorder you ran

In the film builder, point Audio at a recorder's folder or at the files themselves, then click Add more audio for a second recorder, the officiant's lav or the DJ board feed. Each one lands under the picture where it belongs. That is also how to sync audio with multiple cameras: every angle and every recorder go in together and come out lined up. If your cameras and recorders were jam-synced, that timecode is used; if not, there is nothing to set up.

32-bit float recorders are read correctly. A loud cheer on a float file is never mistaken for distortion, so a recorder that captured the vows cleanly is not passed over for clipping that is not there.

The cameras that make it harder

Some angles are awkward to sync by hand. Hailo handles these without being asked:

• A camera writing eight sound tracks is heard on the track with the room in it, not just the first one.
• The camera across the room is still placed, even when its mic barely heard the toasts.
• A camera with no mic still lands in its place when your cameras were jam-synced.
• No separate recorder at all: turn that switch on, mark the camera whose sound should play, and the angles still line up.

No silent gaps on the timeline

Recorders start late and stop early. Where no recorder rolled, the camera audio fills in, so the film never drops to silence where no recorder caught it. On the ceremony film the recorder sits on A1 under every angle, and each camera keeps its own sound on its clip, muted, for when you want the room.

The Normalize audio switch, ceremony only, decides what A1 holds. Off, it is your untouched recorder file. On, it is a leveled copy that sits quiet vows and loud claps together, with the raw recorder muted on A2 for reference. The speeches film always evens its levels. Choosing the clearest microphone for each part of the ceremony has its own page.

When the build finishes, Preview the film plays a 720p preview inside Hailo with the recorder audio, so you can check the sync before you open your editor. The preview is only for checking; the timeline in your editor uses your original files at full quality. The cameras' side of all this is on the multicam sync page.