Question about editing video/ audio after syncing audio tracks.

SirWillow77

Newbie Joined: Apr 10, 2023 17:49 Messages: 2 Offline

Solved by

Apr 10, 2023 18:03

New to the program and evaluating the free version with the intention of purchasing if I can figure a couple of things out. And I'm struggling with something pretty basic and know I'm missing something that is very likely obvious.

I do vlog style videos in a home studio. I record video and audio separately, and then replace the audio on the video with the separately recorded audio. I can import the videos and the audio with no problem. I can also get the imported audio track to sync with the audio originally on the video (absolutely love that by the way)

So here's where I run into the issue: I can't find a way to attach/ link/ group that new audio to the video in such a way that will allow me to edit the video (split/ trim/ clip/ crop/ etc) in the same way as I can with the original audio attached to the video.

If I try to leave the imported audio on another track and mute the original audio, my only option is to group it all together. If I try to trim out part (say a long, "uhhhhh") it won't leave that trimeed clip as a separate video to cut out. It still considers all of it as part of one massive group, and the only way to remove it is to ungroup everything, then select the individual video and audio clips and trim them out one by one. That's a pain if I'm having to do that for every single edit.

If I try to remove the original audio, move the sync'd audio into it's place on the track, and then link it to the video it still doesn't let me edit as if it was the original audio, and now I no longer have any of the video tools available to use for some reason (e.g. crop, zoom, etc) it doesn't give me any of the edit tools or the buttons that make them available. The only way to bring them back is to, once again, unlink the audio from the video and then click on the video separately.

This is a pretty basic video editing ability- to replace the audio track on a video with another one and then edit them together, and I don't understand what I'm missing or why this isn't allowing me to do that. So I'm hoping someone here can help. I've searched google, I've watched video tutorials, and there's a ton on how to sync up an imported audio track, but I'm finding absolutely nothing about how to then edit that same video after importing. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Because surely I'm not the only one out there editing my videos together after importing and syncing audio.

Thanks so much. This seriously is about the only thing keeping me from jumping in and buying at the moment.

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Apr 10, 2023 18:58

You really aren't missing much. That's the way PD works with the link feature. You really don't want to replace original audio track and link to video as you lose lots of editing clip features.

So, one just leaves your new audio in a separate track. When you go to say split the main video, just click in a background area so nothing in the timeline is highlighted, then the split will be across all tracks and your new audio will be split too. Select both video and audio clips to delete, or do one at a time.

If you want it to work link a video/audio clip, one would have to produce after your sync operation and work with the new video vs your original source.

Jeff

SirWillow77

Newbie Joined: Apr 10, 2023 17:49 Messages: 2 Offline

Apr 10, 2023 19:58

Quote You really aren't missing much. That's the way PD works with the link feature. You really don't want to replace original audio track and link to video as you lose lots of editing clip features.

So, one just leaves your new audio in a separate track. When you go to say split the main video, just click in a background area so nothing in the timeline is highlighted, then the split will be across all tracks and your new audio will be split too. Select both video and audio clips to delete, or do one at a time.

If you want it to work link a video/audio clip, one would have to produce after your sync operation and work with the new video vs your original source.

Jeff

Thanks. That's really disappointing to find out. That's something that so many other video editors do, that I'm really shocked to find out this doesn't, and it makes editing so much more complicated or other steps required to make it simple (rendering a video an extra time or two so I can edit it the way I should be able to is bit on the ridiculous side).

I love what I see in the program otherwise, but that really makes me hesitate to buy with it making editing the way I do much more of a hassle.

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Apr 10, 2023 20:36

It's really just a different approach, once you get used to it, I don't find any real limitations or massive complications with it. I often have 10 tracks in use, sometimes I need them all split, sometimes not which is easy to accommodate. Often, I have one underlying audio channel that was recording separately and then multiple cameras with audio and mute or interplay as needed. Some things do take extra steps but with that comes maybe a little more versatility.

Jeff