Normally people use a handclap, clapboard, or drumbeat to sync audio between video and an external recorder. But weddings can't have that distraction. How do people with external recorders sync at weddings?

The obvious thing for a wedding is a flashgun.

Is that not more for syncing cameras? Unless you use a Victorian "flashgun" than goes whoosh as it fires :-)

Perhaps I'm alone here, but when I'm shooting something dual system that is lengthy, like this would be... I just manually sync them up.

It's a different story with 100 clips than 1 long one.

Normally people use a handclap, clapboard, or drumbeat to sync audio between video and an external recorder. But weddings can't have that distraction. How do people with external recorders sync at weddings?

I haven't shot any weddings, but was thinking that maybe a quick finger-snap in front of the camera shouldn't be too abrasive...?

-- peer

It's not hard at all to do with the waveform and by ear. Just mark out a certain point on one track (eg the celebrant talking, or a round of applause, or a song) then find that part in your other audio track and roughly line it up. Then zoom right in on the timeline and use the wavefrom to line it up exactly. Then play it back and listen to make sure the sound matches, and adjust one frame at a time if necessary.

It takes me no longer than 60 second per clip I need to sync up, and I usually have 2-3 12 minute clips per ceremony, plus my b-camera, so it takes me max 3-5 minutes to sync everything up.

dead easy - Like John says just listen for a particular sound and sync on that or on the flash from a camera. I shoot the ceremony with 3 cameras rolling continuously and a lapel mike and don't have a problem with it

I do it manually as well, but I heard some of our peers use a software called Pluraleyes. I have not tried it yet but I hear synching is a snap. One poster even said he Pluraleyes was able to sync an Indian song against his on cam mic recording.

Is that not more for syncing cameras? Unless you use a Victorian "flashgun" than goes whoosh as it fires :-)Whoops! Should have read the post properly I though that the question was about synchronising two camcorders.

Before while shooting DV and HDV, I manually sycn by matching the wave form. It's not difficult. now I am filming with DSLR, I use PLural eyes for the job.

Here is my experience in the short time I have been doing it.

Plural eyes has a hard time syncing audio in a large church with lots of reverb.

So I take my 3 zoom h1s and hit record. I then clap and put the h1's on "hold" so they don't accidentally get shut off.

I can then place them where they need to go and let them record the whole ceremony. I then have 3 audio sources synced up.

Video next.

I use three DSLRS. One thing I have changed is that I let the camera record until it shuts off. (around 12 minutes) then I restart. Even if I am walking from one area to another. I just point the camera to the ground. That way I end up with fewer clips.

In the time line I drop the audio in and line up the claps on all three sources.

I then line up the first and last video clips from all three cameras. (easy to do just pick out a word or something easy to hear)

Then I just fill in the middle. The clips are in order for each camera so you are only working with a small 10-12 minute area.

The last ceremony I did the photographer used flash so it made it even easier to line up.


PS. I wish I could invent something that plugged into a outlet that put a "wireless clock" in the room. Then I would have a small mono receiver to plug into each camera and audio device that would record this signal on say the left audio channel.

I do it manually as well, but I heard some of our peers use a software called Pluraleyes. I have not tried it yet but I hear synching is a snap. One poster even said he Pluraleyes was able to sync an Indian song against his on cam mic recording.

PluralEyes is magic. Once you've used it, you'll think you've been touched by the hand of G-d.