Nudging audio in very small increments

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Level 1

5 points

Nudging audio in very small increments

Hello,

First, full disclosure, total n00b to video editing in general. I've done a lot of audio mixing and edit over the years.

In some ways I'm getting ahead of myself on this particular little project, I have not (yet) put in the time I should in general learning about iMovie. I don't yet know the names of windows etc. Time is a bit of the essence to get something done is the reason I'm posting here; I do realize I need to do some general learning before getting frustrated over a small item like this.

That all said, my specific issue is that I'm not able to "nudge" an audio track with enough fine control to sync it properly. This project is a live band video, and I have remixed the audio tracks (which were recorded separately as 24 tracks). The original audio is still there, although I've detached it. I'm leaving it there to make it easier to sync as I can see drum hits etc. For this particular song it starts "all in" so it's very easy to see the beginning of the audio. So to set the stage so to speak I have two audio tracks: the original and my new one. They appear pretty much identical so it *should* be very easy to make sure they are lined up. However...even zoomed all the way in I can't get it exactly lined up. My new audio "jumps" from too far ahead to too far behind. In audio software this behavior would make me think "snap to grid is on"...I turned off the only two settings (under View) that sounded like a snap feature.

I've tried a number of things and either;

- the software has a limitation on audio resolution (as far as moving goes) and I'd have to hard-edit my track in Logic by a few milliseconds...seems crazy

or

- I'm missing a setting that would let me do this.

I appreciate any info you might give me on this. I'll still keep messing with it and learning, but any info that would help me get this video synced up quickly would be much appreciated. Tough to be so close yet so far!

iMovie '11, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Mar 22, 2013 11:04 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Neil Kaplan1

Level 1

51 points

Jul 14, 2017 2:08 PM in response to Dervish9

I used to do this all the time and very easily in older versions of iMovie. Same type of projects, had to sync separately recorded audio with band performances. NOW? Apple has in their infinite wisdom removed the ability to nudge imported audio tracks into sync with existing video using the arrows and in very tiny increments. I just got off a long chat with an iMovie expert, and although he had a couple ideas, there is no easy way to do what I want to do. I am so angry that I will likely have to learn a new video editing program, when I was able to do what I need perfectly easily until Apple 'improved' it.

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Answer 2

Mar 22, 2013 11:10 AM in response to Dervish9

First, go to iMovie/Preferences and make sure to check "Display Time as hh:mm:ss:frames"

This way you can edit to the Frame Level rather than to the nearest tenth of a second, (about 3 frames).

Then zoom in on the thumbnail slider to make the thumbnails each 1/2 second long. Then you should be able to move the audio track to the nearest frame.

iMovie can only adjust audio to the nearest frame.

In Final Cut Pro X, you can nudge audio to 100 increments within a video frame to get it lined up exactly. FCPX can also automatically line this up for you, using the audio from the camera and the audio from your professionally mixed track.

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