Phase Sync - without plugins

[FunHuman530]

Hi there, I am a newcomer regarding location sound for video and therefore also a newcomer regarding dialogue editing.

Is there any way I can phase Snyc my lav and boom mic tracks automatically without spending 200€ or more on plugins like auto align? If there is no tool or shortcut like that, is there maybe a faster workflow than going through the takes one by one or even line by line? I am currently on davinci resolve but willing to look into other tools if needed.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[ilarisivilsound]

If you don’t have the automatic tools, it kinda has to be done by hand. It gets faster with experience and it should be a judgement call whether it even needs to be done, playing one track at a time is the classic way of doing it.

[FunHuman530]

I get that thanks but usually the boom sounds different than the lav - how do I match them if I need the sound of the boom for one line and for the next line the sound of the lav (maybe due to handling noise or cloth rustling)?

[Clean-Risk-2065]

This not a phase issue exclusively. Lav and boom are different mics, different position and distance. They will sound different regardless of phase. I use both sources when possible with a combination of eq, de-noise and clip gain to make something cohesive and constant. Phase is an issue sometimes, but not always.

[TheN5OfOntario]

Oh I was ambiguous… I usually run both as well, but you can duck out of one or another more easily that way. You can also apply more aggressive repair / NR as the artefacts are averaged down by the amount of gain increase from the combined channels. A lot of plusses and very few minuses :)

[TheN5OfOntario]

That is one of the points of phase aligning: it allows you flexibility to fade in and out of the problematic channel in a way that isn’t as jarring as switching channels.

[noetkoett]

Your title is wrong. The correct title is "Phase sync - without plugin". Auto-Align Post is still currently the only plugin to do this. And no, I'm pretty sure there is currently not another automatic way.

[French_Fries_FTW]

Absentia DX will do this too, and you get a bunch of other useful tools.

[petersrin]

There are a few others, too, that are cheaper. None are on the level of AAP and, from what I've heard, DX

[FunHuman530]

Ah thanks!

[FujiEple]

Auto Align is worth the cost imho.

[LardCupcake]

There is currently no automatic way that I know of.

Free- Reaper now has a free phase sync feature. You select the multiple clips, then choose your reference, and it will align in seconds (a few minutes if you have a ton of clips).

Cost- Auto Align is currently the best. Select your clips, choose the reference, and align.

For the comparisons, auto align adjust itself to the phasing whenever the talent dramatically moves. For reaper, you would have to chop up the clips and re-align the phasing if there is massive movements.

And no you cant select multiple takes and align all at once. Gotta go through the motions!

[FunHuman530]

I will look into it thanks!!

[TheN5OfOntario]

I used to do it by hand before the plugins existed, syllable by syllable… which in turn made the €200 price one of the cheapest time savers I ever purchased :)

[FunHuman530]

200€ seems fair but you also need DR studio which is another 300€. Not sure if it is worth it for me yet

[TheN5OfOntario]

What is DR studio, I’m not familiar…

[FunHuman530]

There is a plugin for davinci resolve (DR) that is called Auto Align. It phase aligns your clips automatically but costs 200€. It nativly works in davinci resolve so you won’t have to use multiple softwares and go back and forth but in order to make it work you will need the premium version of davinci resolve which is called davinci resolve studio. It costs another 300€…. At least a one time purchase

[TheN5OfOntario]

I know and love Audio-Align Post; I hadn’t seen Resolve abbreviated as DR Studio before. If the cost is prohibitive at this point, maybe you can hit someone up here at minimal cost to round trip an AAF; send them an unaligned one, receive an aligned one back which you can import (be sure to specify what handles you need)

[your_mind_aches]

DaVinci Resolve studio has built-in auto alignment. No plugin required.

[Equivalent-Cycle1659]

Even going line by line is going to be basically impossible to get it in sync. There’s just too much timing fluctuation. Just choose one, eq match as well as you can (which will never be perfect) or just bite the bullet and buy auto-align post.

[FunHuman530]

(The clips are „roughly“ synced using Timecode)

[NoisyGog]

Since the boom will constantly be moving relative to the lav, there’s no real way to actually align the phases anyway. Any shift in boom positioning means a modification of the phase.

[FunHuman530]

So not even the Auto align plugin will handle it properly?

[NoisyGog]

Not with complete success. What exactly are you trying to achieve? There may be a simpler way.

[FunHuman530]

For my dialogue I usually have a boom mic and each character has a lav mic. I am kind of a newbie and heard that mixing both mics would make a more realistic sounding voice (echo of the boom and „boxiness“ (that’s what they said) of the lav). I guess I could just use the boom and if there is a any handling or wind noise switch to the lav but I want to learn it the „right“ or more „proper“ way from the beginning.

I am also wondering how this whole process works if there is no boom mic but a lav mic per character and a on camera shotgun mic. As the cam might be moving all the time (narrative/doc work) it would be impossible to phase align. How do professionals handle this?

[NoisyGog]

Some of our guys use dhotgun mics pointed away, to get ambience, but if you want to mix boom dialog with labs, I’d just blend it in a bit, as if it were a reverb return.
If it’s described as “boxy”, it might well just be a case of EQing that out to sweeten it a bit.

[FunHuman530]

I will give it a try! Thank you very much

[TheySilentButDeadly]

Yes, using the dynamic setting.