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Audio waveform search and match in ProTools?


jgbsound

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Hello everyone,

 

I'm working on an environmental documentary mix and the editor/director did not include all the audio feeds into the timeline edit and resulting AAF.    So I am trying to reconstruct the edited version of audio and replace the Lav Feed with the Boom. 

 

So I have all the original source RAW interviews that were recorded on location copied onto Temp tracks in the project.  

 

Is there any way to "match" by waveforms in Pro Tools 12HD?  This would be similar to the way PluralEyes and Premiere Pro matches audio by analyzing waveforms.  

 

Ideally, I'd like to pull up some sort of plugin window, select my "Source" sample, and then Select the 1 hour long "Target" and hit a FIND button and it would search through and highlight the matching waveform from that long interview so I could copy and paste into the timeline.

 

 

Is there any function in ProTools that does this or am I wishing for something that doesn't exist?

 

Thank you,

John

 

 

 

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PT HD has the "Field Recorder" workflow to do this?  But all the timecode business has to have been attended to the whole way along, ditto file names...   As you know the other matcho apps (VK, Titan, EDL Flow) are all EDL based (thus TC based).   You could make a session in PP (or Audition?) and add in your edited audio and try to get PP or PE to match--might be worth a try but it is kind of a big workaround.  The other way is to make it an editorial issue--it would be simpler for THEM to add back all those files to their edit, less of a "wheel reinvention" since thery already know the movie and have all the material there?  But 90 min of this kind of thing is going to kind of suck any way you slice it....

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Thanks Phillip,

 

I agree it's gonna suck either way I slice it.  All I really have to go on is the original name of the file.  This was done properly and consistently so finding the actual ISO isn't an issue.  It's the relentless searching I need to do in order to achieve this. 

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Was there a slate? If the AAF gives you entire files instead of just handles, you could open up the region all the way to the slate to identify the file in question, it's one of the reasons I insist on slating (and getting entire files in the .aaf). Eats up hard drive space, though. Even if you don't have a slate, it's probably easier to check which file it is by just auditioning the bit from the beginning instead of searching the entire file manually.

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I was deperately looking for that waveform sync function and found SynchroArts "VocALign Project" being limited to 120 sec clips (no Ilok dongle required) and "VocALign Pro" limited to 300 sec clips (Ilok dongle required). "Revoice Pro" seems to be unlimited, but its intended to align waveforms and tune/stretch them (for vocals or ADR from different takes). Even though I took the same recordings from different mics, Revoice stretched certain parts and I couldn't figured out how to fix this yet. Vocalign seems to be perfect, it's really just a window where you analyze the source track and the dub track and they get synced within Protools with a mouse click. But unfortunately it gets re-rendered. When you trim your dub track to 120/300 sec, you won't be able to stretch it out again.

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1 hour ago, OnTheSoundSideOfLife said:

I was deperately looking for that waveform sync function and found SynchroArts "VocALign Project" being limited to 120 sec clips (no Ilok dongle required) and "VocALign Pro" limited to 300 sec clips (Ilok dongle required). "Revoice Pro" seems to be unlimited, but its intended to align waveforms and tune/stretch them (for vocals or ADR from different takes). Even though I took the same recordings from different mics, Revoice stretched certain parts and I couldn't figured out how to fix this yet. Vocalign seems to be perfect, it's really just a window where you analyze the source track and the dub track and they get synced within Protools with a mouse click. But unfortunately it gets re-rendered. When you trim your dub track to 120/300 sec, you won't be able to stretch it out again.

 

Yes, this works when you know your target, but in the OP‘s case he would like the software to even locate the target (section) and then (presumably) copy that to another track and align it with the source material 

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You could try just doing a name search from a folder of the "other half" files and drag them into sync manually, right?  But you'll def run up against some very long files (like interviews or long verite sequences) where you'll be "haystack-needling" to find the parts they actually used (prob not in orig order), with the understanding also that the sound in the track might not be from the shot you are seeing at that point.  

 

Another thought might be to make an extra project, dump in all the clips from the edit and tell the app to put all of them at their original timestamps.  There will be a lot of overlap, so you'd have to keep moving clips to new tracks to clear them.  You could then do the same thing with all the boom etc clips--are there only two audio channels in play or were there other isos?  With this all you'd end up with the "other half" of each pair now in sync with the original clip.   Then would come the tedious work of matching-in the new clips into the project.  Your "extra" project would be able to show you the whole interview etc and with a text edl you could find where in each long audio clip the edits were from.   If you are in PT you are prevented from having more than one project open at once, so you'd have to park this extra project out @ 10 hrs or etc as a start point.   This might mitigate the pain a little....but this will still be a Big Detective Job just to get you up to where most audio post gigs START!   So....a time+money discussion with your friends, and a little convo with yourself about whether this project is worth this much tedious manual labor to you.....    If you find a better solution please share it with us!

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  • 3 months later...

I regularly edit a 3-hour podcast in ProTools and it takes about two days to remove all the speech fillers: umm's, ah's, ya know's, etc.

GOD how I wish there was a way to at least search and highlight those instances by waveform!

If anyone knows of anyway to do this, PLEASE let me know! sshaalan@hotmail.com

This seems to have potential: wisdom-chen.pdf

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I agree!

It should definitely be a Protools feature, so vote for it here:

 

https://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Auto-sync-clips-using-audio-not-meta-data/79429-3779#idea-tab-comments

 

I think "phrasefind" should also be part of Protools, vote for it here:

 

https://protools.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Add-PhraseFind-option-for-Pro-Tools!/30225-3779#idea-tab-comments

 

My 0.02$

 

 

Franky

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  • 1 year later...

Im looking forward to be in the same situation in some weeks when I have to mix a documentary with 80+ interviews, and editor did not sync my isos to the scratch audio track from camera. It was all timecode synced.... I don't get it really why they did not do it.

He thought it sounded good enough with just the cam hop sound :(
(although I told the director and everybody that they have to sync everything up before editing.... )

So I will be missing all my hidden lavs and extra mics, as I normally only send one mic, mostly the boom to the cam.

 

Now reviving this thread, has there been any solution to have pluraleyes like functionality in ProTools or generally for AAF/OMF based projects?

It should definitely be part of every professional DAW imo!

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7 hours ago, mano said:

Im looking forward to be in the same situation in some weeks when I have to mix a documentary with 80+ interviews, and editor did not sync my isos to the scratch audio track from camera. It was all timecode synced.... I don't get it really why they did not do it.

He thought it sounded good enough with just the cam hop sound :(
(although I told the director and everybody that they have to sync everything up before editing.... )

So I will be missing all my hidden lavs and extra mics, as I normally only send one mic, mostly the boom to the cam.

 

Now reviving this thread, has there been any solution to have pluraleyes like functionality in ProTools or generally for AAF/OMF based projects?

It should definitely be part of every professional DAW imo!

There is!

Research Protools field recorder workflow

Ive done it successfully.

Too much to write here!!

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