How to Manually and Auto Sync Audio and Video in Premiere Pro

Author: Tosh Lubek Published: 17th June 2023

In this article, I’ll show you how to manually and auto-sync video and audio in Premiere Pro. However, if you are using a different video editing package, don’t worry. I’ll also explain how to sync audio and video in any video editing package.

So, let’s get into this.

In professional video and film production, it’s normal for the video and audio to be recorded separately. This is because the mic preamps on the camera might not be as good as those on a dedicated audio recorder or because multiple microphone inputs are required.

Although you might not be filming a movie, you might need to record the audio separately because you need to use two or more microphones. This could be because you are filming an interview or a podcast.

Because you need to use multiple microphones you could plug them into a portable recorder, a mixing desk, or an audio interface connected to a computer. Whatever your method, you’ll be left with video files, that might also include audio from your camera’s built-in microphones, and separate audio files.

Even if you tried to simultaneously press the Record button on the camera and audio recorder when your place the audio and video files side by side in your video editor it’s unlikely that they will be in sync. This must be corrected before you can proceed with editing and the export of the finished video.

In the rest of this article, I’ll explain how you can manually and auto-sync audio and video files in Adobe Premiere Pro. If you are using a different video editing app, it might also include an auto-sync tool, although the details of how to use it will obviously be different. However, you will be able to use the two methods I describe of manually syncing the audio and video.   

How to prepare to sync audio and video in post-production

Most video cameras, whether smartphones, camcorders, or mirrorless cameras, have built-in microphones. Even if you are going to record the audio separately, it’s important that your camera also records the audio from the built-in microphones. So, before you start filming, set the audio level on your camera as well as on your external audio recorder. Also, try to make the reference audio as free from distracting background noises.

Unless you are going to record mute video clips, the clean reference audio will assist in syncing the good quality audio with the video.

The next thing to do is to record a clap that is visible in the frame and that is also audible. The clap can be from using a clapper board, which can be useful if you want to record a text ident at the start of the take. However, it can also be a clap of your hands in front of your face or the subject’s face.

Make sure that the coming together of your hands is visible and that you don’t have one hand in front of the other. You want to be able to see the moment when your two hands come together since this will be coincident with the clap sound.

If you record each take as a separate video clip, add a clap at the start of each clip. If you leave your camera rolling to record several takes, although it is not essential to add a clap at the start of each take, it might well be useful to do so.

Once you have finished recording, you should have video files with audio and separate good-quality audio files. For the sake of argument let’s assume you have an MP4 file with the video and reference audio and a WAV file, or files, with the good audio. You can now proceed with syncing the two.

Manually Sync audio and video in Premiere Pro

The way you manually sync the audio and video in Premiere Pro is basically the same as you would do in any other video editing package.

In the following method, I have assumed that you have recorded reference audio on your video clip. If you forgot or just didn’t record any reference audio on your video clip, you can still sync the video with the good audio but you will have to follow the second method of manually syncing the audio and video.

Method 1 – Manually sync the good audio with the video reference audio

Step 1. Create a video sequence in Premiere Pro and import your media clips.

Step 2. Drag the MP4 video clip, with its audio, into the sequence.

Step 3. Drag the WAV audio clip on an audio track below the audio associated with the video clip.

Step 4. Look at the start of the audio of the MP4 and WAV files. You are looking for the clap you recorded at the start of the take. You should see a tall spike in the audio of the MP4 and WAV files that represents the clap. Drag the WAV audio clip along the sequence until the spike of the clap matches the position of the spike in the MP4 audio.

Step 5. Zoom in on the position of the clap in the sequence. You may notice that the two clap spikes are several frames apart. Drag them together until they are opposite each other.

Step 6. Right-click on the video clip. In the drop-down menu that appears, click on Unlink. You can now delete the audio associated with the MP4 video clip.

Step 7. Left-click and hold down the mouse button in an empty video track above the video clip and drag over both the video and audio clips to select them.

Step 8. Right-click on the video clip and in the drop-down menu click on Link. The good-quality audio and video should now be in sync and linked together.

Step 9. Zoom out and play the sequence to confirm everything is in sync. If it is not, confirm that you have the correct clap position.

Method 2 – Manually sync the good audio with the mute video clip

If you didn’t record reference audio with your video clip, you can still sync the video clip with your good audio. Just like method 1, this is a visual method.

Step 1. Create a video sequence in Premiere Pro and import your media clips.

Step 2. Drag the MP4 video clip, with its audio, into the sequence.

Step 3. Drag the WAV audio clip on an audio track below the audio associated with the video clip.

Step 4. Locate the “clap” in the video clip and the spike of the clap in the audio file. Then drag the audio clip along the sequence so that the “clap” and the spike are approximately in the same place.

Step 5. Zoom in on the clap position in the sequence. You may notice that the visual clap and the clap spike are a few frames apart. If this is the case, drag them together until they are opposite each other.

Step 6. Zoom out and play the sequence to confirm everything is in sync. If it is not, confirm that you have the correct clap position.

Step 7. Link the video and audio clips, as described in Method 1.

Step 8. Zoom out and play the sequence to confirm everything is in sync. If it is not, confirm that you have the correct clap position.

Auto Sync audio and video in Premiere Pro

In principle, auto-syncing your audio and video in Premiere Pro is easy. The app compares the reference audio from the video clip with the separately recorded audio. It then moves the audio clip, so the position of good audio matches the audio on the video clip.

However, if your audio and video clips are long, using auto-sync can be a time-consuming process. But if you have a more capable computer the scanning and comparison process will be quicker.

One point worth noting is that the video clip and the externally recorded audio clip do not have to be the same length. For instance, the camera could have started rolling in advance of the audio recorder. In this case, the audio clip will cover only a part of the video clip, even so, auto sync will match the section where the audio is the same.

I’ll cover how to use Auto sync when recording with one external microphone and where you have multiple microphones and therefore multiple audio clips that need to the synced with the video clip.

How to auto-sync a video clip with one externally recorded audio clip

Step 1. Create a video sequence in Premiere Pro and import your media clips.

Step 2. Drag the MP4 video clip, with the reference audio, onto video track 1 in the sequence (the audio component will be on Audio track 1).

Step 3. Drag the WAV audio clip onto audio track 2. The exact position is not critical, and the clips do not even need to overlap.

Step 4. Select both the video clip and the externally recorded audio. Left-click and hold down the mouse button while dragging over the video clip and external audio clip. Once both clips are selected release the mouse button.

Step 5. In the menu bar click on “Clip”, then in the drop-down menu click on “Synchronize”.

Step 6. The Synchronize Clips menu that opens gives you a choice of ways of lining up the video and audio clip. Select the Audio radio button. Choose the Track channel you need, although if you have followed my instructions, it should be set to 1. Finally, click OK.

The auto-sync tool will analyze the reference and externally recorded audio and then move the video clip to a position where the reference audio matches the externally recorded audio.

Step 7. If necessary, you can cut off those parts of the clips that “overhang” the start or end of the synchronized clips.

How to auto-sync a video clip with multiple externally recorded audio clips

If you recorded with multiple microphones, perhaps because you are filming a podcast, you will have one video clip (plus associated reference audio) and multiple audio tracks.

The basic process is the same as with one video clip and one audio clip, but you will need to sync the audio one clip at a time.

Using the first audio clip, follow steps 1-6 in the previous section to sync the external audio with the video. Once synced, select all the video clips and external audio clips and group them together (shortcut Ctrl+G). Once you have grouped the clips, mute the track on which you have placed the external audio clip.

To sync the next audio clip, drag it onto the next available empty audio track, then select all the clips. Now follows steps 5 & 6 in the previous section. Once synced, select all the clips and group them together (shortcut Ctrl+G). Once the clips have been grouped, mute the audio track with the second external audio clip and proceed with syncing the next external audio clip.

Once you have synced all the external audio clips that you recorded for this video clip, you can unlink the reference audio from the video clip and delete it. If you only synced one audio clip with the video clip you can link the two. Don’t forget to unmute the audio tracks.

Provided the externally recorded audio does match the reference audio, auto sync should have synced the clips. However, sometimes auto sync can fail.

This might be the case if you have inadvertently tried to auto-sync two clips that were not recorded at the same time, perhaps different takes of the same script.

However, auto-sync failure is most likely to occur if the reference audio is of poor quality. This will mean that Premiere Pro will struggle in analyzing the audio and therefore won’t be able to similar sections in the two clips. So, improving the reference audio quality improves the chance of success for the auto-sync process. In the next section, I’ll explain how you can improve the quality of your reference audio.

How to improve your reference audio for better auto sync

Here are a few things you can do to improve the reference audio.

• Has the audio level been set correctly? It should not be very low, since the voice recording will compete with the internal noise produced by the camera’s preamps. Nor should the level be so high that the audio is clipped and distorted.
• Avoid background noise by using a directional shotgun mic on the camera. This will tend to reject sound from the sides and behind the camera and mainly pick up sound from where the camera is pointed. The improvement in clarity should make it easier for Premiere Pro to distinguish the human voice from background sounds.
• If recording background noise along with the voice on the reference audio is unavoidable, try cleaning the audio in post-production. There is a range of VST audio plug-ins that can help remove background noise and room echo or reverberation from recordings. These plug-ins work in software like Adobe Audition and Audacity. I think they should also be accessible from within Premiere Pro.

To clean up background noise I use Waves Audio Clarity Vx and Acon Digital ExtractDialogue. To remove reverberation from a recording I use Waves Audio Clarity Vx DeReverb and Acon Digital Deverberate. If you visit their websites and find the cost quite high, keep going back because they regularly have sales.

With background noise and room reverb cleaned up, the auto sync tool within Premiere Pro should find it much easier to work with your reference audio.

Conclusion

As you have seen, there is more than one way of syncing audio and video files in Adobe Premiere Pro. It’s important you know how to do this manually as well as using the app’s automatic sync tool. That’s because there are times when a manual approach will be quicker than waiting for Premiere Pro to scan the audio. Furthermore, the auto method can fail and cannot be used if reference audio was not recorded on the video file, or if the reference file was recorded out-of-sync.

You might also like…

• Premiere Pro: The File Has an Unsupported Compression Type: Fix
• How to repurpose videos into audio & text content with Premiere Pro
• How to export subtitles or captions in Premiere Pro
• 10 Ways to Improve Transcription Accuracy in Premiere Pro
• How to Transcribe Audio in Adobe Premiere Pro
• How to Create Subtitles or Captions in Premiere Pro
• How to make your video captions look good in Premiere Pro

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