Ok, so I have received an AAF (from Premiere Pro) from an editor for a quick 3 minute interview video (just 1 interview subject). Here’s the thing, I only received 1 microphone channel (lav), and it sounds nowhere near as good as the boom. The editor deleted the boom track from the sequence, so I figured Nuendo’s field recorder import could help me out here.
The way I understand it (possibly incorrectly), is that if you have the original production audio, you can import it and it will sync up with the audio in the project.
I have the field recorder window open, I have found the correct production audio .wav. I then click “insert on lanes”, and while it does insert that production audio onto the lane, it isn’t synced at all…It’s just the very beginning of the .wav.
I was watching the Field Recorder Import demonstration on Nuendo’s Youtube channel and I think I’m doing everything the exact same…on that video though when he imports the production audio onto the lanes, it’s automatically synced with the audio that was already in the project. This isn’t happening for me though.
Is original timecode lost in the AAF and that’s why this isn’t working? If that’s the case…what is the point of this?
So confused - would greatly appreciate any insight! Thanks!
p.s. - and if what I am trying to achieve is not possible with the field recorder import (trying to sync the boom channel from the production audio .wav I have to the lav audio I received in the AAF), what would be the best way of doing this instead of having to manually sync it which would take forever because there are a bunch of cuts?
To answer your ps. you can use the ‘audio alignment’ panel to try and find sync. this does mean you have to do some handwork, but if you roughly lay down the boom with the lav and have the settings correctly (use ‘prefer time shifting’ option).
More info here: Audio Alignment
Premiere and aafs are known to have issues. If the sync is the issue you might have to correct the timestamps of the original files. For that you will need an edl.
I suggest you ask the editor to send you an edl and build the dialog tracks (aaf) yourself. But you will need tools like Ediload from sounds in sync or Kraken dialog editors tool kit.
You can create dummy files according to edl metadata and use field recorder from that aaf. There might be some trial and error to get it working but I have seen it done in the past. It’s actually similar to PT field recorder workflow. So maybe check some of those videos to understand the workflow and what to keep an eye on.
But if you are quick in editing yourself you can get this done quicker by manually auto-aligning the material than learning all this new stuff. But for later projects do check the ediload and kraken.
Also careful that if the AAF has truncated media (ie. consolidated), then there is no way for the FR tool to identify the proper origin or start time for the original location sound. It is imperative to have an AAF that contains the COMPLETE media (in terms of length).
is aaf media wav or mxf?
if it is mxf, ask editor to export aaf as wav media, maby it helps because nuendo can not read mxf metadata ( or at least can not read properly).
I recently did the same thing as a “test” in Nuendo 12 since I am interested in purchasing the program to mix a TV show with many ISO’s.
My test was exporting an AAF file and importing it in Nuendo. My timeline had only 2 audio channels and I inserted the rest via the Field Recorder option. It worked great! However, as mentioned above, in no way must the audio data be embedded in the AAF file.
By the way, my test was with mxf files and it worked like a charm. Should note that the AAF was exported from Avid MC.