At my wits end. please help. issues with reaper and recording.

[zilla]

hi everyone

I am at my wits end and am hoping someone here can help me.

Since I dumped my USB condenser mic and moved to an M-Audio Fast Track Pro and an SM-57 I've had nothing but problems:

Problem 1: some kind of crazy comb filtering issue
Problem 2: audio desyncing from video
Problem 3: recorded audio desyncing from overdubbed mp3

see this for an example of what i'm talking about:


I'm using an ASIO driver (the m-audio one). I'm recording the video in Debut from my webcam (640x360) with the webcam mic and the main audio in Reaper at 48kHz, 24 bit. webcam audio is at 48kHz CBR. video is supposed to be recording at 30 fps. I'm only using 1 mic for recording.

I've tried importing the video into Reaper and syncing the audio as well as extracting the audio from the original video, syncing the new audio to the old stream, and then re-inserting it into the video. in this video i'm already out of sync by the 30 second mark

I'm at my wits end here. can anyone help me out? please?

[revclay]

Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with syncing audio and video in Reaper. Have you tried posting over at the Reaper forums and seeing if they can help you out? The community over there is pretty great and very responsive. Give it a shot if you haven't already.

REAPER Bug Reports - Cockos Confederated Forums

[Leec]

You're capturing video and audio and a separate audio recording on the same computer at the same time? I wouldn't do that.

Capture your video on a dedicated device and the audio on your computer, then sync them in an editing programme.

[zilla]

Originally Posted by Leec

You're capturing video and audio and a separate audio recording on the same computer at the same time? I wouldn't do that.

Capture your video on a dedicated device and the audio on your computer, then sync them in an editing programme.

oh? too much stress on the CPU?

[VBCheeseGrater]

Originally Posted by zilla

oh? too much stress on the CPU?

The hard drive is probably begging for mercy. Its trying to read the other tracks and write audio and video all at once. If i use protools on my internal system drive, i cant go beyond 5-6 tracks, i get disk access errors, common problem with recording software due to each track being it's own wav file. One solution is to use a firewire or USB 3.0 external drive exclusively for your song data. Like Leec said, you still may not be able to record the video at the same time.

[zilla]

Originally Posted by vbshredder

The hard drive is probably begging for mercy. Its trying to read the other tracks and write audio and video all at once. If i use protools on my internal system drive, i cant go beyond 5-6 tracks, i get disk access errors, common problem with recording software due to each track being it's own wav file. One solution is to use a firewire or USB 3.0 external drive exclusively for your song data. Like Leec said, you still may not be able to record the video at the same time.

Balls. I'll have to look into this more and take a look at what the HD read/write times are like and CPU usage when I'm recording.

This is making sense since when I set the audio stream in the video recording software to use the Fast Track, things more-or-less work (i get the odd click and pop, but i was attributing that to clipping)

I'll yet you know what I find out.

revclay: I did go to the reaper forums and they had some good suggestions, but i think they were over complicating things. I think what Leec and vbshredder are suggesting is probbaly the smoking gun.

[EtherealEntity]

I'd say it's a lot less about stress on the system than the devices are not going to sync up properly hense the phasing/comb filtering.

[CynicEidolon]

More often than not... It's the MP3's coding. Some of the "lesser" coders screw with time, slowly.

[zilla]

Originally Posted by CynicEidolon

More often than not... It's the MP3's coding. Some of the "lesser" coders screw with time, slowly.

Ok, so the timing issues are most likely due to multiple streams being recorded at the same time, but the weird comb filter was present in the raw wav file before i did anything with it.

[VBCheeseGrater]

Originally Posted by zilla

Balls. I'll have to look into this more and take a look at what the HD read/write times are like and CPU usage when I'm recording.

This is making sense since when I set the audio stream in the video recording software to use the Fast Track, things more-or-less work (i get the odd click and pop, but i was attributing that to clipping)

I'll yet you know what I find out.

after re-reading your post i may have interpreted wrong - not sure if you are trying to multitrack at the same time, but listening to the video with all the backing tracks it sure sounded like it! Encoding = processor intensive, multi tracking = hard drive intensive. Good Luck!

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Break down the process;

1. Try the mic alone and fix the problems with that.
2. Try the video alone and fix the problems with that.

Finally, try to do it all at once, as you have been and see where the problems are introduced.

Be methodical!

[zilla]

Originally Posted by vbshredder

after re-reading your post i may have interpreted wrong - not sure if you are trying to multitrack at the same time, but listening to the video with all the backing tracks it sure sounded like it! Encoding = processor intensive, multi tracking = hard drive intensive. Good Luck!

I'm recording from my webcam (audio + video) and recording the mic'ed guitar in reaper.

After recording, I mix the mic'ed guitar with the mp3 in reaper. I use the webcam audio to align the mixed audio (but i don't mix in the webcam audio) So the final audio stream has the mic'ed guitar and the mp3 and is saved at 48 kHz.

I then replace the original webcam audio stream with the new mixed stream and re-encode the video.

[EtherealEntity]

So that is strange..I thought the phasing would be due to two mics but you are deleting the webcam audio?
I agree with Ryan - just open up Reaper and see if you can record guitar and export it. Does it sound ok?

In regards to picture desyncing - is that before or after Youtube? Youtube is notorious for causing that.

[zilla]

I have tried. sometimes it records fine, other times i get phasing issues.

the desyncing happens before i upload to youtube; usually after i process in reaper and render the audio file.

[Ryan-ZenGtr-]

Work through the process stage by stage and see where the problems creep in. It's probably a software driver problem, bit rate/quality setting hidden away in a sub menu somewhere. You'll need all your sources to have the same audio quality settings or they won't sync properly.

Be methodical and you'll fix it.

Nice guitar Btw!

[zilla]

thanks

Does 16 bit vs 24 bit resolution make a difference? i wouldn't think that it would affect syncing.

I keep everything at CBR. 192 kbps, 48kHz. not sure what else there is

[Jesse7]

I've been having similar problems with The Fast track and protools. except it'll just start hissing at full volume during recording and playback. and make that noise during playback.