If you shoot video with a Canon DSLR you already know the audio sucks. Or even if you don’t, maybe you have read my guide to audio and microphones for these cameras ! Recording your audio separately is without a doubt the way to get the highest quality audio track but it adds a couple of daunting extra steps to your production. Firstly the simple process of making sure you record the audio and not just the video while you are shooting, 2 record buttons to press! And secondly syncing that audio to your video track in post-production. I guess you could also add in an extra middle process in there of keeping all the audio files organized in a way that you can relate them to the video clips. This all sounds pretty time consuming but for the last year or so lots of people have been singing the praises of a piece of software called PluralEyes from Singular Software. Available as a plug-in for Final Cut, Premiere and Vegas, it takes your the audio track that is associated with your video track and automatically analyzes the waveform to match it up with your second separately recorded audio track. Great if you have one of those 3 editing programs, but consumer video users were left out in the cold. Not any more though…… DualEyes is a new program in beta testing from Singular. And rather than being a plug-in, it is now a totally separate program meaning that anyone can use it all the way from iMovie makers to pros already using Final Cut , but wanting a more streamlined workflow for audio syncing. Take a look at the demo video that they posted on their website, it really looks very easy and would be perfect to use with the new Zoom H1 audio recorder or the H4N.
