Trying to mix 2 sources

[stantheman1976]

What I did was record a bluegrass band from the soundboard with my iRiver recorder and also hooked up some binaural mics and recorded onto a laptop. I'm trying to mix the 2 sources, but of course the timing is slightly different. This is something I've never done before and I could really use some help. Here's what I tried at first:

Imported both files into Vegas 6 and lined the beginning up so they are perfectly in sync. The first source starts to drift off, so I used Golwave and the "Time Warp" function to shorten the length by about 1/20 of a second each time. Then I switch back to Vegas and it automatically rebuilds the file. This seems to work perfectly for some of the recording, but not all. It seems like some parts later on are synced fine and some parts are not.

If there is an easier way to do this, or a trick with the programs I am using please let me know. Thanks.

[olyteddy]

You might want to try fixing the audio up in an audio editor like audacity first. You can stretch or shorten the whole track that way, and mix it down to stereo.

[stantheman1976]

I was going to try it in Cool Edit, but I don't have much experience with multitracking. That's why I was using the only methind I could think of at the time and hoping someone could give me a better way. I'll try Audacity out and see if I can get things to do what I'm working for.

[stantheman1976]

What function do I need to use in Audacity to shrink the recording and preserve the way it sounds? Tempo, and change the length in seconds?

[olyteddy]

Appears that Tempo (without pitch) is what you need to change.

[stantheman1976]

It seems like no matter what changes I make I cannot get the whole recording to line up correctly. The first few minutes sound perfect and then it goes off. I'm making changes in tiny increments of 1/10-1/20 of a second. I'm going to keep trying it and maybe I can get it figured out.

[69mako]

What you are trying to do is make a "matrix". There is not fool-proof way of synching the two sources together. Every recorder records at a slightly different speed. The method you are using is the only way I know how to create a matrix. (You think that is hard, try and analog source.) What I've found works best is to allign every song at the begginnnig. It's easier to add/remove time from a SBD recording than it is an AUD recording.

Mako

[stantheman1976]

Yea, I think the timing on the recording done on a laptop is the culprit. I'm going to try something like cutting each song or cutting each one into short 2-3 minute segments with CDwave so they will still line up.

At this very moment the point is moot though. I'm fairly sure my hard drive dies last night and it will be a few days until I can get a new one and get everything re-installed. I'm hoping the drive might work via an external adapter to get the files I've been working with. If not I still have the originals stored on my recorder.

I appreciate the advice you guys are giving. I'm going to conquer this one way or another.

[stantheman1976]

Well, I got a new hard drive and started over on this project. I did my EQ to each source and then synced up the beginning and saved each as separate wav files. Then I used CDwave to split each source into separate 1 minute segments. Then I loaded each matching segment into Audacity and went to adjusting timing on each segment to make them match up. This worked well until I got the about the 18th or 19th segment. It seems I cannot get the timing for these to match up no matter what I alter. So I am officially giving up and just keeping the soundboard source.