Adding Audio to Video Using QuickTime 7

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Larry

[ This article was first published in the October, 2010, issue of
Larry’s Monthly Final Cut Studio Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. ]

TECHNIQUE: ADDING AUDIO TO VIDEO USING QUICKTIME 7
Most of the time when I send a mix from Final Cut to Soundtrack, then export it back to Final Cut, everything stays in sync and sounds great.

However, with many of my webinars, I’ve discovered that the audio sync tends to slowly slip out of sync. I suspect this has to do with the frame rate that I record the webinars, which is 30 fps. I’ve tried a lot of different things to fix it, but haven’t found a solution.

So, whenever I have a problem like this, I fall back to an old technique that allows me to combine audio and video using QuickTime, which works perfectly every time.

Here’s how.

Export your sequence from Final Cut as usual (File > Export > QuickTime movie)
Export your audio from Soundtrack Pro as usual (File > Export Settings: AIF 48kHZ 16-bit).
Open both files using QuickTime 7

Select the audio file and type Command+A (Edit > Select All) to select the entire audio file.
Type Command+C (Edit > Copy) to copy the entire file to the clipboard.

Select the video file. Make sure your playhead is at the start of the video file.
Choose Edit > Add to Movie. This add the new audio file to the existing video file. You now have two audio files associated with this movie.

Select the video file and choose Window > Show Movie Properties (Command+J)

This window lists all the components of the QuickTime file. In this case, the new soundtrack is listed at the bottom as Sound Track 2.

Now is a good time to play your movie to make sure everything sounds right. To disable an audio file, uncheck the checkbox at the left side of the audio file you don’t want to hear.

Once you decide everything sounds correct, there is still the older soundtrack (Sound Track 1) to delete.

Select the soundtrack you don’t want, which is the one listed first, and click the Delete button in the top left corner.

Finally, select File > Save as to save the file. Be sure to save it as a Self-Contained file.

Done.

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19 Responses to Adding Audio to Video Using QuickTime 7

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sourav says:

December 12, 2011 at 11:16 pm

thx it was really help full

Reply
Thomas says:

February 28, 2012 at 2:24 am

Thanks Larry, that was helpful. Edit > Add to movie was the one step I was not doing right and it solved my problem. Thanks again!

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FurryToes says:

November 7, 2012 at 3:33 am

I find this technique essential to producing every video, since I export the audio separately, then master it, using mainly volume maximisation (compression) in Logic. I then add it back to the video stream as shown here.

That’s my workflow.

I’ve tried others – like creating a compound clip for all audio and mastering it from there – but this tends to make it difficult to make further editing changes, since you can no longer “snap” to or even see the audio anymore, unless you dive into the compound clip.

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AaronV says:

January 24, 2013 at 8:54 am

I can’t stress this enough that it’s very important that you choose Save As and not just Save as Larry points out! If you just save it, it will just reference the audio file not save it in the QT. I had issues int the past where I deleted the Wav/aiff because I thought it was in the QT and found out later when I tried to open it that it want’s to go searching for the audio file.

You can confirm that the audio file is contained in the QT by going to Window>Show Movie Properties. Then click on the sound track and select the Resources tab. If it shows the name of the Qt your good.

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Dan says:

January 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm

Great tutorial, Larry! Thanks! As AaronV emphasizes above, using Save As is key to making sure the changes you’ve made get saved. Also, be sure to use Add instead Add to Selection and Scale if you want to maintain sound quality.

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Chris says:

April 11, 2013 at 12:00 am

Thank you so much!!!! This just saved me so much re-rendering!!!!!

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Vinod Singh says:

May 30, 2013 at 6:43 am

“However, with many of my webinars, I’ve discovered that the audio sync tends to slowly slip out of sync. I suspect this has to do with the frame rate that I record the webinars, which is 30 fps. I’ve tried a lot of different things to fix it, but haven’t found a solution.”

Slow your audio down to 99.9%. This makes the audio run nicely in sync.

this is a video 29.97fps and audio 30fps problem.

Reply
john ballinger says:

October 20, 2013 at 8:26 pm

this was extremely helpful! Thank you so much.

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Sam says:

December 21, 2013 at 1:25 pm

Hey, I was just wondering if it was possible to save the movie file without changing the format to .mov?

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Jack says:

August 24, 2014 at 6:28 am

Great.

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