Video Sync

If you want to use any of Video Sync’s multiple streamlined features in your workflow with Audio Design Desk, such as using a different machine for video playback freeing up your main machine for audio, assigning notes to video, punching in ADR, or even exporting stems to keep video sizes small for your drafts, it’s easy to sync timelines and use ADD in tandem via MTC.

 

Setup Audio Design Desk:

First we need to set up Audio Design Desk to send and receive MTC information. 

Open up “Preferences” in ADD by pressing (CMD- , ) or going to the ADD tab in the Menu Bar and clicking Preferences. Once in Preferences, click the “Hardware and MIDI” tab at the top right of the window. 

 

Next go to the “MIDI Timecode” pane and in the “MTC Input/Output” dropdown menus, select “ADD MTC In/Out”. Click “OK” at the bottom right of the Preferences window to save your changes. 

 

Now at the top of ADD in the Timeline Toolbar, click the “Clock” icon or press (CMD-J) to enable MTC.

 

Setup Video Sync:

Now we need to setup MTC in Video Sync.

Once opened, go to “Preferences” in Video Sync by pressing (CMD- , ) or going to the Video Sync tab in the Menu Bar and clicking Preferences. In the “MIDI I/O” pane, click the “MTC In” dropdown and select “ADD MTC Out”

 

Close the Preferences window to save and then click the “Chain” icon just above the timeline or press (CMD-L) to enable MTC.

Now open your video in Video Sync Pro by dragging it in or pressing (Shift-CMD-O) or going to the File menu in the Menu Bar and clicking Add Media to Project. 

You have successfully synced Video Sync with Audio Design Desk and are ready to start your project! Press play in Audio Design Desk and the playheads in both apps will play along in sync. When you move the playhead in Audio Design Desk it will move the playhead in Video Sync.

This is useful if you have multiple machines and want to dedicate one machine specifically to audio use to remove the extra stress of running video and audio at the same time. Also if you’d like to create smaller compact video files with stems of audio that can be quickly edited, you could export separate music, foley, and sound design tracks or projects from Audio Design Desk and import them into Video Sync before shipping it to your director for notes.

 

Troubleshoot:

Once your video is in Video Sync, go back to Audio Design Desk and make sure your Project Start time, Frame Rate, and Sample Rate are the same as in Video Sync by clicking the dropdown arrow next to the Timecode in the Timeline Toolbar