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I cannot actually recall who I was talking to about this at Vividcon, but it's a trick I picked up back in the days that my poor betas were staring at a lot of my timing wondering if I was cutting on a silent oboe or something, and I was constantly getting lost trying to wrestle timing. So I'm sharing here. Sadly, it involves math. But it's easy math, so there's that. Also, caveat, since people are not actually metronomes, there is always some eyeballing and fiddling that goes with this. But, I have found it particularly useful when the music goes particularly crazy on a bridge, or in songs where there isn't a super clear backbeat throughout (and a lifesaver on slower songs when I don't want to use a crossfade, but need to identify the right place for a hard cut that isn't jarring).
Okay, so, it goes like this and it's really simple. Find a spot in the music where the beat is clear and place the scrubber right at the beginning of a beat, then count the frames between that beat and the next. Say it's 12 frames. And now I know that my clips should be (close to) some multiple of 12 frames. It's not exact, like I said, so sometimes 36 frames will end up being 38 or 48 ends up 44 once the fiddling starts, but it gets you really, really close and makes those adjustments easier. And for me, at least, it helps me avoid the 'all the clips are the exact same length' trap because varying by multiples of the same number is easier than just winging it for me. And, weirdly, once I started doing this, I noticed that if I went and checked the areas that I hadn't had trouble with and the timing looked good without me doing math, lo and behold, even though I hadn't done it on purpose, the multiples rule was holding strong and those clips were within a few frames of the numbers.
Anyway, yes, so...this is what I do whenever I'm struggling with timing or when it looks off but I can't quite identify where or how just by eyeballing. It isn't foolproof by any means, but it is a starting point for those moments when I'm banging my head against things and cursing my lack of natural rhythm.
Okay, so, it goes like this and it's really simple. Find a spot in the music where the beat is clear and place the scrubber right at the beginning of a beat, then count the frames between that beat and the next. Say it's 12 frames. And now I know that my clips should be (close to) some multiple of 12 frames. It's not exact, like I said, so sometimes 36 frames will end up being 38 or 48 ends up 44 once the fiddling starts, but it gets you really, really close and makes those adjustments easier. And for me, at least, it helps me avoid the 'all the clips are the exact same length' trap because varying by multiples of the same number is easier than just winging it for me. And, weirdly, once I started doing this, I noticed that if I went and checked the areas that I hadn't had trouble with and the timing looked good without me doing math, lo and behold, even though I hadn't done it on purpose, the multiples rule was holding strong and those clips were within a few frames of the numbers.
Anyway, yes, so...this is what I do whenever I'm struggling with timing or when it looks off but I can't quite identify where or how just by eyeballing. It isn't foolproof by any means, but it is a starting point for those moments when I'm banging my head against things and cursing my lack of natural rhythm.