How to sync audio and video in DaVinci Resolve

The three ways Resolve syncs audio and video

DaVinci Resolve can sync audio and video by itself, and for a lot of shoots that is all you need. It offers three routes, and choosing the wrong one is what turns twenty minutes into an afternoon.

• Auto Sync Audio by waveform — Resolve listens to the camera's own scratch audio and to the recorder's file, and lines them up on what it hears.
• Auto Sync Audio by timecode — Resolve trusts the clock written into the files and never listens at all.
• Multicam clips — one container holding every angle, switchable while the timeline plays.

Waveform: right-click, and be deliberate about what you keep

Select the camera clips and the audio files in the Media Pool, right-click, and choose Auto Sync Audio. The submenu is where work gets lost, because two of the four entries replace your camera audio and two keep it:

• Based on Waveform — replaces the clip's own audio with the synced file.
• Based on Waveform and Append Tracks — keeps the camera audio and adds the new one alongside it. This is usually the one you want: scratch audio is what you fall back on when a recorder file turns out to be unusable.

Resolve writes the result into the clip's own metadata, so it carries into any timeline you build afterwards.

Timecode: fast when it works, silent when it does not

The same menu offers Based on Timecode. If the cameras and the recorder were jam-synced to one generator, this is instant and exact. If they were not, Resolve still completes without complaint — it has no way to know the clocks disagree, because it never listened to the audio. A timecode sync that is ten minutes out looks exactly like one that worked, until you play it.

Multicam clips: for cutting between angles, not for repairing sync

Select every angle, right-click, then Create New Multicam Clip Using → Sound (or Timecode, or In/Out points). Resolve builds one clip you can switch between as it plays. It is the right tool for a two-camera interview or a concert, and the wrong one for a shoot whose sync you are not yet sure of — everything is inside a container, so fixing one drifting angle means opening it back up.

Where each method breaks

None of this is a complaint about Resolve. These are the physics of the problem, and every sync tool meets them.

Mixed frame rates

A 23.976 body next to a 29.97 action camera next to a 25 fps drone is an ordinary shoot. Resolve conforms each file by its own rate, so the sync itself is sound — but a timeline built at the wrong rate shows clips landing progressively later the longer they run. Build the timeline at the rate most of your footage actually is, not at the rate you intend to deliver.

Phone footage with a variable frame rate

Phones do not record at a constant frame rate; they drop it when the light does. The sync can be perfect at the head of the clip and a few frames out at the tail, with nothing to warn you. If a phone angle is in the cut, converting it to a constant frame rate before you start is the cheapest ten minutes of the day.

Long takes and drifting recorders

Two devices with independent clocks do not run at exactly the same speed. Across a forty-minute take an inexpensive recorder can drift far enough to show on faces. Waveform sync aligns the moment it matched, not the whole file, so a clip that starts in sync can end out of it.

Footage with no usable audio of its own

Some clips carry nothing a waveform match can hold on to — a camera whose audio was never recorded, or footage whose sound does not run at the same speed as the picture. Resolve will not find these by sound. They have to be placed by hand, or by timecode if the devices were jammed.

Nothing to listen to

A camera with its microphone off, a clip recorded in wind, a second unit that never heard the same room — waveform sync has no evidence to work from. The clips it could not place are the ones worth your attention, not the ones it did.

What to do when it breaks

• Sync in small groups. One camera plus its audio at a time. A failed batch tells you nothing about which file caused it.
• Check the end of a long take, not the start. Drift is invisible at the head of a clip by definition.
• Keep the camera audio — the "Append Tracks" options — so a bad recorder file is a nuisance rather than a lost day.
• Convert variable-frame-rate phone clips first, before syncing, not after you notice the drift.

When the manual route stops being worth it

Resolve's built-in sync is genuinely good for a handful of clips from two or three cameras. It stops scaling at the point where you are syncing in small groups, checking the tail of every long take and hand-placing the clips that had nothing to hear — which on a multi-day, multi-camera shoot is most of an afternoon, every time. That is the point at which most people start shopping: if you are already doing that, the guides on choosing a multicam sync tool and on replacing PluralEyes cover what to weigh up. The same job in the other editor is covered in syncing audio and video in Premiere Pro.

That is the job SyncLab does. It reads the whole folder, matches by sound, sets aside the files it genuinely could not place with a reason for each, and hands DaVinci Resolve a timeline with every clip in position. There is also a plugin that runs inside Resolve, so the timeline appears without leaving the application — that one needs DaVinci Resolve Studio, because the free edition does not load plugins.

It does not replace anything you have just read. If Resolve syncs your shoot in one right-click, use Resolve.

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Questions about formats, cameras, or exports? See the SyncLab FAQ.