Whoops. I botched my iRiff. Need help with my mp3 please (SOLVED)

[stansimpson]

Ok, I'll admit this up front.  Yes, it's a very very dumb mistake.  But that's all in the past now.

Here's what happened:
We recorded our whole iRiff to Lost In Space according to the .avi movie.  I just assumed it would sync up to the dvd (I find this works about 70% of the time).  I eventually bought the dvd and found out (very late in the game) that the .avi happened to be in the 30% category.  It didn't sync up. 

Here's how I've come close to fixing it:
I recorded the movie's sound by literally putting my computer/mic next to my tv and let the dvd play; that way, I'll have a bonafide mp3 of the dvd's playback.  Using Final Cut Express, I dropped in our iRiff mp3 and the dvd's audio mp3.  I used the "Fit To Fill" option so that it stretched our iRiff to the exact length as the dvd track.  Of course, the pitch on our iRiff was now lower (cuz our iRiff is shorter than the dvd), so I went in and used an AUPitch filter to bring it to a normal pitch.  When I replayed the iRiff newly-stretched, properly-synced, perfectly-pitched... I found the mp3 was all distorted.  Like a "warbling" kind of distortion.  It synced up properly but just... distorted. 

I haven't even thought about how to get our iRiff from Final Cut to mp3 but I figured that's not as difficult of a bridge to cross as this.  So to sum things up...

Problem:  Our iRiff is too short.  It needs to be stretched to the length of the dvd (with proper pitch).
Solution:  Hopefully... you guys.  Btw, I have a Mac, so any software recommendations should be Mac compatible (like Audacity).  Any suggestions about buying new software will be greeted with hesitation (because I'm pretty confident this can be solved with shareware).  I just don't know how to go about solving this.  Do you?

Thanks!

[zenmichael]

OK, I'm not 100% sure this will work, so absolutely DO NOT SAVE until you've checked it, BUT ...

I know Audacity is what I use to make PAL versions of stuff, and it doesn't sound distorted (a LITTLE sped up, but just a tiny bit, as PAL is of course ... shorter than the NTSC version). assuming your difference is about the same percentage & therefore using this as a fix wouldn't distort it, i'd try loading it into audacity, and essentially do the 'fit to fill' thing except use Change Tempo. You can change from X seconds to Y seconds, so just find out how long you need it to be and put in that number (remember to take out enough of the beginning and end of the movie to match your actual length--since assumedly you don't "play" the rifftrax until a few seconds in to the movie and you don't riff through THE ENTIRE end credits--tho you might, i dunno).

Then just check it & see if it sounds decent. that SHOULD work, i would think ....

[stansimpson]

OK, I'm not 100% sure this will work, so absolutely DO NOT SAVE until you've checked it, BUT ...

I know Audacity is what I use to make PAL versions of stuff, and it doesn't sound distorted (a LITTLE sped up, but just a tiny bit, as PAL is of course ... shorter than the NTSC version). assuming your difference is about the same percentage & therefore using this as a fix wouldn't distort it, i'd try loading it into audacity, and essentially do the 'fit to fill' thing except use Change Tempo. You can change from X seconds to Y seconds, so just find out how long you need it to be and put in that number (remember to take out enough of the beginning and end of the movie to match your actual length--since assumedly you don't "play" the rifftrax until a few seconds in to the movie and you don't riff through THE ENTIRE end credits--tho you might, i dunno).

Then just check it & see if it sounds decent. that SHOULD work, i would think ....

That sounds like it should work.  I'm unfamiliar with Audacity.  Can you elaborate on its Fit To Fill option?  You say to put in the number of how long it needs to be.  That's a pretty vague instruction.  Would you mind being more specific please?

Huge thanks for the suggestion and help.

[zenmichael]

Assuming the Mac version has the same text as the PC version (which is what I have, you're going to have two options: changing from X beats to Y beats (no clue what that is) & changing from X seconds to Y seconds. X you can't change, but Y you can put in your own number. So figure out how many seconds long you WANT your final riff to be and put that number into the second box. Trust me, if you open up that box in Audacity this will make sense.

[stansimpson]

Assuming the Mac version has the same text as the PC version (which is what I have, you're going to have two options: changing from X beats to Y beats (no clue what that is) & changing from X seconds to Y seconds. X you can't change, but Y you can put in your own number. So figure out how many seconds long you WANT your final riff to be and put that number into the second box. Trust me, if you open up that box in Audacity this will make sense.

Thanks!  I def can't wait to try this out!  Oh wait... I gotta start celebrating my 3 day weekend first.  So maybe I can wait... just a bit.

[fireyf]

Ah, I had a similar problem making my first riff.  I made an avi of the movie and wrote the entire script with timestamps from that.  Fortunately, for whatever reason I compared the dvd and the avi and found the avi to be 8 seconds shorter than the movie!  Thank goodness I hadn't recorded yet.  The pain was trying to correct all the time stamps without having to go through the whole movie.  As I went through my recording I had to make adjustments every so often so my timestamps were right.  I think something about the compression of the avi file makes the movie run shorter, either that or it runs slightly faster than the dvd and the time difference builds throughout the movie.

Anyways, good luck.  I hope you find a good way to adjust.  I could suggest that you go through the movie and find where the lines get out of sync and insert X seconds or milliseconds of silence to make up the difference.  Adjusting the tempo could work too but this is a second alternative if the tempo change doesn't solve things quite right.

[stansimpson]

I could suggest that you go through the movie and find where the lines get out of sync and insert X seconds or milliseconds of silence to make up the difference.  Adjusting the tempo could work too but this is a second alternative if the tempo change doesn't solve things quite right.

I feel a lot better knowing I'm not the only person who's made this mistake.  I actually went in and tried the line-by-line readjusting.  It's so off that the whole thing became unbearably tedious and flat-out time consuming (we're talking about taking weeks to flesh the whole adjustment out).  Also, I'm working without direct video involvement, so the time codes to things onscreen are even more of a headache.  Thanks anyway.  Still haven't tried the Audacity tempo change.  I really hope that works out. ::crosses fingers::

[tygerbug]

  You should "just" edit the piece in Final Cut Pro, adjusting it about 100 times during the movie to make up the difference. It shouldn't be THAT off that this would take more than an hour.

   On my current project, I have to edit the piece line by line anyway (I'm actually recording to a PAL recording then slowing to NTSC) and it gives me the opportunity to adjust the timing, make it really work.

[stansimpson]

So with a little help from our old friend Math, I found the exact percentage to change the speed to.

I needed to slow down 1:56:24 by -4.068194% to make 2:01:23.  Fascinating, huh?  And coming from an English major no less.  ::pats self on back::

Thank you guys for the help!!  This iriff just kicked into high gear.  It may be released as soon as tomorrow!  Well... I need to play it to some friends first, maybe make some very minor adjustments then... but THEN.... release date!  Sweet, sweet release date.