Metallica & Lucie Silvas – Nothing Else Matters: music synchronization video edit of two separate live performances of “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica and Lucie Silvas. Both are performed in violin orchestra arrangement.

editing tasks: – intro + outro design – collage edit of two videos – select, edit & synchronize video sections – audio editing to adjust for different musical keys

I sometimes get asked about the music synchronization video edits I make; for people interested in project implementation details, here are a few insights.

Manually edited music synchronization video edits incorporate artistic concepts and creative design solutions. I use VSDC, which is a wonderful gratis video & audio editor. I have no “automated syncing” gizmo, synchronization is done by ear, i.e. I find the approximate sync offset, then move one video object one position increment at a time in either direction, listen & repeat until it sounds right.

When both performers sing to a recorded backing track that is identical in key & speed it is easier to synchronize, but if one sings a capella or performs live, tweaks are required – and especially so when both are live performances by two different artists.

Metallica tune their instruments two semitones lower for studio recordings and one semitone lower for live performances. I dropped Lucie’s musical key by one semitone to match theirs.

They performed at different speeds. Lucie’s presentation is slower. I dropped Metallica to 97% and raised Lucie to 109% throughout, except to 105% for the closing segment so her final “matters” and Kirk’s final guitar note happen simultaneously. Finding the optimum adjustment parameters took experimenting because changing the speed of only one video when speeds are so far apart looks & sounds unnatural and rarely syncs up well.

They did not perform the song with the same segment sequence, so I moved segments around to accommodate this, overlaid one segment with different lyrics mid-song and also the closing segment.

During live performances people vary vocal timing and intonation and if sung lyrics were used for synchronization the music would be totally off. Synchronization is therefore by music. Most sung lyrics match up closely, but not all - that is OK, sung lyrics are not supposed to sound perfectly aligned as they would in actual duet performances, rather the point of making music synchronization edits is for it to be notable that they are separate performances which have been merged to create a synergy effect.

The volume level in the Metallica video is lower. I raised it. The iconic guitar segment had to stay all Metallica. I faded over the break frames in Lucie’s video and smoothed the Metallica video audio to compensate for the mute audio from Lucie’s video during this segment.

I adjusted both videos for hue, tone & saturation to harmonize the color spectrum. As no Metallica & Lucie Silvas version of this song exists, there is no cover image either, so I made one for the intro/outro frames. Etiquette-appropriate crediting is one reason, it is also one of my pet peeves when videos playing on loop jump abruptly from final frame to first.

Like millions of people across the world, I love this song and its profoundly meaningful lyrics. I trust you do as well and hope you enjoy this version.