Labeling audio tracks

[Lowxposure]

This may seem like a dumb question, but how does everyone else log their audio tracks for editing? I have a Zoom H1, and in my last short we didn't yet have a microphone so we attached the zoom to a monopod and used it as a makeshift boom pole. The problem was we would have to bring the pole all the way down, hit record, and push the pole back out before rolling the camera. Once the camera was rolling we would have someone say aloud Shot 1 Take 2. For the camera we had a makeshift clapper board and we would write S1 T2 etc. for each shot and take.

There are two problems with my system here, before the camera ever started rolling we had several seconds of trash audio that we had to listen to before the Shot and Take was read aloud. The second problem is that the Zoom H1 assigns it's own file names for each track, making it impossible to visibly separate each file (the wheat from the chaff).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to streamline this process?

 

[gpforet]

You're on the right path. There is a free software from Sound Devices called Wave Agent which makes auditioning and renaming sound files pretty straightforward.

 

[Lowxposure]

Thanks for the response. Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by auditioning the sound files?

 

[gpforet]

In Wave Agent, import your stack of sound files, double click on the first while wearing headphones, listen to the call, type the info in the fields, hit save. Double click the next sound file, repeat above until you're done with the stack. Then select all the files and hit the rename button and all the sound files will be renamed for the scene and take info you typed for each file. The double click and listen is the audition.

Thanks for the response. Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by auditioning the sound files?

 

[Lowxposure]

Thanks for all your help GP. This sounds like it will cut down my time in post significantly. After you rename the file, does this software allow you to clip the files to eliminate the call and any excess?

 

[gpforet]

No, Wave Agent allows no editing other than splitting multi-track files into mono tracks, or combining mono tracks into multi-track files.

Don't trim. That's extra work that's not needed. Sync to your video files, and let the editing software ignore what's not in the edit path.

Thanks for all your help GP. This sounds like it will cut down my time in post significantly. After you rename the file, does this software allow you to clip the files to eliminate the call and any excess?