How to edit a multicam podcast in DaVinci Resolve.

What you start with

Before any method, get the media in order. For each episode you need:

• One camera per person, plus a wide shot or a two-shot if you have one.
• One microphone per person: separate files, or separate channels of a multitrack recorder. This is what tells you, and any automatic tool, who is talking.
• A way to sync: shared timecode, or room sound on every camera so the waveforms can be matched.

Put the cameras and the recorder files of one episode in one folder, one sub-folder per card if you like. It saves time in every method below.

Method 1: by hand, with a multicam clip

This is the classic Resolve workflow and it works in the free version.

1. Import the camera clips and the audio files into the Media Pool, ideally in one bin.
2. Select them, right-click and choose Create New Multicam Clip Using Selected Clips…. Name it and set Angle Sync to Sound (or Timecode if every device shares it).
3. Drag the multicam clip to a new timeline.
4. On the Edit page, switch the Source viewer to its Multicam mode. Play the timeline and click the angle you want at each change of speaker; Resolve cuts the multicam clip there.
5. Go back over the cut: move the edits that came too early or too late, add the wide shot when people talk over each other, and build any split screens by hand with Transform or a compound clip.

The catch is time: you watch the whole episode at least once just to switch angles, then fix it. For a weekly show that is most of a working day. More on syncing cameras and microphones in Resolve.

Method 2: Resolve’s Multicam SmartSwitch

DaVinci Resolve Studio includes Multicam SmartSwitch, which analyzes a multicam clip and switches the angles for you from the cameras’ own sound and the lip movement it sees. It comes with Resolve Studio and costs nothing more.

You still build and sync the multicam clip first (steps 1–3 above). We measured it on one of our 78-minute episodes with five cameras: its full analysis took 46 minutes, and the person talking was on screen 72–87% of the time depending on how we prepared the clip. See the full measurement.

Method 3: automatically, with SOLD CUT

SOLD CUT is a Mac app that drives DaVinci Resolve Studio for you. It starts one step earlier than the other methods, at the folder of raw files, and ends with a finished cut on a copy of your timeline:

1. Import: point it at the episode folder. It groups cameras and microphones, syncs everything by sound or timecode, starts Resolve and builds the project and the timeline.
2. Who is who: each person gets their microphone, each camera its person, the wide or a split screen.
3. Analyze: each person’s microphone decides who speaks; you pick the pace and see the whole cut before anything is written.
4. Cut to a Copy: a new “EP29 AUTO” timeline appears with the chosen angle on and every other angle kept underneath, disabled, so any shot is one click away.

On the same episode as above it analyzed in 4 seconds, and the person talking was on screen 93.5% of the time. After the cut, the same app adds subtitles, YouTube titles, react layouts, jump cuts and clips. How SOLD CUT edits a podcast.

Which one to choose

Questions