Why Out of Sync Sounds Better

Sometimes my sounds are out of sync. And that’s exactly why they work.

Don’t get me wrong. Precision matters. Especially when you’re cutting hard FX like doors, punches, car bys, car chases, footsteps.

But a lot of the time, my sounds are out of sync and guess what?

It works.

Why?

Because my goal isn’t always frame accuracy. It’s movement and flow.

The human eye doesn’t judge frame accuracy so if the movement has flow and a pulse, the brain is very forgiving. The brain will fill in the gaps.

I remember struggling with this early on. I’d spend hours forcing every detail into perfect sync, only to play it back and realize the scene felt stiff. Clunky. Unnatural. It didn’t move or breathe. There was no vibe.

I had a growing sense that loosening the sync might help, but I didn’t have the confidence yet to hand over a session like this. I was concerned about delivering to a supervisor or mixer who’d notice and immediately fire me. I imagined getting a call from the stage. “Hey Angelo, we need you to re-cut this entire reel.” Yikes. No thanks.

Then I read an interview with David Farmer that sparked the flame. He talked about studying The Empire Strikes Back and realizing how much of the sound was out of sync.

Not sloppy sync but expressive. Intentional. It had movement and life. It felt... Natural.

That's exactly what I needed to hear. It was like being let in on a secret. Like being given the green light to let loose.

From that point on, I stopped second-guessing myself and leaned in to the fact that catching a rhythm to the movement will sell it better than frame accuracy.

I went on to deliver many sessions to many mix stages with plenty of my sounds out of sync, confident in my ability to defend my work.

Fortunately, I never had to because others also understood on a deep level what I was doing and why I was doing it

We don’t sync to logic. We sync to feeling.

Precision matters but it’s not the final word.

The final word is no word at all. It’s rhythm and flow. It’s the thing that makes the moment land.

It’s what makes the scene feel alive