Scratch Track

Keep the camera microphone running even when the sound it captures is unusable. That rough track gives every clip a soundtrack the editor can match against the good recording from the lavalier or the field recorder, and sync software lines the two up by comparing waveforms. The scratch track is then discarded.

The term stretches to cover a guide voiceover recorded to time out an edit before the real narration exists, and a rough demo standing in for a music cue nobody has cleared yet. In every case it is something disposable that holds a shape for 30 seconds or 30 minutes until the finished version arrives.