Hi everyone!
I’ve been getting into TikTok lately and I won’t go too crazy with the details. As a musician, one of the most exciting features to me would be the “Duet” feature. You can make up your own part or respond to another video.
But I encountered a persistent problem: After recording my part with the other video, there would be a substantial lag. Not fun. Not musical. None of the solutions provided on the Internet would fix the problem – not clearing the cache, not restarting my phone, not using different headphones or microphone. I was living on a lonely musician island with no way to play with others as a lone tear crawled down my cheek.
I finally found a workaround and I’m excited to share it with you. Unfortunately this relies on you having a second device that can support TikTok and a video editing app on your phone. I hate that it’s not just fixing the lag in the app. But we do what we can.
Step 1: Find a Video to Duet. Save it to your phone AND add it to your “Favorites.” To do both of these things you need to click on the “Share” arrow on the bottom right corner of the screen.
Step 2: Access the video on your second device. I used an iPad. Go to TikTok, click on your own profile, and access your “Favorites” by clicking the little heart under your profile picture.
Step 3: Practice? Or at least, figure out what you’ll be recording. Set up your phone to record.
Step 4: Record your part of the duet on the phone. Use headphones or ear buds so the sound of the original video doesn’t double.
Step 5: (This is the part that I wish you didn’t have to do) Edit the 2 videos on your phone. I use Cyberlink Powerdirector. I have the paid version and, for ease of use, I think it’s a great investment. I believe you can probably do this on the free version as well.
In my video you can see how I work within the interface to edit the videos together, and I’ll break it down here for you.
Step 1: Click “New Project” and choose the 1:1 ratio. Yes, I know TikTok uses 9:16. To me, this will give you more flexibility in formatting.
Step 2: Choose your video as the base recording. Edit to crop as you like.
Step 3: Add the original video as a layer, then line up the videos and make sure the audio is how you like it.
I hope this has at least been a little helpful. I know I’m excited to make more duets with my fellow TikTok musicians!
Notes and Embellishments 