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Split track audio in Premiere CS5

Explorer ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Greetings all,

I'm getting acclimated to working in Premiere CS5 after years of editing on Avid Media Composer and Symphony.  There are of course similarities and differences, some of which I can figure my way through and others where I'll need to ask for help.  Here's one.

Suppose I have a piece of video that was shot split-track.  On channel 1 we have the lavaliere mic worn by an interview subject.  On channel 2 we have the on-camera mic so while searching I can hear the interviewer's questions which aren't so audible in the interviewee's mic.  In the final edit I wish to discard channel 2 and center-pan channel 1.  On an Avid the audio channels are on separate tracks on the timeline - you can literally remove the channel 1 or channel 2 audio clip and then use a pan tool to take the remaining audio clip and pan it as desired (typically center-pan is what you want with an interviewee but in fact you have infinite choices between full-left and full-right).

How do we approach this issue in Premiere?  I'm sure this has been addressed before but after a lot of searching I guess I don't know the correct search terms to find it.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

Peter

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

Personally, I don't like the Fill Left/Right effects--it's unnecessary processing, and I think their use is pretty limiting. They'd be your best solution if you're already done editing, though.

If you haven't started editing, you can remap the stereo audio left and right channels to two split mono channels, sort of replicating your experience in Avid (that's where I came from, too). Just select your clips in the bin, and right-click > Modify > Audio Channels. Click the "Mono" radio button to send

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Use the Fill Left/Right effect in the Audio Effects folder.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Personally, I don't like the Fill Left/Right effects--it's unnecessary processing, and I think their use is pretty limiting. They'd be your best solution if you're already done editing, though.

If you haven't started editing, you can remap the stereo audio left and right channels to two split mono channels, sort of replicating your experience in Avid (that's where I came from, too). Just select your clips in the bin, and right-click > Modify > Audio Channels. Click the "Mono" radio button to send the stereo left to A1 and the stereo right to A2. Now, you can edit the clips into two mono tracks in a sequence.

The difference is the way Premiere maps sequence tracks by default. In Avid, odd numbered audio tracks went left, and even numbered audio tracks went right. In Premiere, all mono audio tracks default to center channel if you're using a stereo master track. In the Audio Mixer, you can pan tracks left or right to go to specific output channel, or mix as needed. This practice is a little different than Avid, but gives you a great deal of flexibility.

The most important thing to note is that the Audio Channel Mapping won't work if you've already used your clip(s) in a sequence, so be sure to do it immediately after capturing/importing your clips.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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One can also choose Clip>Audio Options>Breakout to Mono in the Project Panel (think that works with 2-channel, as well as 6-channel).

Good luck,

Hunt

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Problem is, those aren't linked to the video; that's fine if all you need is the audio, but even that can be managed in different ways without generating other masterclips to deal with in your project.

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Good point, and thank you for making it.

Hunt

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Explorer ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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<<

One can also choose Clip>Audio Options>Breakout to Mono in the Project Panel (think that works with 2-channel, as well as 6-channel).

>>

Thanks Bill - that's yet another function that I wouldn't have found easily.

Pete

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Explorer ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Thanks Colin (and Jim).

It's amazing how wedded one becomes to a particular way of working, and how unusual it feels (after nearly 20 years) to start using a different platform.

For anyone who has NOT used Avid (the Meridian and pre-Meridian versions, anyway): imported materials are literally split up into components and stored/handled separately; thus, video ends up in a video file and each audio track ends up in a separate mono .wav or .aiff file, so when they're brought into a sequence they are quite literally individual and totally independent tracks.  One major disadvantage of that generation of Avid is that materials need to be imported and reprocessed into Avid media; they don't come in natively.  Newer generations of Avid (I believe) have improved this.

Premiere's handling of native clips, where stereo audio is just that instead of individual and independent tracks, is an alien concept that takes getting used to.  Modifying the clip to treat audio channels as "mono" is exactly what I was looking for.  The "fill left" and "fill right" effects, while they would work, seem a little bit more limiting.

Thanks, incidentally, for not saying "RTFM."  I have the download of CS5 and there ISN'T a FM nor can I find pdf FMs as an additional download anywhere.  So I'm stuck with tutorials (none of which seem to cover this) and the help files (which don't cover this unless you already know the name of the function).  My oh my do I miss software suites with complete read-'em-in-the-tub printed manuals!

Thanks again,

Pete

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LEGEND ,
Mar 21, 2011 Mar 21, 2011

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Pete,

Glad that helped--and the transition is interesting Been awhile now, so my Avid memory is a bit foggy, but I do recall that being a major operational hurdle to get over.

You can find the help docs online here, and there is a link to the downloadable PDF in the upper-right corner for offline viewing.

Also, if you like the handling of stereo tracks as mono, you can set it as your default. Go to Edit > Preferences > Audio, and under the Source Channel Mapping section (should say "Use File" right now), you can set a different way to map the channels. Just set it to "Mono" if that's what you'd like to default to.

Have fun with the transition

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