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Is There a Cleaner Way to Edit with Multiple Audio Tracks?
I’m an assistant editor on a handful of projects for an agency, where editors and creative directors have become upset with the multitude of tracks showing up in Premiere when we go to edit a project.
Most of our projects have been shot with RED Dragon or Arri AMIRA and dual-system sound. When sound is recorded, it’s to Polyphonic WAV files, with a different channel for each audio source, but one file per take. This has been great, in that you only have to sync once and everything is ready to go. The heavy downside is that when we pull in our ProRes files into Premiere, we have six or more audio tracks attached to each clip. It very quickly gets out of hand.
Is there an easy way within Premiere (or by using Adobe Dynamic Link) to edit with less tracks, and reconnect to the original polyphonic tracks later? Our sound editor will still need everything in it’s place when he goes to mix, but It would be great to have a clean timeline until that point.
We’re a Mac environment using the 2015 release of Adobe CC.
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5 Replies
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[Jake Niemeyer] “Is there an easy way within Premiere (or by using Adobe Dynamic Link) to edit with less tracks, and reconnect to the original polyphonic tracks later? Our sound editor will still need everything in it’s place when he goes to mix, but It would be great to have a clean timeline until that point.”
To my knowledge, no. However, you can edit track 1 of the source to the timeline. This would typically be the mixed combo of all the mics in the wav. If your sound editor is using ProTools, he or she has the capability there to relink to the source wav file.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Or work with a stereo mix of all those tracks, if it exists, and provide an EDL and the source to the sound mixer and they can CONFORM the cut. Ask if this is an option.
but SIX tracks? That’s nothing. We have 8-12 tracks in reality, and we have them ALL on the timeline. I can go from 17-21 tracks of audio in my timelines. But, for most of the editing I do, I spend more time and effort on audio than video.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
That “or more” bit was kinda key. lol.
So, are you suggesting create a separate mixdown of the tracks? how will our mixer reconnect with an EDL? Won’t the EDL be searching for one stereo file rather than a WAV with 6-12 tracks?
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Don’t mix down anything. If a stereo mix wasn’t recorded in the field, then don’t do that. What typically happens on shows I work on, the shoots are recorded on a mixer, but a stereo mix is also recorded. So 1&2 are a stereo mix, and then 3-10 are separate mics. If you don’t have that, then my suggestion won’t work.
If you ONLY have mono tracks, you need to work with all of them. Because if you leave one out, you might be leaving out the mic that is needed…someone talking who isn’t in the range of the boom, their individual mic.
The editors need to suck it up and just deal. That’s how things work when you have multiple mics and don’t record a separate stereo track. Again, I deal a lot more with audio than picture when cutting. Picture is easy, but overlapping the audio and getting the right mic, making the music right…easily what I do is 70% audio and 30% picture, and my audio mix isn’t the final. But we do have to deal with all the mono tracks of ALL the mics. Yes, this adds time, but it also makes audio better. And good audio is key.
Don’t want the editors to have to deal with all of these? Then have production record a stereo mix with matching timecode, and confirm with audio that they can conform the mix with the mono tracks when the mix hits them.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Hey, did you find a way to edit with fewer audio tracks in Premiere? Struggling with the exact same issue… Thanks!
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