Audio only plays through stereo devices such as headphones and will not play through mono smart phone speakers

[Roger Averdahl]

Your audio is out of phase and the result is that it playback on stereo devices but two of phase audio channels cancel out each other when downmixed to mono and thus the audio almost dissapear or just dissapear on mono devices. A trained ear can hear on a stereo device that the audio is out of phase, lack of bottom end, etc.

I downloaded the video from YouTube and imported the audio in Adobe Audition and could also clearly see at the audio waves that the audio is out of phase. To fix it, export the audio from you project excluding the music. Import the file into Adobe Audition and open it and press Ctrl+Shift+L. When you click Ctrl+Shift+L the Left audio wave goes gray and is muted and is to be expected. Now, go to the Effects menu and choose Invert. Press Ctrl+Shift+L once again. Save the audio and import it into Premiere Pro, place it on the timeline and mute the original audio on Audio 1. Export the video and now it will playback as expected on stereo and mono devices. ☺

Then, check your cameras mic. It seems that the cable is wired wrong.

[Jack Stewart]

Thank you ever so much for your help. This has worked perfectly and taught me something new to watch out for in future.

[Roger Averdahl]

Great that it worked for you! ☺

It can be solved with Premiere Pro´s own Invert filter, but not when the audio is placed as stereo on the timeline.

[Blaise Douros]

Roger, couldn’t you do this in Premiere by duplicating the Stereo track, doing a Modify > Audio Channels with two left channels on one instance and two right channels on the other, panning appropriately, and then applying the Invert effect to the offending channel? Just curious. I hate roundtripping if I don’t have to.

[Blaise Douros]

Edit: oops, I double-posted.

[Roger Averdahl]

couldn’t you do this in Premiere by duplicating the Stereo track, doing a Modify > Audio Channels with two left channels on one instance and two right channels on the other, panning appropriately, and then applying the Invert effect to the offending channel? Just curious.

Blaise, that works as well.

The best thing imho is to use Modify > Audio Channels and set the stereo clip to mono before the clips are placed on the timeline. Use the Audio Mixer and pan left to left and right to right and add the Invert filter to one of the channels. Changing audio channels when the edit is done can be done but it is easy do get lost.

No method is wrong, i personally prefer to use the mono method, but then one must know beforehand that the audio is out of phase and thats not always the issue. If the latter is the case your method is superior! ☺

The best thing is to fix the audio chain before recording, but sometimes one discover those issues after the fact. (Been there…)

[Jeff Pulera]

I have yet another fix to be done in Premiere. If you have a stereo track with the inverted channels, quite simply apply either the FILL LEFT or the FILL RIGHT audio effect. This will put the same audio onto both channels. Done. No messing with audio mixer or Audition or anything.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Roger Averdahl]

Jeff, but if you have recorded stereo or two lavaliers Fill Left/Fill Right ruin everything and will not solve the issue.

[Jeff Pulera]

My understanding of this phase-inversion business is that it only happens when the SAME audio is on both channels, but with one channel inverted. If the left and right channel content were different, then they would not cancel one another out since they would not be exact opposites.

Therefore the FILL effect is not causing harm since audio is already mono. Don’t use it if the solution doesn’t suit your needs. Just offering an option that works for a lot of users in the same situation.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Blaise Douros]

It can still create problems if two closely-placed mics, one of which is out of phase, are picking up the same audio.