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Activity Forums Adobe Premiere Pro Creating Surround Sound Audio

  • Creating Surround Sound Audio

    Posted by John Beck on January 17, 2008 at 5:00 am

    I do not normally work with surround sound audio tracks but I was asked recently if there was a way to produce a DVD where certain pre-recorded sounds (all of which are simply single channel audio sounds) where it is desired to place each of these in different channels of the 5.1 audio track manager causing only that particular channel to be heard. As one segment of the video clip is played the appropriate pre-recorded audio would be placed into the particular channel of the 5.1 track as needed.

    I do not have a 5.1 surround sound audio card but I’m not sure one is needed to do what I am describing. it seems to me that it should be possible to place audio in any channel of the channels of the 5.1 channels as desired regardless whether the audio being placed in that track is single channel or not.

    Is there someone who can tell me how to begin this experiment or have I really missed something here?

    Thanks for any assistance.

    John Beck replied 18 years, 4 months ago 3 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Harm Millaard

    January 17, 2008 at 8:01 am

    Use the Audio Mixer.

    Harm Millaard

  • John Beck

    January 17, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    Harm,

    Thanks for your reply, I really appreciate your input. Could you just elaborate slightly with a few words about setting this up. I’ll be able to catch on from there.

    Thanks!!

  • Harm Millaard

    January 17, 2008 at 4:34 pm

    Put your audio in separate tracks, for instance:

    1. Center
    2. Left Front
    3. Right Front
    4. Left Rear
    5. Right Rear
    6. LFE

    Use the audio mixer and pull the puck to the designated corner. That’s all.

    Harm Millaard

  • John Beck

    January 17, 2008 at 5:53 pm

    Thanks for this tip.

    Again, the raw audio clips I will be working with are not Dolby encoded 5.1. It seemed to me originally that Premier Pro would perform the encoding required for 5.1 from whatever audio content was inserted in the mixer as you pointed out. I had attempted a quick go at this a few weeks ago and for some reason I was unable to get the audio in the mixer channels but not sure why. I will use your notes to go through this again, this time with the confidence knowing it is at least possible.

    Thanks!!

  • Phocas Kroon

    January 18, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    The workflow I used:

    Import the wav files in a multichannel session of Audition.
    Export as one interleaved 6-channel wave file
    Import the interleaved file in Premiere Pro 2 or 3
    Create an empty surround track in the timeline and put the interleaved file on this track.
    Export the sound for the DVD as follows: File>Export>Adobe Media Encoder
    Export settings: MPEG2, export video not selected, export audio selected.
    Audio tab: Dolby digital, codec: surcode for dolby digital
    The 5.1 audiotrack will be converted to an AC-3 surround file for DVD.
    Add this file to the MPEG2 video in Adobe Encore DVD.

    Good luck
    Phocas Kroon

  • John Beck

    January 18, 2008 at 10:37 pm

    Phocas,

    So glad that you responded as I am not completely sure the workflow I followed was correct.

    I am also glad that you provided me your step-by-step workflow. Please see if there are any issues that you can see in what I describe below as my workflow:

    Mono wave files from the project pane with each track mapped or configured by Clip/audio options then placing the small puck at the location which directs the audio in that track to the particual 5.1 channel desired. Do this for each track until every channel where an output is desired in the 5.1 field is set. Each audio track idenfifier on the time line changes to the 5.1 symbol confirming it is mapped to a particular channel. That’s it.

    There is another procedure that uses the audio mixer panel to assign each track a channel but I was unable to get that to work properly becuase of something I was likely doing incorrectly. The help in the help section is not the least bit clear or complete on this.

    Please let me know, or anyone who may read this, if went down a rat hole to accomplish this.

    I am cautious to burn a test DVD since I only have two more opprotunities to use the SurCode Dolby encoder necessray to render and encode 5.1 in CS3. I can’t believe that I have to purchase a sepeate license for this plug-in???

    Thanks Again and please respond!!

  • Phocas Kroon

    January 19, 2008 at 8:07 pm

    John,

    This is a workflow within Premiere I never used.
    I’m sorry that I have not the time to test it.
    But if you are OK with the surround sound played from the timeline I think you can convert it with the Surcode plug in.
    Because I don’t expect more surround projects soon, I did not purchase the license. I have only one more opportunity.

    Good luck

    Phocas Kroon

  • John Beck

    January 19, 2008 at 8:10 pm

    Thanks for your reply!

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