[Anthony Rizzo]

Here in 2020, still with the same problem. I do a lot of audio production in other projects so when I’m working on video I rely on the track mixer. Many of my projects contain audio from many sources- sound FX, voice recorded from different mics, professional VO, noisy on-camera audio, music, etc. And have separate tracks that deal with different types of audio- one track is for noisy dialogue audio, so I drop all noisy dialogue in there. Another track is for pro VO audio that just needs compression, EQ, mastering, etc. so I drop all pro VO recordings there. All the FX are there, are applied instantly, don’t need to check individual clips to make sure the parameters are where I want them. So on and so forth.

But clients sometimes ask for multiple videos in a series, so the only differences are slight changes in the script and some footage is different, but all of my effects from one sequence would have to apply to the rest of the sequences. So you know what I have to do? Open each track effect individually, screenshot it, and with all screenshot images open on the side of my screen, I go to the next sequence and copy (not copy and paste obviously, but copy with my own eyes) all the parameters onto the track FX for the new sequence, as if I were PHYSICALLY EDITING BY HAND.

It is probably is faster and more precise than having to copy over FX to individual clips (during a super fast turnaround, you won’t miss the random short clip you couldn’t see when zoomed out. Just move the audio clip there and you’re good to go). But… really? Couldn’t they just add a “copy track effects” feature? This is what I’ve been doing ever since I started using Premiere Pro many years ago. And it is now the year 2020. What the hell, Adobe?

The alternative of course is to just use clip FX but then I have to copy + paste from each clip and apply those FX to similar clips in the timeline, but this gets old when you have to do this over the course of a very long sequence and multiple videos in a series that should all match in terms of style and usually contain footage/audio from the same shoot. So when finalizing or doing QA you have to make sure all the right FX were copied to all the right clips. Instead of a track mixer that will reliably apply the same exact FX uniformly, as long as the clip is on that track. Huge time-saver!

We already have to do the clip FX thing for footage, since there is no equivalent for track mixer for footage in Premiere Pro, which would be cool. Unless I missed it. Some editors use adjustment layers, which helps when your footage- the content, camera(s), locations etc. are basically the same or there are only a few changes. Otherwise you’ll end up with 10+ video tracks dedicated only to adjustment layers, and anything below that layer will be affected, so you either create a new adjustment layer on that track or align the next shot with an adjustment layer on a different track that applies to it. so, you end up with a lot of unused space on the timeline and realize it was easier to just copy the FX to the various clips. I stopped using adjustment layers in Premiere long ago.