Premiere Pro drops sound

G

Genesis

Active member
Hello, I just have a quick question. I have a fairly powerful computer, 1 gig memory, I'm editing on Premiere Pro 1.5. My project is extremely savvy in sound. I have about 23 tracks of audio currently that I'm balancing out and mixing.

My problem is that when I play my timeline certain audio tracks stop playing, obviously because my computer is having a hard time handling all the audio tracks at once.

My question is, if there is some settings or procedure that will make Premiere Pro better handle the massive amplitude of sound? My scratch disks are set to one drive. I’m sharing files in this project from three SATA hard drives.

It’s tough balancing the audio of all these tracks, I have to stop and play over and over because usually within five seconds a certain audio track will stop playing.

Thanks
 
I would movie export the video and some audio......then bring the new clip back in then add the audio that you left out.....that's my workaround method. (but remember your in and out points of the audio you left out)
 
Instead of hitting the spacebar to play the timeline, try hitting the enter key. It will then render the audio tracks as needed for playback.
 
What kind of project requires 23 audio tracks ? (Curious)

How many video tracks are you using ?

Only suggestion I can offer is sub mix, export and re import.
 
Yeah I guess sub mixing would be the only solution without buying more memory. I don’t actually use Adobe Audition. I’m guessing it would handle the sound load better seeing how it’s strictly designed for sound.

Anyhow i had 5 video tracks but i exported and reimported my final video since the sound is being created from scratch for the project.

The project I’m editing is a low budget special effects action film that I’m going to use on my demo reel. Very technical project, basically it was shot with sound but since there is little to now dialogue I decided to create the sound from scratch. Foot step by footstep, clothing rustling. So I can have better control of the final mix.

So theirs certain tracks for footsteps, certain tracks for ambience, certain for folly.

Also I composed allot of original music and instead of downmixing the song in Cubase, I exported every single layer of the score into my premiere project so I can balance out the music with the rest of the sound design. Sometimes I may bring up the drums in the score, sometimes I bring down an instrument. I do this all until I have a perfect harmony of music and sound effects that sounds perfect.

It’s allot of work but it’s unbelievable how damn professional it sounds in the end. Everything is balanced out to a perfect stream of sound for the listening pleasure.

Anyhow I guess I’m going to have to either render or sub mix. No choice.

Thanks for the advice people.
 
Shooter said:
What kind of project requires 23 audio tracks ? (Curious)

How many video tracks are you using ?

Only suggestion I can offer is sub mix, export and re import.
Click to expand...


This is probably your best advice. Remember that Premiere is not really design for audio mixing. Plus 23 audio tracks is over kill in Premiere in my opinon. Yikes. 12 tracks of audio was the most I've ever used. You should push for than at least 10 tracks. Good luck!
 
Yeah your right BLUESPIDER, I'll definetely mix down as much as i can. Thanks for the advice again everyone.

Cheers
 
PrestonH said:
Instead of hitting the spacebar to play the timeline, try hitting the enter key. It will then render the audio tracks as needed for playback.
Click to expand...

Have you tried this yet? I would think this would do the trick, it always has for me.
 
23 does sound like a lot but I thought premiere could handle unlimited tracks... I mean unless you have a few thousand sounds going on at the same time I dont see how having more tracks would slow a system... :/
 
more tracks doesnt really slow a system down, but more audio streams at once does.. so if your using all 23 tracks of audio at the smae time.. even if some of them are just dead air at times in the wav file.. the decoding and streaming along with video playback isnt likely going to happen to smoothly. especially if you have effects applied to the audio tracks. there is a function under the clip menu to render and replace the audio tracks if they have effects on them. otherwise do some mixdowns as previously suggested.
 
Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Hmm, i have a rather novice question. If lets say i submix or export a few tracks of audio into 1 track, i leave it uncompressed, bring it back into Premiere, the sound quality shouldnt suffer at all should it? or after i have my submixed track in my project i export the audio again for my FINAL mix, the quality should always remain the same as long as i dont compress the audio.

Is this correct?
 
reflex said:
23 does sound like a lot but I thought premiere could handle unlimited tracks... I mean unless you have a few thousand sounds going on at the same time I dont see how having more tracks would slow a system... :/
Click to expand...

If you imagine that every track has an audio file on it ( plus some video files) and all these file are stored somewhere on a hard disk(s). Each file needs to be accessed instantly "on the fly" ...then it might explain how this could slow a system...
 
You really should not have that many tracks in Premiere. Use Premier as a video editor, and use an audio editor for the sound. For specical effects and video tweaking, you wold proably use something like After Effects. Do the same with your audio.


23 tracks is actually not very many at all. I have done projects with well more than that, with volume and panning envelopes as well. I use Vegas for this, as it is always considerably more audio friendly, and Premiere has always been buggy with audio.

If you are doing sound effects or sound design for your video, having many tracks is often a necessity. However, you should be using a program like Audion, Vegas, Pro tools, to craft it, and Premiere to assemble the mixed .wav.
 
Yeah in the future i'll look into editing audio in a seperate program thats designed for that type of thing rather then struggling in Premiere with such an intensive audio edit.

Thanks for the help.
 
One more question i had actually i wasnt clear on. If i submix tracks, or export audio tracks into one track and then bring it back to Premiere. Then do it again and again, the quality of the audio shouldnt suffer at all if i keep it uncompressed every time i submix? is this correct?
 
I've had that problem also in Premiere Pro. The way it happens on mine is usually at the end of the track the last few seconds go silent before the clip ends..
 
I'm pretty sure you won't lose any quality, Genesis. Certainly nothing even approaching noticable. Just make sure you export as a wav, uncompressed and with the same sample rate as your project (44.1 or 48khz) - but you shouldn't ahve to worry, I think Premiere will do the uncommpressed/sample rate thing automatically.
 
Yeah, thats my biggets concern, loss of audio quality during submixing. But I'm sure if i keep my submixing in the same pipeline as the audio in my project their should never be any loss of quality.

Thanks for the help.
 
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