Syncing audio/video in Premiere Pro CS5

Reading this thread has been painful because I think TFP has been pretty clear and everybody's audio suggestions or rather workarounds are not as good as FCP, Avid or even Sony Vegas.

At the end of the day, a program that calls itself PRO and is trying to unseat FCP and is this woefully inefficient because it can't do the simple tasks of grouping audio and video together in a fast and useful way is a fail. They thought too much about the technical end and not about the user experience.

TFP - Add Sony Vegas to the list of NLEs that can easily put video together with separate audio tracks. I am trying to do the same thing that you're doing. Shot on 5D Mark II and recorded 2 channels on the H4N. In Vegas, I can line up the slates in the timeline, highlight them all and hit "G". That's it. I can now slice or drag them shorter and the audio stays synced.

I thought that Premiere Pro CS5 was leaving out this function because I'm using the trial. But after reading this thread and countless others, the lack of this simple function is the program itself and not the trial. It is sad really. The smooth playback is great but I'd rather stick to transcoding and using Vegas' great audio editing over Premiere's dumb way of handling audio.

You might think that maybe audio is beyond PPro's mandate because Soundbooth is really supposed to handle the heavy lifting. Nope! There is no way (that I've found at least) to export your timeline from Premiere to bring into Soundbooth! Even it you could do it, Soundbooth is still not as good as Cool Edit Pro.

For all the hype and hullabaloo of the Mercury Engine, CS5 is not worth the headache or price.
 
StormFactory said:
TFP - Add Sony Vegas to the list of NLEs that can easily put video together with separate audio tracks. I am trying to do the same thing that you're doing. Shot on 5D Mark II and recorded 2 channels on the H4N. In Vegas, I can line up the slates in the timeline, highlight them all and hit "G". That's it. I can now slice or drag them shorter and the audio stays synced.
Click to expand...
Try the Link command in Premiere Pro.

Sync the video to the audio and use Link to link both. When linked, you can move the clips around and cut them as well while keeping sync between video and audio.

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to Link.

/Roger
 
StormFactory said:
Reading this thread has been painful because I think TFP has been pretty clear and everybody's audio suggestions or rather workarounds are not as good as FCP, Avid or even Sony Vegas.
Click to expand...

No, it's wanted to be done in one particular way, and if it can't do it in that specific way, then people get their panties all in a twist.
 
C'mon Subtleinspiration - let's not get defensive here. There's proper grounds for "getting your panties in a twist" over this. I still urge you to show a proper workflow solution to this. How do you complete your project with external audio channels in tact, in sync, and separated on the sequence timeline? If you've only got 2 channels then it's going to work - since the forced stereo-downmix issue isn't going to mess you up. However, what about 3 or more channels -- what do you do then? Throwing one of them away isn't a valid option. It isn't for lack of effort that we've come to this roadblock. I'd like to think that we've presented a thorough explanation of the problem and nobody has shown an elegant workaround.
 
Averdahl said:
Try the Link command in Premiere Pro.

Sync the video to the audio and use Link to link both. When linked, you can move the clips around and cut them as well while keeping sync between video and audio.

You can assign a keyboard shortcut to Link.

/Roger
Click to expand...
I appreciate the effort but using Link is still not as effective as the Group option in Vegas. Also in order to Link audio, you have to first Unlink the original clip. You made a good suggestion however after Linking if your audio is longer than your video it becomes a problem when you want to shorten clips because it shortens the video even if there is no video over the audio in that part of the clip.
 
StormFactory said:
...however after Linking if your audio is longer than your video it becomes a problem when you want to shorten clips because it shortens the video even if there is no video over the audio in that part of the clip.
Click to expand...

not if you hold down the ALT key while trimming just the audio track
 
StormFactory said:
I appreciate the effort but using Link is still not as effective as the Group option in Vegas. Also in order to Link audio, you have to first Unlink the original clip. You made a good suggestion however after Linking if your audio is longer than your video it becomes a problem when you want to shorten clips because it shortens the video even if there is no video over the audio in that part of the clip.
Click to expand...
As zaarc pointed out, use the ALT key to temporarily unlink video and audio.

When video/audio is longer or shorter and you want to make one of them longer or shorter, use the ALT key to temporarily break the link between video and audio.

So, lets say that you have a clip with video and audio on the Timeline and your goal is to remove the original audio:
1. Hold down the ALT key
2. Click on the audio while holding down the ALT key
3. Press Delete

Lets say that the audio is longer than the video and you want to shorten video only while leaving the audio unaffected:
1. Hold down the ALT key
2. Trim the video while holding down the ALT key

The ALT key is the key and i should have mentioned it earlier. :)

CTRL, Shift and ALT is three very powerful keys in Premiere Pro.

/Roger
 
I have to say Premiere Pro has great audio features, however, since they don't do four point cutting I don't use them for the audio part. Vegas has some nice options, but not four point cutting, unless it is in the new version. If FCP has, I'd be happy to switch. Till then, I'm enjoying the Mercury engine. Zoom!
 
tfg said:
C'mon Subtleinspiration - let's not get defensive here.
Click to expand...

There is no getting defensive. There is merely pointing out that your inability to wrap your head around the idea of handling a particular need differently than you're used to is in no way indicative of failure on Premiere's part.
 
I see that this thread has been dormant for some time, and can't say I blame it. Still, thanks for taking the time, tgf, because I am in the exact same situation you were and this was the clearest, most definitive thread on the subject. Before I read this board I kept trying different things and Googling and Googling because it doesn't make any sense that the otherwise full-featured program wouldn't offer such a basic -- and to pros absolutely deal-breaker-y essential -- functionality when it comes to sound.

Here's why I'm bothering everyone: Do we know definitively whether Premiere Pro CS5.5 will fix this omission? The website for it says its new features include:

Merge Clips
Easily create subclips that match audio and video from separate sources. The Merge Clips feature supports dual-system sound by allowing high-quality audio to be synced with video shot on a separate device, such as a DSLR or RED camera.

...which seems to indicate that yes, it will, which I'm inclined to believe because it's just so loopy that it doesn't now that of course they'll fix it. However the wording above doesn't quite spell out that it won't downmix your multi-channel audio into stereo at the first nesting or even syncing. Anyone know anything about this?

Thank you.
 
chardday said:
I see that this thread has been dormant for some time, and can't say I blame it. Still, thanks for taking the time, tgf, because I am in the exact same situation you were and this was the clearest, most definitive thread on the subject. Before I read this board I kept trying different things and Googling and Googling because it doesn't make any sense that the otherwise full-featured program wouldn't offer such a basic -- and to pros absolutely deal-breaker-y essential -- functionality when it comes to sound.

Here's why I'm bothering everyone: Do we know definitively whether Premiere Pro CS5.5 will fix this omission? The website for it says its new features include:

Merge Clips
Easily create subclips that match audio and video from separate sources. The Merge Clips feature supports dual-system sound by allowing high-quality audio to be synced with video shot on a separate device, such as a DSLR or RED camera.

...which seems to indicate that yes, it will, which I'm inclined to believe because it's just so loopy that it doesn't now that of course they'll fix it. However the wording above doesn't quite spell out that it won't downmix your multi-channel audio into stereo at the first nesting or even syncing. Anyone know anything about this?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

I got a 5 minute demo of the CS 5.5 Premiere and Audition use. I believe I got a 'positive response', when I asked can a audio multi-track sequence be 'merged', and then exported as a multi-track audio export file... I think I got a yes... but I'd have to really test it to see if that was true, or just 'show shill' action...
 
Thanks for the info. I signed up for one of Adobe's new month to month licenses, so if it has the features we're talking about I'll upgrade for real; if not I'll look at whatever the he'll Final Cut Pro has morphed into, though it looks too much like a toy to not be one.
 
I've decided to risk it. I can't edit in Final Cut Pro now because of the transcoding involved and creakiness of the suite; I seriously doubt I'll be able to use the revamped version because apart from all the questions that remain outstanding after the demo, it definitely won't be compatible with 3rd party plugins out of the gate (and may not be with its own Color, Soundtrack, etc.)

So, I have imported my project to Premiere Pro CS5, where I have created a sequence for each shot consisting of its video and synced external multitrack audio (via DualEyes.) Yes, with this arrangement CS5 downmixes that audio to stereo in the cut itself. What I'm banking on is that in CS5.5 either the audio will automatically revert to its multichannel self once I import the project, or if need be once I use the "replace footage" function to sub in my video files that have the sync'd external audio files wedded to them before import.

(By the way, my first attempted workaround was to wed the dualeyes sync'd audio to the video files via quicktime 7, but for some reason PPCS5 always crashed when importing those files. I tried doing it with the camera audio intact and with it deleted but it made no never mind.)

Anyway, wish me luck.
 
Disregard the above two messages -- I have a new plan, which is to blow my brains out.

Premiere Pro CS5 doesn't really let you treat sequences as shots, at least not remotely intuitively. I will poke around for a way, but yeeeza. For all their puffing about how closely they consulted with Canon and cinematographers, did they bother to talk to a single editor?
 
Dude, just wait a couple weeks. With CS5.5 you'll have the capabilities you need to work without wanting to commit harry-carry.
 
chardday said:
Disregard the above two messages -- I have a new plan, which is to blow my brains out.

Premiere Pro CS5 doesn't really let you treat sequences as shots, at least not remotely intuitively. I will poke around for a way, but yeeeza. For all their puffing about how closely they consulted with Canon and cinematographers, did they bother to talk to a single editor?
Click to expand...

Would this be in regard to a 'sequence' not being viewable in the 'source viewer' to allow for easy setting of the in/out points?

The problem is that double clicking on a 'sequence' will open up the timeline... and there is no 'cmd/cntrl' type keystroke that will open up the sequence in the 'source viewer' window. But oddly, dragging the sequence into the 'source viewer' area, opens up the sequence in the viewer and then you can set in/out points, as if it were a 'clip', and then drag the edited sequence into another sequence, to nest it, with those in/out points set...
 
j1clark -- YES. MADDENING. I will try your method and hopefully it until CS5.5. Thanks (again.)

Jim Simon -- I am waiting. Any idea about when in May "May" means?
 
j1clark -- it WORKS! Saved! I should know all this stuff, I realize, but I am not an editor, I'm a writer-director who has had to learn things like camera, editing, f/x and other things I have no aptitude for in order to make movies for possible amounts of money.

Watch for "Girls Will Be Girls 2012" in, well, 2012!

(no, it's not porn.)

(though there IS a porn series called "Girls Will Be Girls.")

( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843161/ )
 
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