Editing Premiere Audio in Audition

When to Edit in Audition?

Although there is no agreed-upon, industry-wide workflow that you need to prescribe to, there are certain things to keep in mind while working on the audio for your Premiere project...

Waveform Editor: [generally used early in the process]

• The Waveform Editor in Adobe Audition is destructive. This means that if you make an edit to your sound file and save it as the same name in the same location it was pulled from, the original file will permanently reflect the changes you made.
  • This is a great reason to have your audio files backed up somewhere safe, like an external hard drive, another computer, or a cloud-based system such as Google Drive.
• The Waveform Editor is used for individual audio file manipulation/repair/prep, not for sequences.
• Typically, you would edit files in the Waveform Editor before importing them into your Premiere project.
  • If you need to "Extract Channels to Mono Files" because, for instance, you made your recording on the Olympus LS-100, this would be ideal to have completed before you've imported that file into Premiere.
  • Another common edit that you might make ahead of importing audio into Premiere would be to clean it up or repair it:
    • For instance, the most advanced "Noise Removal" processes are only accessible in the Waveform Editor. Although it is possible to do this work later in the process, your life will be much less complicated if you address problematic audio as soon as possible.
• Since the Waveform Editor is destructive (changes are permanent), you should avoid making any extreme changes to your audio here.
  • With an Equalizer, you could probably justify using a Low-Cut filter in the Waveform Editor, but you may want to avoid anything too extreme.
  • You likely want to avoid using any effects such as the Flanger, Chorus, Reverb, etc. in the Waveform Editor unless you know what you are doing and why you are doing it that way; all of these effects will be available in the Multitrack Session once you get there, and they will be non-destructive there (forever editable).
  • EQ'ing a single file by itself can lead to a very different result than EQ'ing with other files (often in adverse fashion). If you are editing more than one file, it's strongly recommended that you wait and EQ in a non-destructive way (such as using the Multitrack Editor).

Multitrack Editor: [generally used near the end of the process]

• The Multitrack Editor in Adobe Audition is non-destructive. This means that any effects or changes you make to your audio can be undone or modified at any time in the future.
• The Multitrack Editor is where you will be editing your Premiere sequence audio.
  • You should have your Premiere project mostly completed (at least have the cuts where you want them) before editing the audio in the Multitrack Editor, because, after editing in the Multitrack Editor, you will be exporting a stereo multitrack mixdown from Audition to put back in your Premiere project → If you finish editing in Audition, but then decide to move your video around in Premiere, your audio may no longer sync up, causing you great frustration and likely costing you a bunch of time as you may need to start your Audition editing process all over again.

Opening Premiere Project in Audition

There are a few ways of opening a Premiere Project/Sequence in Audition:

• The newest way is to open Audition, then drag your Premiere project file (title.prproj) into the the Files panel located at the top left of the screen.
• Alternatively, you can go to File > Import > File then select your Premiere project file from there.
  • Both of these methods will pull up a dialog box showing a list of Sequences that the project file contains. Select the Sequence you wish to work on.
    • If your Premiere sequence contains "nested sequences," you will need to render those before bringing them into Audition.
• The old way of opening a Premiere sequence is done from within Premiere...
  • Select Edit > Edit in Adobe Audition > Sequence.

Getting Your Audition Audio Back to Premiere

This part is actually quite simple:

• Once finished using the Multitrack Editor, assuming you want your entire Multitrack project to be exported for use in Premiere, you will select File > Export > Multitrack Mixdown > Entire Session
  • Make sure to select the proper destination for your file to be saved to. It may be wise to save this Multitrack Mixdown into the folder that contains your Premiere project and assets.
• At this point, you can simply import that Multitrack Mixdown into Premiere. If you have done everything correctly, you should be able to place the beginning of your mixdown at 0min 0sec in your sequence and it should line up perfectly. You will want to mute all other audio in your sequence, of course, as the old audio will not reflect the changes you made in Audition.

Common Mistakes / Issues

There are many ways to end up with terrible audio or confusing Multitrack Sessions! What joy! Here is a brief look at some common mistakes and issues students may have:

• Clipping Audio
  • Make sure to keep an eye on the audio meter at the bottom of the screen, and/or the meter on the Master channel (at the bottom of the Multitrack sequence window.
  • If your audio hits or exceeds 0dB, you need to find a way to reduce the volume (ex: Volume envelope manipulation; Apply a Limiter/Compressor).
    
    
• My Multitrack Session seems incredibly long! Why is that?
  • Usually caused by erroneous audio accidentally placed deep into the project, making it look incredibly long (much longer than intended). → Zoom in at the end of your sequence and delete/move audio.
    
    
• Clip Effects vs. Channel Effects
  • Clip Effects are applied to an individual audio clip. You may have several clips in a single audio channel/track (such as Track 1) that can each have different Clip Effects applied to them.
  • Channel Effects apply to all clips on that channel/track.
  • If you use Envelopes to automate a Clip Effect, the envelopes will remain locked into position even if you relocate the clip in the timeline.
  • If you use Envelopes to automate a Channel Effect, the envelopes will not move along with a clip; the envelope will stay in one place even if you change the location of the clips on that channel.

• Some effects are ONLY in either Audition or Premiere, but not in both. This can cause a lot of confusion. For a list of these effects, please click THIS LINK.