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Audition: Made for Video (Part Three)

In part one of Audition: Made for Video, I demonstrated how developing a workflow can save you time and money - when time is of the essence. We explored how to bring single clips, multiple clips, and complete sequences from Premiere Pro to Adobe Audition - with and without video. We took a look at the roundtrip process of bringing audio back into Premiere, as well as the process of going back and forth between the two applications to make changes, sweeten the audio or master the final mix.

In part two of Audition: Made for Video, we took a look at some of the features of Adobe Audition that we use on a regular basis when producing motion+connect.

In the final segment of Audition: Made for Video, we’re going to take an in-depth, step-by-step look at the process of integrating Adobe Audition and Premiere Pro, where the pitfalls are in the current release, and hopefully provide insight as to why these issues exist from a technical perspective.

When Time is of The Essence

Once again, you’ll see me using the phrase - when time is of the essence. This concept originated from a session I gave several years back called When Time is of the Essence: Creating Motion Graphics on a Deadline. For me, the silver bullet is taking advantage of Adobe Production Premium to create custom workflows for the projects I create for motion+connect, motion.tv, and motion.

Have you developed your own custom workflow yet? Start thinking about it now. It will come in handy - when time is of the essence.

Premiere Pro | Audition Workflow

In some ways, I view Audition CS5.5 as a ‘version one’ product release. While the CS5.5 release retained many of the features in Audition 3 (Windows only), it also lost functionality due to the complete rewrite and developer time constraints. I believe Adobe will bring back the important features that were not included in this release, but I’m even more excited at the potential direction Adobe Audition could take, because of being completely rewritten.

Number one on my ‘wish-list’ for the next release, is control surface integration - a major feature missing in this release. But just a tad bit behind that on my wish list, is for Audition to include features common to Adobe Dynamic Link, creating a more succinct and efficient workflow.

For those of you not familiar with Adobe Dynamic Link, wiki describes this as “a feature that eliminates intermediate rendering between programs”. Currently, Dynamic Link integration exists between Premiere Pro, After Effects and Encore.

But better yet - what if all applications included in the Production Premium Creative Suite could be integrated with Premiere Pro or After Effects utilizing their native file format?

For example, the native format for Illustrator is .ai, Photoshop is .psd, .sesx for Audition, and so on. If you’d like to read more about the concept of a completely integrated Suite, take a look The Ultimate Production Premium CS as part of the When Time is of the Essence series - and then join in on the conversation on the motion.tv group on LinkedIn.

But since the ‘ultimate’ Production Premium CS is not yet a reality, in the interim, learning how to best use the existing tools to simulate this process will help you work faster and smarter. Let’s take a more in-depth, step-by-step look at the workflow techniques we discussed in part one, including:

• creating a new audio file in Audition

• sending the new audio file to Premiere

• editing a clip from the Premiere timeline in Audition

• editing a sequence from the Premiere timeline in Audition :: with or without video
• revisions: roundtrip workflow between Premiere and Audition

Feel free to download the Premiere|Audition Integration PDF I’ve created as a guide to work from when you’re learning the process.

Creating a new audio file in Audition. Currently, there is no option to create a New Audition file from within Premiere Pro. Instead, you have to first create a new audio file in Adobe Audition and then import it into Premiere. The downside? If this was integrated in Premiere Pro, the new file created in Audition would automatically have the same sample rate, bit depth, and mix (mono, stereo, or 5.1) as your Premiere project.

Using motion+connect as the concept for our project, let’s create an audio file that we will use for the motion+connect intro sequence. These are the steps:

Sending the new audio file to Premiere. Now that we’ve created a new audio file in Audition, we need to bring it into Premiere. My preference would be to be able to send the files back to Premiere exactly as they appear in Audition - audio segments, on multiple tracks with applied effects. Volume levels would be sent as keyframe metadata. But the current release of Audition does not have this option. Instead, the audio is sent back as either stems (converts the full timeline duration of each track into a single clip) or a mixdown.

To export audio from Audition to Premiere, follow these steps:

In the project panel (pictured at right), you’ll also notice a new folder with a file name that ends in (AU Tracks) - unless you named it differently. This folder contains the Audition XML file, and the audio file assets. If you double click on the XML file, it will open as a new sequence in Premiere. The video track will be blank, but the audio tracks will contain the exported audio tracks.

Editing a clip from the Premiere timeline in Audition. There are two options when editing audio in Premiere Pro. You can 1) edit a clip, or 2) edit a sequence. In Premiere, the term ‘clip’ is used to define either an audio file (ie .wav, .aiff, etc.) or a movie clip that contains audio.

My preference would be for all audio editing to be native. For example, if I edit an audio file in Premiere, I’d want the actual audio file to open in Audition, where I make my modifications, save the file, and it’s automatically updated in Premiere.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it currently works. Instead, when you edit a clip in Audition CS5.5, Premiere Pro generates a new ‘Extracted’ audio file that is sent to Audition. In Audition, you make your changes, save the file, and the new version of the file is automatically updated in Premiere Pro. These are the steps:

note: There are several things to be aware of. Each time you edit a file from Premiere, it creates a new version in adding ‘Audio Extracted’ to the file name. For example, if your track was named ‘voiceover’, the first time you edit, it would be renamed ‘voiceover Audio Extracted’. In the second edit, it is renamed ‘voiceover Audio Extracted Audio Extracted’.

In an ideal workflow, the original file would be updated in Audition, and the changes would be reflected in Premiere. If you needed to undo an edit, all you would need to do is ‘undo’ in Audition, and re-save the file.

While it’s not the ideal workflow, you can clean up the unused audio files in Premiere by going to Project > Remove Unused. This will remove all of the unused audio files (as well as any other files in your project that are unused. Use with caution!)

Also, as you recall, we imported this file into Premiere straight from Audition. This was a .wav that was part of the earlier Audition Multitrack file we created. But when we sent it, we sent it as a mixdown. If we would have sent it as stems, we would have more flexibility to edit back and forth between the two applications.

Editing a sequence from the Premiere timeline in Audition - with or without video. A second option is to Edit a Sequence in Audition from Premiere Pro. With this, you have the option to include a reference video, or just send the audio.

Once again, my preference would be that all elements in the Premiere sequence are sent to Audition - similar to how this works integrating After Effects and Premiere Pro with Dynamic Link. Without rendering the video or audio, I’d want the file to be open in Audition, make my modifications, save the file, and have it automatically update in Premiere.

Technically, there is a substantial difference between what’s happening with the After Effects/Premiere integration, and the ideal integration I’ve defined. With the After Effects/Premiere integration, when you edit the original AE file from Premiere, all of the elements that are being edited were part of the original .aep file.

On the other hand, video is not a native element in Adobe Audition. In fact, in most cases, the audio you edit from Premiere did not originate as an Audition .sesx file. More often than not, the audio track is part of a video file.

So how could this possibly work? Premiere would need to generate an Audition .sesx file that contains the same audio and video tracks that you have in Premiere. And, to make it even more complicated, for reference purposes, the tracks would need to include existing transitions and effects that you’ve already make in Premiere.

While this is extremely complicated, I believe Adobe can do it. And it’s high on my wish list for a future release.

Instead, Adobe came up with an innovative ‘next best’ way of achieving integration between Premiere and Audition. When you edit a sequence in Audition, a rendered video file is created that includes your edits, transitions, and any effects that you’ve applied. Now we know why it takes so long to process!

Additionally, an XML file is created that serves as the Audition .sesx file. Now, here’s the cool part - each audio track is brought in with the same cuts, tracks, effects, and transitions that you’ve already applied in Premiere! And…it uses the same sample rate, bit depth, and mix that you’re using in Premiere. Ok, I’ve gotta say - Adobe came pretty close to my ideal integration. For a ‘first version’ release - I am truly impressed.

Where I think Adobe developers ran out of time, was on the roundtrip process back to Premiere. It’s not as elegant.

As you recall, when editing a single clip, Premiere duplicates the original file, and replaces the original with the edit in the timeline. This is not the case with a sequence. When editing a sequence, Adobe demonstrates the ‘roundtrip’ process by creating a new sequence in Premiere - in which they’ve already placed a preview video. They export the new Audition multitrack mix to this sequence. And we’re all amazed at how quick and easy it was to do - plus the fact that we didn’t have to bounce the audio first. But with the exception of mastering a final cut, it’s not really a typical workflow.

What you’re really getting in the new sequence is 1) the final video file you’ve manually rendered from Premiere as your video track, and 2) either ‘stems’ - each Audition audio track as a full length separate track or a single track mixdown in your desired format: mono, stereo, or 5.1.

Once again, from a technical perspective, I understand why this is happening. Remember when we brought the project into Audition? Premiere could easily send the audio tracks with all of the cuts, tracks, effects, and transitions that you applied in Premiere to Audition. This is because natively, Audition contains tracks, the ability to cut, add transitions - and includes all of the audio effects that are included with Premiere.

But as you also recall, Premiere had to render a single composite video file that contained the cuts, effects, and transitions that were made in Premiere since Audition does not natively handle video cuts, transitions, and effects. Now, we’re facing the same issue - in reverse. Premiere does not have the capabilities that are included in Audition, so instead, Audition has to render a single composite audio file for each track (stem), or mixdown.

On the next page, we’ll revisit my original idea on integration, and ask the questions that need to be asked.

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Hoping it’s going to actually really work

Posted by Jake001  on  06/07  at  08:40 AM

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