Combine multi-channel audio in Premiere Pro CS6



Written version of the tutorial:

Here we have a bunch of panasonic mxf files inside Premiere Pro cs6. If we drag them on a timeline we’ll notice how the clips have four channels of audio. This is the norm with P2 files but in many cases the audio tracks three and four are simply empty. Here we can see from the audio waveforms that only tracks one and two actually contain any audio. So keeping this many tracks on our timeline is totally unnecessary and it takes up valuable vertical screen estate.

Let’s go and fix this by right-clicking on one of the selected clips. From the opening context menu we choose modify audio channels. Here we can tell premiere that these clips should have only one track and it should be a stereo track. Now channel one is mapped to the left channel of our stereo track and channel two is mapped to the right channel of that track. We are simply not using tracks 3 and 4 at all.

When we hit okay Premiere will warn us that this change will have no effect on those clips that are already inside timelines. Thats why it’s best to do this right when we start the project and not edit anything before the audio tracks are mapped the way we like.

Nothing has changed on the timeline just like Premiere warned so let’s delete the old clips and then re-drag them on the timeline. Now we can see that all our audio is packed neatly inside one stereo track which makes editing much easier.

Thanks for reading and see you next time on OneMinuteVideoTutorials.com!

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