Adobe Please Add This Feature Request To Premiere That 400+ Users Are Asking For

Reorder / Rearrange Video and Audio Tracks

It would be amazing to simply grab a track and move it up or down in the order of the sequence. This was something I could do easily back when I used Vegas Pro. Occasionally, I have big, complex sequences and would like to reorder the tracks for organization purposes or for shipping off to audio master. Thanks!

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/33891022-reorder-rearrange-video-and-audio-tracks?page=1&per_page=20

Seriously, yes!

Adobe, users have been asking for this feature for 4 years now. Please add it to Premiere ASAP, it is mind boggling that it it still does not exist in Premiere. It should be a priority.

Every other NLE / DAW does it. Even your own Audition does it! Why not Premiere?

On top of it, as of version 22.6.2 on Mac M1: Premiere screws up h264 footage. Premiere has a Warp Stabilizer bug. Premiere has a bug displaying Multicam audio waveforms. AME has a Create New Ingest Preset bug.

What are you guys doing, Adobe?

Premiere Pro Multicam Clip Not Showing Audio Waveform

 Premiere 22.5.0 on macOS Monterey.

One thing that has been plaguing Premiere for years: audio waveforms snafus. Last in a row of a long list of aggravation, Multicam Clips not showing any audio waveform in the Timeline.

In this example, the first Multicam Clip shows the waveform, the second does not:

Why? You'd rightfully ask. Well it's because of the way the Mulicam Clip is panned. I kid you not.

The fist Multicam Clip is panned as follow:

The second Multicam Clip is panned as follow:

Do you see the difference? Track A1 is not panned all the way to the left to -100%. It's at -98.8%.

And that is enough ladies and gentlemen to trip Premiere and cause it to not display waveforms in the Timeline for any Multicam Clip that's not panned 100% left or right.

Pro Tools Not Loading, Stuck Scanning Plug-ins

A common problem with Pro Tools not loading and stuck at the "Scanning Plug-ins" level is a corrupted Plug-in or a stray 32bit plug-in.

Plug-ins are stored in System HD/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins, or in System HD/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins.

I checked that no plug-in was 32 bit by showing the Kind column in the Finder window. Kind: Pro Tools Plug-In (32bit) will point at the culprit(s.) In my case all plug-ins were 64bit.

So I remove all plug-ins (I moved then to the Unused folder) and restarted Pro Tools, it automatically re-installed the default plug-ins. I then moved back the unused plug-ins one by one, actually manufacturer by manufacturer into the plug-ins folder and tried laughing Pro Tools for each batch until it froze again. In my case that was the WaveShell that caused the hang.

The fix was to update Waves Central, and in Settings select Clear Central cache. On Wave Central relaunch, I then selected Repair. The Wave Shell and plug-ins got fresh installs.

That's it, that fixed the problem for me, back to editing and mixing!

FCPX Audio Meters

 FCPX has a particular audio metering. It scales from minus infinity to +6dB, with intermediary marks at -50dB, -40dB, -30dB, -20dB, -12db, -6dB and 0.

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at -20dB.

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at 0dB.

According to Apple:

"The audio meters show the audio levels of clips in Final Cut Pro and warn you if a particular clip or section of a clip reaches peak levels, which may result in audible distortion.

When an audio clip is approaching peak levels during playback, the level color changes from green to yellow.

When an audio clip exceeds peak levels, the level color changes from yellow to red, and the peak indicator turns red for the respective audio channel or channels. The peak indicators are reset when you stop and start playback.

To avoid having clip volume exceed peak levels, adjust the volume. Although the proper level for a clip depends on the mix, it’s important to make sure that the combined level for all concurrent clips doesn’t exceed 0 dB during the loudest sections."

The Zero being the actual 0dB MAX FULL SCALE. In other words, FCPX has a +6dB buffer up there. Obviously, the absolute loudest sound in your program should not go above zero, even though we have this +6dB buffer for occasional - to be dealt with, or not - incursions.

For film work the median level for dialog is -23dB Full Scale (EBU) or -24dB Full Scale (ATSC-85), on the FCPX meter this translated to a position in-between marks as seen below:

FCPX audio meters showing a 1kHz tone played at -23dB.

A specialized meter display like the YouLean Loudness Meter has  different display for film work, here marking -23dB (the marking can also be set to show -24dB.) Note the YouLean meter has no headroom above zero. That's the absolute max.

YouLean audio meter showing a 1kHz tone played at -23dB.

In practice FCPX meters are fine. Note that they are the PPM kind, not the VU kind. Meaning they show instant Peak values, as opposed to averaged values. For a constant volume sound (like the tones shown above) it's all the same. For dialog which is inherently varying in volume all the time, that's a different story. See below for the same speech displayed on FCPX meter and on the YouLean meter.

FCPX (PPM) meter showing speech played at an average of -20dB.

YouLean (VU) meter showing values for the same speech played at an average of -20dB.

FCPX meters are much more "alive" jumping up and down with huge variation. The YouLean is more tame and tranquil, with limited incursions. Same signal, PPM vs. VU representation.

Starting with a proper range will make the transition into mixing easier. While editing in FCPX it is good practice to have most dialog levels in the -20 to -6dB range, visually "dancing" most of the time in the -12dB vicinity.