Audio issues are common, no matter what video content you create. When the video quality is popping, having your narrative film, promotional video, or vlog sound tinny or dull can be frustrating. Fortunately, you can record your audio separately from the video to get far better sound quality, especially for dialogue.
However, you must then synchronize your audio and video clips before editing them. That’s why you need this quick guide to synchronizing audio in Premiere Pro. It’s packed with some top troubleshooting tips to help you.
Summary
Part 1: What is Premiere Pro audio synchronization?
Before you sync audio in Premiere Pro, you should learn more about what audio synchronization is. It’s a pretty easy concept. Whatever is happening on-screen, the audio and video should match. Speech should match lip movement. Running rivers should flow on cue. You get the idea.
This happens naturally when you use the video’s own audio, with both tracks created at the same time. When you record them separately, you need to re-sync them. Premiere Pro audio synchronization tools offer a few ways to sync your sound to your video. In most situations, you’ll want to use the Synch Audio option, where Premiere reads all your audio tracks and uses the sound waves to match them.
For the sync to work, you must have an audio layer already attached to your video clip. This will be the audio recorded by your camera. So, even if you don’t intend to use your camera’s onboard audio, ensure that it’s still recorded.
Also, if you’ve got multiple camera angles, each with its own audio track, it’s much easier to use the Premiere Multicam tools. You can check out this handy guide to get started. The method you’ll learn today offers a super quick and easy solution to matching multiple audio tracks to a single video clip.
Part 2: Learn how to synchronize audio in Premiere Pro quickly
Premiere Pro will allow you to synchronize multiple audio tracks to a single video clip. This is ideal for when you’re using multiple microphones. You can even spread the clips across the Timeline. Premiere Pro will move them all to match your video simultaneously.
- Place your video and audio tracks into the timeline.
- If you use multiple audio clips, ensure that each has its own track.
- Select the video and audio clips which you wish to synchronize.
- Right-click on the clips and choose Synchronize.
- In the dialogue box, check Audio.
- Click OK and let Premiere Pro do all the work.
Once you’re happy with your audio syncing, you can remove the camera audio and link the video to your new audio track.
- Select the video track and right-click Unlink.
- Select the audio layer attached to the video layer and hit Delete on the keyboard.
- Select the video and audio layers and right-click on Link.
Part 3: Troubleshooting Premiere Pro audio sync issues
This method of synchronizing audio in Premiere Pro is simple and quick. However, you might still need help with problems and unexpected results. Here are some top troubleshooting tips for syncing your audio in Premiere Pro.
More than one clip per track
Have you tried to sync your audio and video and found the Synchronize option grayed out? There are a few reasons why this happens. Most likely, you’ve got more than one audio clip on a single track.
When Premiere Pro syncs the audio, it will move the audio clips in line with your video. However, if there’s more than one audio clip on a track, including where you’ve made cuts in your audio, Premiere won’t be able to sync it. It relies on one unbroken audio clip to match the waveforms. Just spread the audio clips out to fix this issue, each in its own track. This will help the program better use the waveforms it identifies.
Target track is off
Another reason for a grayed-out Synchronize option is the target tracks. When you choose which track to paste copied assets to, match frames, or sync audio in Premiere Pro, you select target tracks using the highlight option to apply effects.
If no track is highlighted or there are no assets in the highlighted track, Premiere Pro won’t sync the audio. You can choose any of the layers containing audio or video as the target track, and Premiere will use that layer as the basis of the sync.
Unclear audio
Have you tried to sync your audio, but it hasn’t worked as expected? It could be because Premiere Pro is having difficulty reading your audio. Don’t worry, this is common when the camera is some distance from your subject. It also happens when your camera audio has a lot of background noise.
Here are some helpful tips to improve your audio recording when you film. If the video is already recorded, these audio quality-improving effects for Premiere Pro might be able to help.
If you’re experiencing this issue, clean up the source audio a little and try syncing the audio in Premiere Pro again. Try playing with the Clarity, EQ, and Enhance Speech options in the Essential Sound panel. Clean audio is also essential if you want to use Premiere Pro’s audio-to-text tool, so it’s a good thing to focus on. If you can’t hear any audio in Premiere Pro, and you’re sure the video has audio, it may be an issue with the program.
Part 4: Top tips for successful audio synchronization
The Premiere Pro Audio Synchronization function is quick and straightforward. However, there are some things you can do to improve your workflow. These tips will help you keep a clean, efficient workspace.
Label your clips
One of the most common issues with syncing audio in Premiere Pro is choosing the wrong clip. This usually happens because of a disorganized project. It’s always worth sorting your project before you begin your edit.
It may seem like wasted time when you want to get to the fun bits, but a little preparation will make the project much easier to work with. If needed, rename the video and audio clips to match one another so you can easily find them in the Timeline.
Sync as you go
It can be tempting to jump straight into editing and sync the audio later. However, it’s always best practice to sync the assets you need as you go. By linking the video to the new audio in advance, you can move everything around your Timeline as you would with ordinary video clips. You’ll stay neat and focused, so that nothing is missed.
Short cut the synchronization
If you have a project that requires lots of audio synchronization in Premiere Pro, using this method can still take a little time. There isn’t a preset hotkey for the sync function, so the easiest thing to do is to create one. Hotkeys save a lot of time on repeated tasks.
Go to the Premiere Pro menu and choose Keyboard Shortcuts. Now search for Synchronization and add your preferred hotkey. Or check out the linked guide on customizing your Premiere Pro keyboard to help you work faster. If you’re curious about Adobe’s default keyboard shortcuts, they have a handy guide to help you.
Syncing your audio in Premiere Pro doesn’t need to be a daunting and time-consuming task. Now you know how to do it quickly and how to make convenient shortcuts to help. If you want to continue your audio journey and learn more about audio editing in Premiere Pro, check out this incredible guide to the Audio Clip Mixer.
