Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips

Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorial at Creative COW

Andrew Devis

©2010 CreativeCOW.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
You have lots of clips in your timeline which are all different volumes. How do you quickly match the volume of all the clips so that they are all matched? This quick tutorial will show you the tricks to know in Premiere Pro and Soundbooth to get the job done!

This tutorial is also available as a podcast.

Comments

•

Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Daniel Andrews

Good show, clear and concise. Shame one can't import multiple audio clips to soundbooth though, seems like a no brainer to implement.

Thanks for posting.

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Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Valter Santos

Thanks a lot!!! Very useful!

Is there a rule for broadcast levels that I should use in "Match to Volume"?

I've heard that speech is most often mixed to -6 to -3 db with music background at -18 to -12...

Match Volume prevents sound to go above 0 db too?

How can I make my master track to stay below 0 db without changing these individual volumes? Normalize Master Track?

Thanks again!

•

@Valter Santos
by Andrew Devis

Hi Valter

Unfortunately, there is no rule for music volumes except that whatever you do, never go above 0dB. I think the levels you give are good safe ways to edit but a good place to start is to always check with the customer just in case they have a standard they like to work to.

My own personal preferences are at the higher ends of what you say (-3/voice and -12/music) unless there is a high dynamic range in the voice in which case I go to -6 just to be sure - or, I normalise peaks to 0 so that everything stays safe.

Match volumes will actually lower the volume of tracks that are too loud and, yes, it will keep volumes safe.

Lastly, if you have nested all your audio into one master sequence, then it has got to be worth normalising the master track to save any problems that may have got missed. But good audio is, unfortunately, always a clip by clip thing - both individual clips and listening to each clip in the context of what comes before it and after it.

Hope this helps
Andrew

•

@Andrew Devis
by Valter Santos

Thank you, Andrew!
It sure helps!

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Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Al Di Marzio

Thanks Andrew, I will experiment with this technique. I usually manage each clip individually and set volumes and filters as needed.

Aldimar Video Productions

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Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Donovan Werts

This is one of the most helpful tutorials I've ever watched. I've always done the extracted audio clips one at a time. Thanks very much!

•

Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Terry Mikkelsen

Great tip!
Anyone know of a similar workflow for the Final Cut Studio?

Tech-T Productions
http://www.technical-t.com

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Re: Balancing Audio Levels for Multiple Clips
by Dane Cooke

Great tutorial! I didn't realize Soundbooth had that ability.

A similar (and maybe quicker/easier) solution to mis-matched audio levels can be achieved by adding the Dynamics effect to the entire track under the "Effects and Sends" area of the Audio Mixer. You can then right click the effect and apply presets, or you can edit the effect manually to your taste.

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