Modernize The Syncing Workflow With A Sync Panel

If anything in Premiere was in need of a ground-up redesign, it's syncing.

It's the most important part of the the professional workflow and it's long been neglected. Nothing can begin happening in an edit with dual system audio until the sync done correctly. And now a days, that's most edits, even for non professionals.

I used to think creating a Multicam Clip to sync audio and picture where the sync could be adjusted after the fact was useful but I was kidding myself. The way the Multicam clip sometimes handles handles audio channels, possible confusion over using camera audio or not, having to manipulate the audio outs of that sequence so just so the waveforms show up correctly in the edit timeline is a huge discomfort and time waster.

And I don't EVER want to see another assistant editor of mine think they should drag clips into a timeline, ask premiere to sync them or line them up by eye and then choose merge or create Multicam Clip.

Resolve has syncing down pat. It happens by selecting the clips to be merged, right-click clicking and choosing sync, no dialogue box or separate pane necessary. The analysis of waveforms is FAST. And if there's timecode that matches, it just uses that.

And Resolve’s synced clips are CLEAN and look like clips. No fiddling with a nested Multicam sequences. What they do is actually ATTACH the dual system audio to the picture as additional tracks. Those tracks can then be modified using Resolve's equivalent of Modify > Audio Channels. That saves us from having to choose to replace camera audio or not replace it during syncing. We can just modify MULTIPLE clips FROM THE BIN to use the audio we want after the fact. No need to open in each synced sequence individually to turn on/off audio and just audio outs to make waveforms show up in the edit timeline.

100% agree with the OP's comments regarding confusion of Merge and Multicam. Scrap them both and make one new thing that works. Or if you can’t make one, remake them as two, but make them BOTH work easily for the jobs they’re supposed to do. But please, forget nesting. I don't want Multicam clips to behave like timelines or sequences. They should behave like clips.

In addition, there HAS to be a fast, reliable solution for syncing WITHOUT timecode or camera audio. This is useful for pros and amateurs. Using in-points or markers that I have to label with matching names is making those functions do things that they’re not explicitly designed to do. That leads to confusion and mistakes. Just allow a specific type of SYNC POINT. So when premiere is directed to sync specific clips, it knows to just look for that point, use the video as the master for the length of the clip and be done.

Also, let me select clips and bins from multiple project panels when syncing. Trying to sync a whole day's worth of dailies from a professional set isn't about dumping all the clips into one bin and hitting select all. That's terrible project organization. And don't make me highlight EACH clip to be synced. Let me separate clips into bins by each camera and sound (which we're all already doing right to have neat projects right?), and then just select bins and make Premiere smart enough to arrange the cameras into camera A, camera B, dual system audio, etc based on that bin organization/naming convention.

As for a Panel, I think it's mostly unnecessary if we can make Premiere smart enough to do it from the Project Panel like Resolve does. But if a Panel is made, it should NOT look like a timeline.

It should look like a project panel with multiple boxes. In each box, the user can designate by already existing bins of clips, what are Picture (or camera 1, camera 2, etc) and the Sound to sync tell Premiere to sync them. The SYNC PANEL might be a good place for the user to scrub, find and mark the SYNC POINT for each piece of audio or video. If file names don’t help, Premiere won't know which clips go together so once the sync points are marked, so the user should be able to manually drag/drop the clips that go together to help Premiere sync.

Lastly, Premiere must provide PROFESSIONAL level explanations about how they envision their solves working. Tutorials where we watch two clips get sync with two track audio all in the same bin is not the professional experience. Please do not accept the lowest common denominator.

This is an absolute necessity. Please make this one happen.

Agreed. It would be great if you were to implement a way to sync multiple clips like pluraleyes.

But even with pluraleyes, it is almost impossible to work with the project window. This leaves us having to use messy timelines. Perhaps at least a way to merge clips in batch.

But ideally you would create a whole different workflow to help with syncing audio.

Oh heck yes.
Currently, if I want to use timecode to sync a bunch of cameras and audio files, I will just use Davinci Resolve. Premiere's method is absolutely terrible.

This is ID# 200 in my problems spreadsheet. You've explained it in better detail.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dVJb7kI_ZETLavrplfARgn9gL8HUpvkq6A0jCPxqA3w/edit#gid=1133868629