Skip to main content
C
christianh.swr
Participant
January 24, 2023
Open for Voting

Shortcut for activating source audio tracks

  • January 24, 2023
  • 4 replies
  • 863 views
Sometimes you have to switch audio source tracks quite frequently. This would be much easier if you could activate or deactivate them via shortcuts. This is possible for target tracks in the timeline but not for the source tracks.

    4 replies

    C
    Christina27152685lv9w
    Participating Frequently
    August 14, 2025

    Yes agreed. I don't know if there's a way in Premiere, only using keyboard shortcuts, to ONLY insert or overwrite the video from an A/V clip onto the timeline? 

    DJP2014
    DJP2014
    Inspiring
    July 20, 2023

    Yes, this gets my vote. I'm looking for a way to toggle between sync (V1+A1) and cutaway (V2) using a single key.

    As well as a toggle, as a poster above suggested I'd like to see source patching automatically follow Track patching a la Avid. Think it makes much more sense.

      P
      Pierre Louis B.
      Known Participant
      January 24, 2023
      I agree 100%! Why offer keyboard shortcut options for toggling each individual audio track (1 through 8), but when it comes to Source tracks, there's just a single all-or-nothing option (i.e. "Toggle All Source Audio"). It seems we were offered a half solution here.

      Having these shortcuts is important to me since when I'm sending media from my Source Monitor to my Timeline, I would like a single shortcut key that acts as a toggle between having A2 source patched or not, to decide on-the-fly if the clip I'm sending should have its audio sent there or not. With the keyboard shortcuts currently available, using a single shortcut as a toggle isn't possible. You can save 2 source assignment presets, give them shortcuts and switch between the two, but that requires 2 keyboard shortcuts instead of one, so it isn't as handy as using a single shortcut that acts as an on/off toggle. Furthermore, it doesn't allow for on-the-fly custom patching outside of selecting any presets previously created and assigned a shortcut, so it isn't as user friendly.
        F
        FinalAdobePro
        Participating Frequently
        January 24, 2023
        I think this is requested in various different forms in different requests. I need it for video as well, as sometimes you're trying to insert bits and pieces of one edit in to another edit and there can be a lot of video and audio tracks. I think the Avid implementation of this would be the easiest as they don't actually require different shortcuts for activating/deactivating on source versus target tracks, you just press the 'toggle source/record' button which would be 'toggle source/program focus' in Premiere and then any track activation/deactivation keys you press will affect either the source or the timeline depending on which you toggled and you can switch between at any time. This approach is really elegant because there's no doubling up of keys that have to be mapped for source/program track activation so only one set of shortcuts to remember. The other thing that's good about that method is that if you have a sequence loaded in the source monitor and you 'toggle source/record timeline' which in Premiere would be 'open sequence in timeline' you populate the timeline panel with the source timeline and can activate or deactivate whatever tracks you like whilst much more clearly seeing what’s on those tracks. The activation/deactivation choices you make in that source timeline will remain chosen when you switch back to viewing the program timeline in the timeline panel. Frustratingly in Premiere you can actually already do all of that except that any track activation/deactivation you do in the source timeline has no effect upon the patching when you go back to viewing the target timeline.

        I sound like an Avid shill, but I choose Premiere over Avid for many reasons, there's just lots of little things that Avid does well that I wish could be replicated. The keyboard controlled track activation on both source and target side is one of them and once you have that and get used to it, it pairs beautifully with another feature that's great in Avid that I wish Premiere had called 'auto-patching' which is fiendishly simply but so helpful.

        Anyway, any time I see this suggested in whatever similar wording or form it pops up I always cast a vote for it.
        Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
        Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices