Today has been a day I'd rather forget in Premiere Pro 4.1.0. I'll just report this persistent bug here which is killing my normal workflow but t's not the only one to hit me today.
1. I often shoot in 4K and create a multicam source with the source reframed in 1080P as below
2. I then use that multicam as a source as seen above
3. I cut it into the sequence as nested video
4. But I like to cut my raw audio in for two reasons - it may need to be adjusted in the essential audio panel and I like to see my waveforms when editing - something that doesn't work in multicam audio (why Adobe? A topic for another discussion)
5. This is a workflow that I've used a thousand times before - both on this kind of multicam and 4 camera multicams - any kind of multicam. Today it's broken... if you look at the image above and below, no matter which way I toggle the nested source button it does not un-nest (is that a word?). I cannot see my nested source tracks, it only appears as source nest.
I should be able to see my individual video and audio tracks from the source. ie V1, V2, V3 and A1 - A5. this is breaking a significant workflow for me.
I've tried making sure I have the source window selected (becaue I've noticed sometimes PP will ignore the source if you've previously dragged something straight form the project window), taking the sequence I'm editing into out of multicam mode (not that that has ever affected it before) but it's broken. At least for my setup.
Yes, I can work around it by copy and pasting from the source but it involves a number of additional steps to keep the audio in sync that I wouldn't normally have to do.
System specs MacBook Pro
- Model Name: MacBook Pro
- Model Identifier: MacBookPro18,2
- Model Number: MK1A3X/A
- Chip: Apple M1 Max
- Total Number of Cores: 10 (8 performance and 2 efficiency)
- Memory: 32 GB
- System Firmware Version: 10151.41.12
- Operating System: Sonoma 14.1.1
1 Correct answer
could you at least put it to a vote?
Not to worry @JOHN MONDO, any opinions voiced are considered a vote cast, so the vote's been ongoing the momemt you started this tread 🙂
We have restored this functionality with a new preference in the timeline panel menu called Multi-Camera Follows Nest Setting. When enabled, cutting Multi-Cams into a sequence will revert back to the old behavior where the ...Nests or individual clips toggle is respected. This is available right now in Beta. Keep an
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I can open the nested sequence in the timeline - that's not the issue - it's editing as a source into the master timeline that's broken. A multicam is essentially a nest - you should be able to break out nests into their source elements by using the below button in the timeline window. It's always worked - now it's broken. Just to be completely clear, I mean when using the multicam as a source. I know this button has no effect on clips already in the timeline. I don't want to muddy the waters with a discussion on waveforms. Let's just say multicam audio is hardly ever the right thing to use.
Hi Ben, even though I strongly disagree with this change which gave me the flexibility to do a number of things, including cutting in source video tracks above the multicam line in case I need to specifically reframe a single shot and I didn't want to change the whole multicam (has happened plenty of times on live shoots) - I have tried what you suggested and it doesn't work. The multicam is created with multichannel audio and that selection is not accessible in the sequence settings.
I have a single channel of source audio so I tried setting the multicam sequence to one channel.
That didn't work. As I can only assign the source channel to channel 1/2 in the track mixer, I tried setting the sequence to 2 channels. That did not work. There seems to be no way of modify the multicam sequence to make it match the source audio tracks. I accept that this must be user error but please explain.
OK - got it to work. My workflow was to do all my basic mixing (essential sound etc) in the multicam. You can't do that with this method because once again PP is attempting mix down that source with the effects. But when I added a second channel into the mix it once again failed. To get it to work in this scenario I had to go to the track mixer and make sure they were panned left and right and then change the read on the track mixer to 2 channels on output. Incidentally - no matter what I do to the sequence setting of the multicam source it always has 4 tracks of audio when used as a source? Which made me wonder - what if I have 5 channels of discrete audio. So I did the test below. Everything assigned correctly so there is no mixing down of tracks.
But when I come to cut it in - I can only see 4 source audio tracks - I can't access my fifth.
Well on the positive side my waveforms are still showing up... just can't access all my source channels. Seems like a big problem if you're track-laying in your multicam. User error?
Ah, ok - there's a lot to unpack here. @JOHN MONDO I'm going to go back through and reply specifically in thread to some of your questions.
Overall though, let's take a different approach. All the deatil of what's not working is great - thank you for sharing it all. But instead of talking about what's not working, let's come from the angle of how it works. I think we're ending up in a downward spiral becuase we're not starting from the right spot.
When we build a Multi-Cam, we end up with a Multi-Cam Source Sequence - it's treated for all intents and purposes like a piece of media, but it's a sequence under the hood that drives it. You can modify some elements of the sequence, but there are other elements that Premiere is tracking without you even knowing about it that you shouldn't modify. For example, once a Multi-Cam is created, you shouldn't change the number of video or audio tracks inside of it. You can, but you shoudln't. It can cause unpredictable Multi-Cam flattening behavior. Similarly, there is no need to be jumping inside the Multi-Cam Source Sequence and messing around with discrete channel routing. So, as you suggested:
if I have say 4 discrete mono channels of audio from my audio recorder synced with my video track then I would have to go into the multicam, assign each one of those channels to it's own discrete channel (which Adobe does not do automatically - it assigns channel 1 to channel1/2 by default etc) then ensure my multicam sequence has the correct number of audio channels to match the source tracks.
No, there is no need for this.
You can control the correct channelization of your Multi-Cam by setting the Audio Channel Preset to Automatic when you create a Multi-cam. By selecting this option, Premiere Pro will examine the audio components of each clip being used to build the Multi-Cam, and then select a track routing option that best encapsulates all of your different sources. Automatic may sound limiting, like you're giving up control, but don't think of it that way - instead, think of it similarly to the way a 16x9 frame may be the best option for containing many different aspect ratios in a single sequence, even if most of your media is 4x3. Following the same logic, Premiere Pro looks at the audio sources and says "what's the best way that I can encapsulate all these sources together given the sources provided. So if angle A has stereo audio, and angle B has 5.1 audio, Premiere Pro will make a Multi-Cam Source Sequence configured with 5.1 audio since it can correctly contain, route and display the two channels of stereo within the 6 channels of 5.1, and a 5.1 configuration is already "in bounds" since one of your clips is configured as 5.1.
In order to tell the Automtic setting above exactly what to do, you must first ensure that your source audio channels are mapped correctly for how you want to work. In your case, you want access to all your individially recorded tracks. You want your audio mapped to mono, which will allow each channel to cut into a sequence on its own track. It doesn't matter if you have 1CH or 15CH of audio. They should all be mapped to mono, however many channels you need. You can see in the image below that the media indicated within the red box has 6 channels of audio mapped to 6 mono channels.
Now, this is how my media was imported by defaults as flagged in the source file, but Premiere Pro could have interpreted the 6CH audio as 5.1, in which case, I would have wanted to modify its audio channels and map it correctly to 6CH mono.
Once the audio is mapped correctly, you can generate your multicam...
...which results in a 6CH mono Multi-Cam. This is directly aligned with the max number of audio channels in my sources. If the sources were mapped as 2CH Mono, my Multi-Cam would have 2CH. If they were mapeed to 12CH, my Multi-Cam would have 12CH. If the sources did not match, and one was 2CH and one was 12CH, the resulting Multi-Cam would have 12CH since both can be accommodated in that configuration. Notice that the Multi-Cam did not try to configure itself to 5.1 despite the fact that it has 6 Channels of audio - the Automatic configuration followed the sources.
I then cut my Multi-Cam into a sequence* (in my case a 1920x1080 23.976fps Stereo sequence), and I get all my audio channels discretely cut in to individual channels. They are each individually selectable. I can apply audio filters, or remove unwanted channels. I can also use the Timeline source patches to only cut in the channels that I want to edit with (and in the future I can easily overcut all the channels... but that'll be covered in a thread above).
*Note that it is not recommended to drag a Multi-Cam to the Project Panel's New Item icon to create a sequence from the multicam. This can result in unexpected sequence configurations depending on the configuration of your Multi-Cam. Instead, configure a new sequence and then cut Multi-Cam clips into it.
At the risk of being overly redundant, keep in mind that I have not configured my Multi-Cam Source Sequence in any way after it was made, and I did not use any kind of sequence preset. I configured my source media beforehand, which gave Premiere Pro the information it needed to constrain the Multi-Cam creation.
And now, in this state, there is no reason to return to the Multi-Cam sources to regain control over components of your Multi-Cam. All aspects of the Multi-Cam components are presented and accessible.
No, this behavior has not changed. The tendency here is to want to build a Multi-Cam and then crash everything down to just the necessary tracks that reflect the angles you need with stop and starts in those tracks. But, as mentioned above, this is dangerous. The correct way to approach this is to make a Multi-cam (A) from only the first recording from each angle regardless of how many stop/starts you had during the take. This will build the Multi-Cam correctly without extraneous stop/start angle tracks. Then, make a separate single Multi-Cam Source Sequence (B) of all stops and starts across all angles, and crash that down to just the angles/tracks you need to accommodate the correct number of angles with stops and starts. Once that's done, copy all the crashed down clips from B and paste them into the first Multi-Cam A (overwritting the original three that are in there). This now gives you all your stops and starts per angle, in a correctly configured Multi-Cam Source Sequence that you have not modified on a track level (and at this point you can delete B; A is your hero Multi-Cam).
Actually it does work - I tested it yesterday. I used the Camera Angle metadata tag to change all my shots to a single camera (BTW you can't do this all at once you have to do it individually clip by clip which seems odd). You can also use the camera label metadata.
This is determined by the Audio: Sequence Settings option in the Create Multi-Camera Source Sequence dialog.
Camera 1: Configures the Multi-cam to only use audio from Camera 1. All other camera audio will be muted.
All Cameras: Configures the Multi-cam to use all audio from all cameras at once. No camera will be muted.
Switch Audio: Configures the Multi-Cam to switch audio camera to camera, so your audio can follow video when camera angles are switched
Not really important but if you have not labelled your cameras how does PP "know" which is Camera 1. In this case it treated my Audio Recorder as camera 1 which gave the correct result.
I still want to go into the multicam and create extra video angles
Unfortunately this is one of those things that you don't want to be doing inside a Multi-Cam. Adding and/or subtracting video and audio tracks from an existing Multi-Cam Source Sequence can result in very unpredictable flattening results that are hard to troubleshoot.
Well I've been doing it for years and the results seem pretty predictable to me. In what way do they become "unpredictable"? For example for a live event with Powerpoint slides I've actually gone into the multicam and added the full frame slides in time with the slides changing on the screen and then used them as a multicam source. Saves hours. I've also done the 4K trick where I duplicate the camera track and have a close up and a wide. The only thing unpredictable is the way PP displays those reframed angles on playback in the multicam window. Not a huge issue - you still know which is the close up and wide.
You really do not have to be jumping through all these hoops - Multi-Cam handles it all for you. You're shooting in 4K but editing in 1080p, so you make your Multi-cams, open up each one in the timeline, change its dimensions to 1080p, and scale down each angle (for simplicity sake, let's just assume your 4K footage is scaled to exactly 50%). This way all your Multi-Cams cut into your edit at full frame. This is all spot on.
Now you seem to be saying I can change things in the multicam like dimensions and colour correction.
From this point, if you want to push in on a shot (let's say 200%), you're right, you don't want to push in on the already reduced Multi-Cam. So you can just flatten the Multi-Cam.
This is indeed a more elegant way to achieve my desired result. Thanks for the tip. This is the way I will tackle this situation in the future.
Thanks for working with me Ben and the detailed responses- I now have a totally new and more efficient multicam workflow. However I will continue to use the reframing 4K trick inside multicams. I'm comfortable with how PP treats those clips.
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