Audio shifts in playback when using Essential Sound

Report · May 03, 2017

I've been trying out the new Essential Sound I'm having a strange issue in playback which when I apply effects to an audio file, the audio is delayed by a fraction of a second in unrendered and rendered playback and even when exported, although the track hasn't moved and the waveform graphic stays the same on the timeline. The video is a .MOV file straight out of a Canon 600D, and the audio is a mono 192kb MP3 from a shotgun mic to a Zoom recorder.

Here's a breakdown of what I've done so far:

In the case of this video I hadn't yet merged the camera's audio/video with the external mic audio - I've manually matched the waveforms in the timeline so that the two are in sync (the camera audio is muted). I can see that these waveforms are synced visually and when played back without any effects there is no delay issue.

The effects are only applied to the external mic track, which then shifts out of sync, although the track hasn't moved in the timeline and the waveform visual remains the same; supposedly in sync with the camera's audio.

I tried disabling the various effects applied in the Effects Controls section and the external mic audio is now back in sync. As I turned the effects back on, one by one, the audio shifted back out of sync when played back.

When I exported the video as a basic H.264 file with the effects on the problem was still there.

I tried moving the audio track back 8 frames (until it was audibly synced with the camera audio) so that it sounded correct in playback and exported that, but the audio was still out of sync.

I tried cleaning my media cache and restarting Premiere Pro etc, to no effect.

I then tried merging the camera footage and the external mic audio in the Project tab, and applied the effects via Essential Sound, and had the same problem - the waveform hasn't moved and in playback the audio is out of sync with the video. I render in-out and render audio and the playback problem is still there.

I then tried exporting the merged video as a basic H.264 and the sync problem is miraculously fixed!

So weirdly after merging the audio the problem still occurs in playback but no longer upon export? Obviously the exported video is main thing so that's fine but the playback problem is still a bit of an issue! The workaround of course would be to solo the external mic audio channel with the effects applied and export it as wav, then bring that back into Premiere - but that doesn't fix the problem with Essential Sound!

Any ideas as what might be causing this issue?

I'm running the fully updated Adobe Suite

Computer spec:

2013 27" iMac

3.5 GHz Intel Core i7

32GB 1600 Mhz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096MB

1.11TB Fusion Drive with 300GB free

10TB Lacie RAID with 466GB free (where the project and all the files are saved)

Thanks loads!

Ben

Report · Jan 15, 2018

I don't know if you ever solved this problem, but I worked around it by importing the audio track only into a separate project, editing the sound as desired and then exporting that audio clip. Imported it into my multicam project, synced the audio to video and exported the audio and video. Worked like a charm. Hope it works for you!

Report · Apr 30, 2018

Yes, this is a workaround, but a very length and unnecessary one. I am more motivated to finding a solution to the problem so that I don't have to export timeline audio, import, mix, export, import and re-sync. Too many steps just to do a basic audio mix and add a couple of audio crossfades.

Report · Apr 30, 2018

Which OS version are you on?

There's enough troubles it seems with folks posting that are still on 10.11 or 10.12 ... are you on those or 10.13?

Neil

Report · Aug 17, 2018

I've also had this problem for a long time! Still haven't found a work around except to disable all essential sound effects.

I have an audio track that is cut up and plays back fine, when i add an essential sound effect (balanced male dialogue) the audio is cut off the last 12 frames or so of every audio clip but as the OP says, the waveforms show that my audio shouldn't be cut off... so it's very confusing! If I add a slight cross dissolve between the audio clips that sometimes fixes it.

Runnings OSX 10.13.4 & PPro 12.1.1 but i have had this issue ever since the essential sound panel was introduced!

Report · Nov 15, 2018

I now have exactly the same problem you described. It caused me a lot of chaos and long hours while working on a tight deadline. I was wondering if you ever resolved the issue of using Essential Sound effects. If so, please let me know how you resolved it.

My problem occurred in PP 13.0.1 (2019). I never used Essential Sound effects in earlier versions. The project with the same issue was updated from PP 12.1.2. I'm running OS 10.13.2 on iMac Pro.

Report · Aug 20, 2018

I'm on OS 10.13.6

My audio clips are doing the same. It plays fine until Essential Sound is applied and then It drops off the last 12 frames or so. And then when I turn off Ess.Sound the audio clip has now permanently lost those frames! What the Heck, Man! All my other clips have Ess Sound applied and work fine. So I don't know what the deal is.

Love Adobe Products. Hope they jump on this bug!

Report · Feb 22, 2019

Having same problem as well. It works fine with the essential sound effects in the timeline, but when i export the project the audio is out of sync, but when I don't use the essential sound panel, the export work just fine. It's a shame since i like to use those effects...

Report · Feb 22, 2019

All of the ESP effects appear separately on the Effects Control Panel as soon as you activate them by changing settings in the ESP. If you click the "edit" tag there, you can change all the parameters of that particular effect, more parameters for most than are included in the ESP.

You can also copy/paste individual effects as well as save as presets.

So if you have something in the ESP you like, or even a combination, you can save one or more effects as a preset.

Maybe using that way could get around your issue.

Neil