I want to hear actual 5.1 in Premiere while spotting SFX and roughing things out (surround sound-wise) in PP before doing a final mix in Audition. The lack of 5.1 monitoring in PP means doing a mix-down of the surround sound to monitor in stereo. This is fine for basic spotting, but I'd rather have a better idea of whether sounds actually work before getting to the final mix and discovering they don't.
For years I've had poor experiences with trying to monitor 5.1 audio from a Premiere Pro (PP) timeline. I've tried various versions of sound card drivers, 'virtual audio cables', AC3 software encoders, etc.; but those solutions are just a hot mess and far too unreliable with a lot of latency.
Since installing the RTX4090, however, I have discovered a more elegant solution with a digital path, and it is one far more easy to implement than hacked drivers and layers of software. Well, there is one piece of software needed - ASIO4All. It's an audio driver that allows PP (via the Audio Hardware section of PP preferences) to access 8 channels of digital output audio which the RTX4090 happily feeds to a circa 2016 Denon AV Receiver (AVR) via HDMI. The AVR's switched HDMI output feeds the fourth monitor. As a side note, I have not tested whether using the RTX4090 HDMI output for Mercury Transmit messes with the audio channel setup given below.
Another note - this set up uses "exclusive" control of the audio hardware when PP is running. This means the Windows 10 volume control and mixer are idled and do not affect the signal. Adjust the volume on the AVR. And only PP audio is streamed. There will be no system sounds or Spotify in the background. But when PP is not running everything functions as normal WIN10 audio. As a bonus, the HDMI out is set up as the default sound device, so I need not change inputs or anything on the amplifier when jumping in and out of projects.
The set up in Premiere Pro and the WIN 10 sound settings is very straightforward. Basic steps:
Download and install the 64 bit ASIO4All driver
Check sound device settings
Set up Premiere Pro Audio Hardware preferences and ASIO4All configuration
Listen to 5.1 from Premiere Pro
Here are the setups:
First, the WIN10 'Sound' control panel.
So far I've referred to feeding the Denon AVR via HDMI. This is handled through nVidia's HD Audio driver, which feeds audio down each of the video cards outputs. Each of these outputs are enumerated in the Sound control panel and each is automagically renamed to it's end point. Notice the other nVidia HD Audio devices are disabled (right click, disable). I don't know that they'd interfere, but I do not use any of the monitors' on-board audio, so might as well disable them and save resources. The motherboard audio devices are still enabled, but not utilized:
Nothing changes here - for reference only:
Nothing changes here - for reference only:
Nothing changes here - for reference only:
Then configure your speaker layout (right click, select configure speakers):
Premeire Pro Preferences - Audio Hardware:
Note the IO Buffer Size is quite large at 2048. This was primarily set to bring proper sync to audio and video, but the large buffer also improves stability.
Notice the Surround Left and Right channels have been mapped to outputs 7 & 8. YMMV. If you are not getting sound from the rear speakers try outputs 5 & 6 (default).
One last detail: In the audio settings of PP preferences, change the 5.1 mixdown type to "Front Only":
That's it. Enjoy warpping yourself in surround sound in Premiere Pro.
This set up does not affect Adobe Audition's 5.1 monitoring. We could do the same ASIO4All set up in Adobe Audition to monitor surround mixing, but the WASAPI driver works well enough.
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