Merged Clip Stereo Audio becomes Mono - help

[Passionate_Rose15C2]

I merged a video clip with stereo file. The merged clip now has two mono audio tracks instead of the original single stereo. How can I avoid this or change it back to stereo after merge? Thank you.

[Brandon Loshe]

When you say that you "merged a video clip with stereo file," what steps exactly did you do to do that? In your sequence settings, what do your audio settings look like?

[Passionate_Rose15C2]

In my sequence I have 1 video track and 1 audio track. The audio track has a 2 channel wav audio. The audio file is 96kHz 24bit Stereo. Both the video and audio is linked. I select the linked clip on the timeline and pick Merge Clips from the context menu.  After the merge I get 1 video and 2 audio tracks. Audio track 1 has mono audio with left channel. Audio track 2 has mono audio with right channel.

Thank you.

[Brandon Loshe · Accepted solution]

Ok, I got this figured out now finally. From the Adobe staff, I can confirm that "merging clips break stereo and multichannel audio out into separate mono channels" (https://forums.adobe.com/message/5917404#5917404#5917404). It doesn't sound like there's any way around that using the merge clips option. You could just nest or make a new link the clips instead of merging them. But anyway, in your Effects panel, pan your left channel, or Audio Effects 1, hard left (which is -100). Similarly pan your right channel, or Audio Effects 2, hard right (which is 100).

Your audio meters should match and look the same as when it was stereo now.

[Passionate_Rose15C2]

Thank you Brandon for your help and the workaround.

[Brandon Loshe]

My pleasure, good luck with everything!

[jconrad_IHMC]

The thread that the accepted answer links to is over five years old.  There isn't a better solution to this by now?  Are we sure?

[etownp73537854]

It seems pretty ridiculous that you can't merge audio/video clips into a new clip with just a single stereo track (especially if the original audio started as a single stereo track).  I arrived here looking for the same solution.  And now I know that there isn't one. 😞

[LuKBM]

It is pretty ridiculous indeed. You need to merge the video and audio outise of Premiere Pro before importing the file if you want Premiere to keep the stereo tracks paired when you edit...

Anyone knows of an easy and effective software to merge audio tracks to a clip? I tried using Quicktime Pro but for some reason Premiere refuses to import the file afterwards.

Adobe should've solved this thing by now. It's really annoying.

[AVLien]

No, you misunderstand, it's even worse than that. This is about merging audio and video tracks. If I merge a video track (with its own stereo audio) with a stereo audio track, Premier will render a merged track with 1 video track and 4 mono audio tracks. There seems to be no way whatsoever to retain the track's stereo audio, even if it is merged in Audition (/Audacity/whatever DAW) you will lose the stereo tracks and end up with 2 mono for each stereo track you give it.

Don't ask me how the developers saw the word "merge" and said "that means 'split', right?". I'm a developer myself, so I know we can be a bit dense sometimes about end users, but that's completely misunderstanding the English language. It's even ambiguous in the documentation because there's this bit:

...which I understand, but it does alter the clip, just not the original clip. If you scroll to the very bottom of the page, you'll see it:

But I would argue that this is basically a case of "easier to document the bug than fix it". But I agree LuKBM, PP should be able to do this pretty easily, especially since Audition has a mature codebase now. Adobe may soon see people jumping ship to Vegas if they don't keep up wioth users' workflow.

[LuKBM]

It is pretty ridiculous indeed. You need to merge the video and audio outise of Premiere Pro before importing the file if you want Premiere to keep the stereo tracks paired when you edit...

Anyone knows of an easy and effective software to merge audio tracks to a clip? I tried using Quicktime Pro but for some reason Premiere refuses to import the file afterwards.

Adobe should've solved this thing by now. It's really annoying.

[LuKBM]

It is pretty ridiculous indeed. You need to merge the video and audio outise of Premiere Pro before importing the file if you want Premiere to keep the stereo tracks paired when you edit...

Anyone knows of an easy and effective software to merge audio tracks to a clip? I tried using Quicktime Pro but for some reason Premiere refuses to import the file afterwards.

Adobe should've solved this thing by now. It's really annoying.

[LuKBM]

It is pretty ridiculous indeed. You need to merge the video and audio outise of Premiere Pro before importing the file if you want Premiere to keep the stereo tracks paired when you edit...

Anyone knows of an easy and effective software to merge audio tracks to a clip? I tried using Quicktime Pro but for some reason Premiere refuses to import the file afterwards.

Adobe should've solved this thing by now. It's really annoying.

[R Neil Haugen]

I would think the multi-cam process would be much better, and that does allow you the option to select the audio track types. I don't know why so many still try "merge clips".

You could even have a bin with 15 separate video clips, each with a remote audio recording to match, select all, create multicam ... and get 15 "multicam sequences" which you can then treat totally as clips.

Fast, easy ... and you have a better selection of tools while making them and while editing aftewards.

Neil

[Jeannette5CEE]

hi guys wondering if this is still open for discussiion? I have a very long interveiw split into two parts, i am trying to merge them onto one line, so its cleaner.  tried to merge and as you say you loose the sound on the one track. in my case an interview. the right channel jsut dissapears and you only hear my voice and loose the guests vocie. any of you know Audacity? you can merge the the two stereo tracks to just become one long interview without a break line.is this not possible on Audition? it would seems to simple?

[R Neil Haugen]

Not sure I understand what you mean by trying to merge into one line ... two video or audio clips joined, two audio tracks combined to one track, what?

Neil

[Jeannette5CEE]

Hi Neil I have a long interview which is two separate Tascam files. I was recording on a dual setting and the interview after 2 hours clicked into a new file. So it’s one long interview on two separate files I want to just have this audio track as one and not two separate tracks at the moment I have two parts in one line. (From the two tascam files)
I am so new to Audition(before I was using audacity) and the merge functions seem to be different. Literally in audacity the line would disappear on pressing merge and the two files would become one long file, does this make sense. I hope
So!

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[R Neil Haugen]

So you have two files, that should run sequentially?

Neil

[Jeannette5CEE]

Yes sequentially and also as one audio wave (not split in two)

INSPIRATIONAL INTERVIEWS
Stories change lives and make us one!
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[R Neil Haugen]

Simply add them onto the sequence, both on the same track. You can edit that way without any apparent issue, and if you want to, you can simply select that track, and then export as an audio-only file.

Neil

[FocusPulling.com]

Completely disgusted/amazed that this has resulted in the usual pattern:  Adobe ignores this bug/oversight, while compensated Adobe evangelists volley back with "I don't see the problem" responses.

There is NO conceivable reason for the program to force merged clips with stereo content into separate mono audio tracks, besides the typical Adobe entitled Bay Area slacker reason that we know all too well:  they skimmed the feature when coding, and don't want to spend any time fixing it (or their egoes are getting in the way.

This is especially true when selecting the feature to discard of the AV audio clip's content, keeping the content only from a merged stereo audio file.

All that's left is to simply fix this.  It's another bug among thousands that's ruining Adobe brand loyalty (and sending users to the hills for better alternatives).

[R Neil Haugen]

Giving the practical way to get the work out the door is NOT even close to "I don't see the problem". It is in fact recognizing there is a problem to get around. We're just other users, like yourself, who try to get people working again whether they've made a mistake, didn't understand how to do something, or hit something stupid in the program you have to work around to get stuff out the door.

As far as the "Bay area slackers" comment ... rather a mis-stated concept of the Adobe corporation. The company is headquartered in San Jose, yea, but even though Premiere's "home" facility is there, the head of all the DVA apps is from Deutschland, Ae is based out of Seattle, and the main teams for the apps are located in a number of cities around the world. I don't know if even a quarter of the Premiere staffers are in San Jose. I know some are in Seattle, Toronto, or back east in the US alone. The management for the app isn't based in San Jose even.

Now as to merged clips ... yea, that has always been a screwy thing in Premiere. Almost everything about merged clips to me is screwy. Which is why I nearly always use the 'multicam' process instead, as when you can, it's vastly better within the app. But you can't always do so without other penalties.

And yea, it NEEDS fixing. Has for years. And the place to get to the engineers and the upper managers who determine budgets (hint: these people are above the program managers!) is to file things on their UserVoice system. I've upvoted several merged clip comments over the last couple years. Always happy to do more.

Neil