Known Participant

Answered

Moving tracks up and down...?

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
August 15, 2009
11 replies
95633 views

So easy to do in PS AE etc, but a real mystery in PP...

And is it possible to insert a track?

Cheers!

Correct answer Colin Brougham

Thanks.

But that is ridiculous. Moving tracks or layers is standard practice in so much other software.

I'm currently working on something that has (at its peak) five small windows with different clips with lots of edits running with their own effects. At times I've wanted to reprioritise a track (to put it above another) so just draggng a track up would have been a quick way of doing it.

How disappointing - and a shame the project is too long for AE!

Currently waiting to see if Encore (having spent an hour transcoding) decides to throw up another error message! And why doesn't it just say there's a problem an hour ago? "Legacy issues" I'm told on the relevant forum. Sheesh....

But that is ridiculous. Moving tracks or layers is standard practice in so much other software.

I assume you're talking about software like After Effects or Photoshop, which contain "layers" and not "tracks" in the way that Premiere Pro, and any other editor for that matter, have them . Perhaps it's a semantic difference, but it's an important one: in Adobe software, a "layer" contains one and only one footage item or graphical element, whereas a "track" can contain one or more footage items or graphical elements. In After Effects, you HAVE to seperate footage items by both time (X-axis) and stacking order (Y-axis)--that's simply how it works. However, with Premiere, you only necessarily have to seperate footage items by time (X-axis)--if you can do everything on one track, so be it.

If you were able to drag tracks up and down in the stacking order (Y-axis), you may be able to achieve the layering effect you want at a certain point in time in your sequence, but you would also change the stacking order for the entire duration of the sequence. This may be what you want, or what you don't want, but I would submit that most people would never need this kind of functionality. How often does one need to completely rearrange the stacking order of an entire sequence? I know that I never need this; it's only small portions of time where I need to rearrange items on the Y-axis. I just think this capability would be so rarely needed that there is no point adding it; it could potentially cause more trouble than good.

I'm currently working on something that has (at its peak) five small windows with different clips with lots of edits running with their own effects. At times I've wanted to reprioritise a track (to put it above another) so just draggng a track up would have been a quick way of doing it.

You might consider nesting each track (or track segment) in its own sequence, so at least you're only dragging one element up and down, instead of multiple small clips. Just add one empty track to serve as a temporary landing zone, that you can move an individual nest into, and then continue to reshuffle until you get the order you want. I realize this isn't what you really want, but it's the best workaround I can think of.

How disappointing - and a shame the project is too long for AE!

Why is it too long for AE? After Effects has something like a 3 or 4-hour limit to a comp, which I imagine would be pretty difficult for most people to exceed. It would be a bit of a pain to manage, I suppose, but you could do it.

Alternately, if you've got the suite and therefore Dynamic Link, just select the clips in the section of timeline you're trying to work with, and select Replace with After Effects Composition. That chunk of timeline will be sent to AE and the clips will be stacked as individual layers in the same order they're in in the PPro sequence. From there, you can organize and reorganize things to your heart's content, and that will be reflected in your PPro sequence. You may want to consider creating nested sequences in PPro first, because those will be recreated in your AE comp as nested precomps. Might make layer management a bit more friendly.

MyerPj

Community Expert

Hey @Haakon22906406yy7h , Harm's answer from 13 years ago, did not seem so bad. He's been dead now for a couple of years, so I doubt he'll be needing your advice. He was a legend for his time on the hardware forum. This whole thread was from 2009. So, you're a little late. 🙂

F

floamdaddy

Participating Frequently

Annnnnnd 12 years later....

MyerPj

Community Expert

It won't do any good posting here with a snappy reply to an old post.

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro
User Voice is where the Adobe engineers look for bug reports, enhancement requests, etc. The urgency for bug reports or new features can be judged by how many of us users upvote the requests. You can search for similar requests using the search feature at the lower right. It's best to upvote a request that has some traction (votes) already, and you can upvote and reply to that thread. If you don't find one the matches your request, then enter a new one. Regardless, post a link back here so those seeing this thread can upvote also.

D

Danijel Kurinčič

Participant

Sorry, I didn't hear that, what did you say?

Yes, I am being sarcastic. It sickens me when I see a reply like this. Only to a company that doesn't give two ants asses about their users it seems logical that only feedback that comes from a specific tool (uservoice) is any good.

D

default6zxflo1krwma

Participant

I was using After Effects and Sony Vegas for past years. Now i have started to study Davinci Resolve, but wanted to give Premiere a try... I was so confused when i tried to move a track down, but nothing happened... I just can't understand how this basic feature can be missed in later 2021... in software based on video and audio REARRANGE functionality

R Neil Haugen

Legend

I presume you're talking about the way audio tracks do not move up/down in opposite motion when you move the video tracks, after they've been placed on a sequence in the Timeline panel?

As you move video to the left or right on a timeline, the audio will be moved along with it horizontally in Premiere. But they assume that most editors have their audio tracks set to the Track Mixer with submixes and such. In such a case, you would not want your audio track jumping up or down, where it might get put in a different submix.

And yes, that's a difference between PrPro and some other NLEs.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Karel BataAuthor

Known Participant

Blimey.

I posted the original question 11 years ago! People are still talking about it...

It's weird reading through the answers. I don't recognise myself. Who's that knowledgable articulate guy?

LOL

carlc53565279

Participating Frequently

I'm very late to this discussion but it seems like the feature is still not available. I'm working on a choir video, 25 voices/faces and now that I've got everyone on a track and synced, it would be nice to start organizing track order by simply dragging tracks up or down...yes, the same can be done by dragging the videos from track to track but I wouldn't have to worry about loosing sync if I just was dragging the whole track. Just my two cents on this.

Carl

Ann Bens

Community Expert

Use the track select forward/backward tool to move images from a track up or down.

D

Danijel Kurinčič

Participant

(it seems i can not delete an answer, hmm)

MyerPj

Community Expert

Yes, a shortcoming of this forum software. We had that useful feature in the previous forum.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Ahh ... 2017. I've still got that installed on my desktop. Even used it a month or so back to re-touch an old project. Heck, I've even got 2015.2 loaded still. As with that one, SpeedGrade (which I also still have installed) is usable via that wondrous Direct Link.

But I'm not even running back to SpeedGrade like I used to. The newer apps have more and better things, and are working well, including color correction.

What specific things are requiring you to stay in 2017? Hardware issues, what? Out of curiousity.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

I agree it would be very handy to say grab a track header and drag or "nudge" it up or down. And this should be possible. The best (and simplest) UserVoice request for this I've seen is this one ... and yes, I've voted for it.

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/34734694-change-the-tracks-order-on-the-timeline

But your response can come across in some ways as condescending as that you see in Colin's post. It's a matter of perspective, isn't it?

And part of your response makes no sense to me ... why would you spend all the time moving a track the way you say is the only way possible in Premiere, when you can quickly select all on a track with the mouse, and then either drag it up/down with the mouse or use Alt-up/down to move that track up or down ... in a matter of seconds. ( I get we shouldn't have to ... but I also get doing what works now while asking for better UI.)

Given that with the Add Tracks dialog you can add tracks between current tracks, it takes a few seconds to add a new open track somewhere specific, select all on a currect track, and drag them there. Saying this can only be done in hours is a bit ... over board.

And all the audio work or video work done on a track stays with the track as you move it up or down ... why recreate it? I don't get that part.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

M

morymb1

Participating Frequently

You should absolutely be able to move entire tracks on the video timeline up or down to re-arrange them.

Alt/up-down on a newly created and renamed open track seems the best solution until the actual track rearrange feature is implemented. I'm still on 2017.

S

Suntower

Participating Frequently

I feel ya. I want this feature about 100 times a day now.

I think the people who don't see the need for this feature are older 'get the razor blade' types. No disrespect to them, but they're just so jazzed to not have to physically cut tape they don't understand that the bar has been raised.And my guess is they don't do many music videos.

It's what I call a 'micro-wave moment'. I never understood what all the fuss was about 'micro-wave ovens'. Until I got one. Now? I couldn't imagine not having one.

Other video editors -do- offer this feature and yeah -every- DAW does this.

The reason people want this is because we want to experiment! Duhhhhhhhhhhhh! We don't always 'storyboard'. We don't know what we want until we see it. We want to figure it out in the editing process. We're just moving junk around until -something- looks cool. There's no plan! I'm doing music videos and I wanna be able to instantly try lots of clips at various points in the song to see what looks coolest.

How this is used in DAWs is for 'comping'... creating a final take of, say, a vocal performance, from several takes. You move the tracks up and down to audition which version of each phrase sounds best because, as with Premiere, the top-most track is the one that 'plays'. That's what I want to do for video... instantly be able to audition which clip looks best at different points.

So... where does one post a feature request? I got toooooooons of 'em!

---JC

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

In my years, I could probably have used this 3-4 times, though it's easy to see how others might use it much more.

Now, my stuff is not so "free form," and there is usually a script, even if just in my head, so my experimentation comes with my Effects and my Keyframes. Also, I do not do music videos, though many are edited to music, or the music is edited to them. I'm also a person, who grew up with cutting 1/4" audio tape on a splicing block, before I got my two 4-channel reel-to-reels, so I guess that I'm just happy to not have to do that anymore.

Each day, I still marvel at the joy and the power of doing work in an NLE. There were too many all-nighters over a Moviola, even the 8-plate unit that I got to work on sometimes. See, I remember when Bins were really "bins," and miles of film was hung from their racks. Oh, what I could have done with an NLE, way back when...

That Feature Request form is a good thing. I would urge all, who could use this feature, to post a request. Do not know how hard it would be for Adobe to add it, but they never will, unless they know that users could really use it.

Good luck,

Hunt

S

Suntower

Participating Frequently

Where is the feature request form?

---JC

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

For anyone coming upon this thread later, HERE is a similar, and slightly more recent one. Now, there are links to each, from the other.

Hunt

shooternz

Legend

And yes - a solo button would be great! That's something I've found myself looking for too.

I assume you found the Solo Button in Premiere It is there in the Mixer panel.

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

Craig,

As I understand the two posters' desires, it is not the isolation of the Audio Tracks, but the physical dragging of ones, already populated up/down the order in the Timeline. I do this by just Adding/Deleteing Video, or Audio Tracks, as PrPro does not allow a Click-drag to move the entire Track into a new order. It's how these Tracks display in the vertical hierarchy in the Timeline, that they wish to alter on the fly.

However, I could have missed something.

Hunt

adumi

Participant

Moving tracks up and down would be (to my opinion and workflow) a great comfort when working in the PR space tight environement.

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

Some users, especially if they come from a DAW background agree with you. Strong evidence is in this thread, and plenty of older ones.

Now, I spread out over dual 21" monitors, plus have become accustomed to doing things the PrPro way, so I do not even know if I would use the Click-drag method much, even if initiated in a later upgrade - maybe, but maybe not. [Remember I am one of those "old dogs," that your grandfather told you about, and we know how they take to "new tricks?"]

I'd file a Feature Request (linked up thread), as there might be enough clamor for this, that Adobe would implement it. I do not think it would be THAT hard, but am not a coder, so maybe it is flat impossible at this date. If there was a good time for implementing it, it would have been between Pr 6.5 and PrPro 1.0, because that was a total rewrite.

Hunt

Show more replies

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded