Multicam Flatten does not return the correct audio file

[nicks23366775]

Hi there!

I am having quite a bit of trouble with Premiere's Multicam sequeunces and I cannot tell if this is a bug or not. 

I created a multicam sequence for a 7-Camera Zoom call that has 7 seperate cameras, 7 seperate audio files. I sunc those together in a timeline and used that to edit as a multicam. When I go to deliver, I can flatten the Video tracks and all edits are maintained, all clips properly selected. 

When it comes to flattening the audio sections, it only flattens back to A1, regardless of which camera is slected. 

Example in attached photos:

Track 1 is for reference, showing what the waveform for the A1 in the Multicam sequence is (P1).

Track 2 - I switched the MC audio clip to A4 which is someone's clean empty audio file at that same time (P2).

When I flatten Track 2, it returns back to A1 (P3) and not to the proper audio clip (P4).

Note for picture 4: I manually had to mark the clip, find it in the multicam sequence, copy and paste. 

I did think it was the stereo multicam I had, but when I recreated it with mono audio channels it always puls the A1 clip when flattened.

Is this a bug? Any help would be appreciated!

[samuelk40494738]

Did you ever solve this? Same issue here

[R Neil Haugen]

@Matt_Stegner  or @Warren Heaton or @Jarle Leirpoll  ... ?

[Jarle Leirpoll]

Are the audio clips linked to video clips? For some obscure reason that only Adobe developers can understand, Multicam Flatten will only flatten Multicam Audio that's linked to Multicam Video.  If they're not linked, link them temporarily, and oyu should be able to flatten.

[R Neil Haugen]

Thanks, Jarle!

[Tom_edit]

Still experiencing this in v25.3 😒

[R Neil Haugen]

Did you read Jarle's post?

[Tom_edit]

sure did, it doesn't fix the stated issue however

[Carlos Ziade]

which workflow did you follow to start your multicam sequence?

[Tom_edit]

Nesting and enabling multicam, and creating a multicam sequence from the project window both produce the same result.

[PaulMurphy]

Can you share a screenshot of the tracks inside your multicam and the Audio Track Mixer?

[Tom_edit]

@PaulMurphy 
in multicam;

main timeline;

not really doing anything crazy with my sequences, but I mean this issue for me also occurs in a fresh project file doing nothing but creating a multicam and trying to flatten it 🤷‍:male_sign:

[PaulMurphy]

Your multicamera source sequence is set to Stereo, which is limited to 2 audio channels. To use more channels (so flattening returns the correct audio), you need a Multichannel mix and proper routing.

Important
You can’t change an existing sequence’s mix audio type. Create a new sequence and copy your clips into it.

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Set up a Multichannel sequence

1. Go to File > New > Sequence.
2. Open the Tracks tab.
3. Set Audio Mix to Multichannel.
4. Set Number of Channels to the total you need:
   • 11 if your sources are mono (11 discrete mics).
   • 22 if your sources are stereo (11 stereo pairs).

Tip: Avoid mixing mono and stereo clips in a multicamera source sequence. This can cause unexpected results when flattening. Make clips consistent (all mono or all stereo) before syncing.

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If your audio is mono

• Open the Audio Track Mixer.
• Click Set Track Output Channel Assignment (button to the right, beneath the Panner).
• Assign track pairs to channel pairs (e.g., Tracks 1–2 → Channels 1–2, Tracks 3–4 → Channels 3–4, etc.).
• Pan odd-numbered tracks left and even-numbered tracks right so each pair fills its channel pair correctly.
• In the Project panel, select the sequence clip and choose Clip > Modify > Audio Channels…:
  • Set Clip Channel Format to Mono.
  • Set Number of Audio Clips to 11.

If your audio is stereo

• Open the Audio Track Mixer.
• Click Set Track Output Channel Assignment.
• Assign each track to the next available channel pair (1–2, 3–4, 5–6, etc.).
• In the Project panel, select the sequence clip and choose Clip > Modify > Audio Channels…:
  • Set Clip Channel Format to Stereo.
  • Set Number of Audio Clips to 11.

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Use this sequence as your multicamera source sequence. You should see waveforms for each audio file when you add the sequence to another sequence, and when you flatten the multicam, the audio will correctly match the underlying source sequence.

For a visual walkthrough, this video shows a quick technique to create a sequence with these settings (and how to adapt it for any number of tracks): https://youtu.be/aiVYRuWohZI

[Tom_edit]

While I do appreciate the write up/tutorial, could it not be argued that this is kind of an excessive process to achieve the end goal? A lot of that requires very specific workflows that would just waste more time for my team than would end up being worth it for the few clips I need to flatten per project. Nevermind that we use pluraleyes to sync, not prem, so this would just be 4x more work to do before even starting a project just to work around this whole thing.

The main reason I was even trying to flatten my multicam audio to begin with was because I noticed that izotope effects weren't rendering when the multicam audio was on anything other than track 1, I assume now based off your information because it's being lost in the back end routing - but why can playing the channels back in the main sequence, and the effects themselves work fine but rendering the effects/flattening is suddenly the issue? It becomes a very confusing user experience when half of it works fine and the other half just doesn't because "you're routing it wrong", you know what I mean? especially when if you flatten both aud/vid tracks at the same time it'll select the correct video file, but force you back to A1 - I'm sure the *technically* correct answer makes sense, but logically and as a general user experience it kind of just doesn't.. I'm sure there are likely workflows out there in different production environments where this outcome is ideal (at least I hope so otherwise I'm more cranky), but idk I just wish there was a way to get the more expected behaviour for more basic sequences like this. I don't have the luxury of an AE to set up my project files all pristine and perfect you know haha I kinda just have to import my pluraleyes xml and kick on with it.

Not frustrated with you for clarity, I do appreciate the explanation, even though realistically stepping through so many hoops is just generally more time than it's worth in my team's work. Just seems a little silly for the end user.

[PaulMurphy]

I agree with you that the multicamera workflow could definitely be simplified—especially since dual-system audio is so common in productions these days. Just to clarify, I don’t work for Adobe either. I’m a user like you, and I use multicamera almost every day in my own work. Over time I’ve found ways to make the process less repetitive—for example, in the video I shared earlier, it shows how to build a multicamera sequence that can support any number of audio tracks and then save it as a sequence preset. That way, you don’t have to set it up from scratch every time.

If you’d like to suggest Adobe simplify the process, I recommend posting to the Ideas forum here:
Submit an idea to the Premiere Pro forum

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On effects inside multicam sequences
I don’t recommend applying audio effects directly inside a multicamera sequence. Premiere often requires those effects to be rendered in the main timeline before it can display waveforms.

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Alternative workflows
Some editors prefer to nest only the video tracks for multicamera and leave the audio tracks separate to avoid having to set up any audio routing. Personally, I don’t like this approach because it means losing the ability to link video and audio at the project level—but it can be a faster, simpler method if that tradeoff works better for your team.

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If you need to “unnest” audio
You can unnest audio from a multicamera sequence and bring the original audio clips back into your main timeline:

1. Under the Timeline context menu, enable Multicamera Follows Nest Setting.
2. Disable the Nest button (next to the Snap button under the Timeline timecode).
3. Select the nested sequence in the timeline.
4. Go to Sequence > Match Frame.
5. Disable Source Patching for video, but enable it for all audio tracks.
6. Go to Clip > Overwrite.

If you have multiple clips to unnest, you can speed this up with shortcuts:
F (Match Frame) → . (Overwrite).