Mute toggles on for no reason

[alexk50637348]

Sooooo, I ABSOLUTELY hate the new Premiere Pro update.  Its the worst I have ever used, and I am astounded that they have got it this WRONG.  So upsetting.

But I have a technical issue that I wonder if anyone else is having.  For no apparent reason the Mute button on one of my tracks keeps turning on when I am playing back video.  It keeps happening at random times.  Does anyone know why?

[michaels6986552]

Just stopping in to shed a little gratitude on this solution.

Thank you!

Learned quite a few things from these steps and even avoided monitor punching (I am drinking coffee though so that might have kept me at bay).

[Merry.G]

WOW So Thx!!!!

[remy21764315owu1]

thank you sir!

[The Stringpullers]

I was at my wits end, and this worked. I had been hitting mute during playback, as described above, and that made invisible keyframes I didn't know existed. You saved my monitor from Step 7! Thanks so much!

[Ruan22036608njzo]

I can not thank you enough for posting this. I only managed to skip step 7 because it's a new 21-inch curved wide monitor. 

[mstegner]

In the interest of thoroughness, this setting can be accessed here also:
1. Open "Window> Audio Track Mixer..."

2. Below the Audio Track Panner, and above the Audio Track Mute, Solo, Record buttons there will be a dropdown with these settings available: Off, Read,Latch, Touch, Write.
3. For any track that is randomly muting, set the dropdown from "Read" to "Off".

This will turn off any Track Level automation for that track.

[defaultp29k6hvcuap6]

you have just saved me from many headaches - cheers!

[Kranite]

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!

[Fine Art P]

Thank you! This was driving me nuts. 

[STUDIODIMEDIA]

Ho eretto una statua con il tuo nome sotto grazie mille !!!!!

[Repeetpro]

Thank you!!

[ez0es]

I can't get to steps 

1. Click the "Show Keyframes" button that's now available when you expand the track header.
2. Within the "Track Keyframes" dropdown menu that appears, select "Mute."
   
   All thats in my my show keyframes is volume and pan?!

[mstegner]

You migh tneed to make the track headers wider and taller to see the "Show Keyframes" button
An easier way to defeat the keyframing is to open "Window>Audio Track Mixer..." and set the tracks from Read to Off.

[martynhudson]

This should be pinned, you are amazing! Also step 7 needs to be moved to step 1.

[R Neil Haugen]

As another user, I KNOW how frustrating this audio mixer controls stuff is at times. It certainly has been as much a puzzlement for me as for anyone else. And as frustrating.

And as a simply practical manner, I'll try to explain a bit how to just get it working. Whether you like this "solution" isn't relevant. It simply is how to get work done without nasty surprises. As things are, now, today. (And of course please keep talking about ideas to make it easier to use!)

First thing I always suggest,  is NEVER do audio stuff with the Track Mixer panel unless you are using a purpose-built Audio workspace ... mine is customized from their workspace.

Why? Because you need to have the 'full' Track Mixer, everything twirled down, so you SEE any effects you've added up top of each channel, AND what the Mode is set to at the bottom. This stops most of the surprises.

And further ... the key to understanding how this all works is actually in Matt's comment that this was built as ... and in the same manner ... as a DAW ... a digital audio workstation.

It behaves differently than about anything else in the program, which is built as an NLE ... a non linear editor.

Hence, as a practical matter, the users need to learn at least a bit of how a DAW is structured, and built, to use the track mixer well.

And that's ... frustrating, coming in as an editor, no question!

But ... in order to have the full capabilities of a DAW which we all, in the end, need ... it's designed to function as one.

Having spent a lot of time talking with devs at live events like NAB, and with highly skilled and experienced audio people, and other frustrated editors ... I don't know any way to 'fix' this.

Most of the skilled audio people do not want this changed. They want additions to this, not deletions of behavior ... in order to do their work without having to schlepp over to Audtion. Which is actually pretty easy though even that can be amazingly confusing.

There are truly confusing things that Matt talks of in his posts above. Some of the things like accidentally changed modes, that surprise people. Somehow, that need to be more obvious. Tool-tips or something?

Because you can barely tick or touch your scroll wheel while passing the cursor across the screen, and yes, if that happens while going over the bottom of a Track mixer channel, it changes the "mode". Which you will not be expecting.

I've done that I don't know how many times.

Neil

[SuccessWaffle]

I've been trying to figure this out with a colleague for the last 6+ months. Indeed deleting the "mute" keyframes works, but we're still trying to figure out why they are getting added in the first place.

As we were troubleshooting today, we figured out that Audio Track 1 on his sequence is getting set to "Touch" automation mode instead of the default "Read". In Touch mode, a mute keyframe is set whenever playback is stopped, if he's been using the track mute while editing.

We've tried changing it back to "Read", but it keeps turning back to "Touch" when he's not looking (even just doing something in another program). We haven't figured out what's causing this yet.

So his workaround for now is just the boycott Track 1 for now.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi SuccessWaffle,
I let engineering know about your situation. Sorry about that. Is it possible to file a bug report on User Voice? Here is the link: https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro. That way, the community can upvote.

Thanks,
Kevin

[mstegner · Accepted solution]

Matt from Adobe here.  I looked at this and am not seeing anything out of the ordinary with recent build of Premiere.  It appears to be working as it should.  

Premiere has many elements of a Digital Audio Workstation built into it.  The track automation system is one of those (it has also been there for well over a decade also, so this isn’t new).  WIth these types of automation systems, they were meant to replicate working on analog audio hardware, when an audio engineer could reach out and move multiple faders and knobs in realtime as the audio “Mix” was performed on a large mixing desk.  When audio mixing was moved into the computer, and the sole manipulation device was a single mouse, the workflow needed to be modified.  Realtime parameter automation was the result.  This is what Premiere has.  It is a powerful tool, with a relatively steep learning curve for novices.  I suspect that you might be hitting some of the quirks of how Premiere has implemented the audio automation.  This might be particularly difficult to understand if you come from Avid or Final Cut Pro 7.  Less so if you have ever mixed audio in Pro Tools or Audition.

Essentially, Premiere can record any audio changes in realtime, and then play them back to facilitate performing a “mix”.  Another way to think about: This is automatic keyframeing (or rubber banding) based on the mode selected.  One of the catches for this automation system is that, as a user, once you enter certain modes, keyframes will be written by just playing though the timeline, overwriting existing keyframes, or accidentally adding keyframes but just hitting the mute button or other audio manipulation.  So, if you accidentally put Premiere into one of these modes, simple pressing play will start writing keyframes, and more importantly, following the keyframe automation that already exists.  This can freak out new users that are not expecting it since it seems that Premiere is doing things on its own.  It is not, it is just play back the keyframes.  Premiere could to better with showing when there is keyframe data being followed to avoid issues like the ones above, but that would be for future updates.

[mstegner]

One quirk that might be some of the cause of this confusion:

When you have the Audio Track Mixer open, and you hover you mouse over the Automation dropdown, if you scroll your mouse wheel (or two finger scroll on a laptop track pad) Premiere will scroll the available setting in that dropdown, which might accidentally set the automation mode with out you noticing.  Remember that track keyframes will be written during playback if you have one of these modes selected: Touch, Latch, Write

My guess for the above is that the Track Automation was accidentally turned on.  Then, while you were playing and muting various tracks, Premiere was busy recording those changes as track automation.  When playing back, Premiere was just following the track automation as It is designed to do.  Literally, it is a feature not a bug.

[mstegner]

I can quickly cover how to see the different types of automation and how to turn it on and off:

Audio Track Keyframe Automation:  

This is controlled via the Audio Clip Mixer.  For each track there is a dropdown right below the track Pan knob, with one of these names labeled:  Off, Read, Touch, Latch, Write.  If you hover over the dropdown the tool tip will say “Automation Mode”.  This is where you turn on and off the track keyframe automation.  If  you find that an audio track is doing something that you don’t expect, look here first, and set the track to “Off”. This tells Premier to ignore all track automation (including audio track effects).  I can go into what the different modes mean and how they perform later.  The most important is to know that this dropdown can be accidentally turned on and Premiere will start writing keyframes during a simple play of the timeline.
You can view the various track keyframes by clicking on the “Show Keyframes” icon in the track header and selecting the approbate keyframe (in the above cases it would be “Track Keyframes>Mute…” selection).  This changes the Premier track to show the Track automation, away from the clip keyframes, also called Rubber Bands.  Note that when viewing Track Keyframes, you cannot interact with clips in the timeline the same way you can when viewing Clip Keyframes.

Audio Clip Keyframe Automation:

This is similar to track automation, but the automation is added to clips instead of the tracks.  This type of automation can interact with the more commonly used clips volume automation, AKA the rubber bands.

The Clip Automation recording is controlled via the Audio Clip Mixer.  Clicking on the “Write Keyframes” button (next to the Mute and Solo buttons) turns clip automation recording on and off.  To set the various automation modes, right click on the Audio Clip Mixer three bars menu (sometimes called the hamburger menu) and select either “Keyframe Latch Mode” or “Keyframe Touch Mode”.  Also note that is the Write Automation is turned on, during playback, new keyframes will be written to the clips in the timeline as you play and manipulate the clip, including clip effects.  Any keyframes will also appear in the Effect Control Panel, as regular Keyframes.

To stop recording automation on clips, just turn off the “Write Keyframes” button.  Premiere will still follow existing keyframes on clips unless the keyframes are ignored in the Effects Control Panel.

[chipwarren]

This is not a "solved" answer. The others are correct. Interesting how no one ever replied to the guy when the issue wasn't resolved. I'm having the same issue and this was no help.

[mindwatermedia]

just plain NO dude - and so dismissive a tone for an employee.
dunno what kind of white washing you're doing here to get your answer marked as 'the answer' when it is CLEARLY NOT the answer.

Premier has not been setting the track mode for A1 to read for the last 10 years.

"It is a powerful tool, with a relatively steep learning curve or novices."
I'm not a novice, and yes I've edited, mixed and the like on synced boards.

"once you enter certain modes, keyframes will be written by just playing though the timeline, overwriting existing keyframes, or accidentally adding keyframes but just hitting the mute button or other audio manipulation.  So, if you accidentally put Premiere into one of these modes, simple pressing play will start writing keyframes"

Blaming your users, when a new setting appears is NOT customer support.  "Track Automation was accidentally turned on. "
Provide us the date where track automation was forced on us - because previously, a person had to set it - which makes sense.  Having a handy button next to the track for muting it manually - has been the case from the beginning.

[mstegner]

Sorry if there was some misunderstanding with my response.  I wasn't attempting to blame any user at all (or be dismissive in any way), I was literally just trying to generally educate a little on this subject, and be factual.  This is a public forum, so I will try to add long, thorough answers so users that have searched for this same issue in the future can find this in a search, and read though my explanation of how an under-documented feature works.  That is all I was trying to do here.  

I've worked with these applications for a very long time, and have noticed quirks and things that trip up users repeatedly, such as the issue I mentioned with the scroll wheel hover-over action on the Automation drop down.  It was noting more than an attempt to try to help point out some strangeness with the way Premiere works as I've seen it trip up customers before.  

"I'm not a novice,and yes I've edited, mixed and the like on synced boards"  My post was not directed at mindwatermedia, but was there to educate users that don't have the same level of experience that mindwatermedia has.

"Provide us the date where track automation was forced on us".  The functionality of the Automation drop down has not changed since Premiere Pro 1.0.  The hover over scroll behavior I mentioned has not changed since probably Premiere Pro 2.0.  This is a little hazy as I started working at Adobe in 2005 close to when it was implemented.  There have been no other forced changes to when Automation is enabled or disabled since then that I can remember, so as far as I know this has not changed in a very long time.  I investigated to see if there was a bug, and I was unable to find any deviant behavior.  Please, if someone reading this can show me I would love to see a video or get on a phone call to see this behavior so I can documented it to be fixed.  Respond to this post and I will contact you directly.

"Premier has not been setting the track mode for A1 to read for the last 10 years."  The default has been set to Read since Premiere Pro 1.0 (2003).

[Luke7983]

through all this bickering, did someone explain how to get the track to stop auto muting? 

want track no auto mute. how?

if someone could explain it to me in a sentence a caveman would understand that would be nice. 

thank you.

[mstegner]

Open your Audio Track Mixer, set the track that is getting muted to the "Off" in the dropdown below the Pan knob.