Sync Lock not respected during Ripple Delete

[TheEditWolf]

Hi everyone,
I have encountered what I believe might be a bug or at least inconsistent behavior in Adobe Premiere Pro regarding Sync Lock and Ripple Delete.

Here's the situation:

When Sync Lock is enabled on multiple tracks, everything works as expected. Using Ripple Delete removes content across all synced tracks, while tracks with Sync Lock disabled remain untouched - which is correct.

However, here's the problem:
If I perform a Ripple Delete on a track where Sync Lock is disabled, Premiere still removes content from other tracks where Sync Lock is enabled. In my understanding, this should not happen. If Sync Lock is disabled on the track I'm editing, the delete operation should not affect any other tracks, regardless of their Sync Lock state.

To be clear:

Ripple Delete on Sync-Locked tracks works fine.

Ripple Delete on Sync-Unlocked tracks should not affect Sync-Locked tracks, but it currently does.

This behavior seems inconsistent with how Sync Lock is supposed to work - essentially breaking the very concept of protecting track sync through Sync Lock.

To be absolutely clear:

Try using Ripple Delete to cut out a middle section of music on a track where Sync Lock is disabled. You'll find it's impossible without disabling Sync Lock on all other tracks - which defeats the purpose of the feature.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a known issue or am I missing something?

Thanks in advance!

[jamieclarke]

HI @TheEditWolf -  If you’re using the Ripple Delete keyboard shortcut, make sure that sync lock is turned off and the track is not highlighted otherwise, it may affect unintended tracks.

If you’re trimming instead, only sync lock needs to be turned off to prevent that track from trimming along with others.

[TheEditWolf]

Hi jamieclarke,

Thanks for the quick reply. There might be something in your answer that I wasn't aware of yet. Unfortunately, I still don’t quite understand it correctly, it seems.

I’m aware that there are two main ways to use Ripple Delete:

1. I select a clip and press Ripple Delete. In this case, I don't need to highlight any track.

2. I use Mark In and Mark Out to define a range I want to delete. For this, it's important to highlight the specific track where I want to apply Ripple Delete.

So far, so good.

Now imagine a simple sequence: an interview with video on V1, corresponding audio on A2, and music on A3.
If I want to delete parts of the interview but keep the music untouched, I disable Sync Lock on the music track A3. That works perfectly.

However, if I want to cut part of the music instead, just disabling Sync Lock on music track A3 is not enough - I have to disable Sync Lock on all other tracks as well. With just three tracks, that’s manageable. But when editing larger sequences with 20 tracks, this method becomes extremely cumbersome.

There’s also no real benefit to disabling Sync Lock on a single track if all other tracks still get shifted during a Ripple Delete or Insert Edit.
Please don’t hit me for bringing up Avid Media Composer - but in Avid, Sync Lock works as it should: I disable Sync Lock on a single track (let’s say music on A3), and I can work freely on that track without affecting any of the others.

I really believe Sync Lock is not functioning correctly in Premiere Pro in this context. I’ll have to live with it, I suppose - but it does feel like a clunky workaround is needed to compensate for what seems to be a design flaw.

That said, maybe you’re on to something with your suggestion. I’ve experimented again a lot with highlighted tracks, but Premiere still doesn’t behave the way I’d expect it to.

If you’d be willing to think through this with me again - which I’d truly appreciate - it’s important to understand exactly where I see the problem:
I want to unlock a single track and work freely on it without endangering the sync of all other tracks.

Thanks so much in advance for your effort.
Michael

[jamieclarke]

Hi @TheEditWolf - I really appreciate the level of detail you’re providing.

Based on what you’ve described, it sounds like the key issue may be that the A1 source patch (the blue box in the track header) is still active when you’re performing the Ripple Delete. For Sync Lock to behave as expected especially if you’re trying to exclude a track like music from being affected you’ll want to disable Sync Lock on that track and also make sure the A1 patch isn’t active (i.e., the box isn’t blue). If the source patch is active, Premiere will still include that track in the operation even if Sync Lock is off.

Some users also get around this by simply locking the track they don’t want to be affected, which can be more reliable when working with complex timelines.

[TheEditWolf]

Hi jamieclarke,
Thank you so much for your patience with me. I can see that you're expecting exactly the same behavior from Premiere that I am. Now I just need to convince you that, unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

To help clarify things and rule out potential user error, I’ve taken two screenshots showing the state before and after using Ripple Delete. I want to cut the music on track A3, and I absolutely do not want any other track to be affected. Sync Lock is disabled on A3, and that track - no other - is highlighted. Yet, all other tracks are still being deleted as well.

I really hope the images show that Premiere is behaving incorrectly in this case.

It’s also possible that a particular setting might be influencing this behavior, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find it yet.

Thanks again for your patience.
Michael

[ScottSimmons]

In your second image, The behavior is expected of all the tracks getting ripple deleted. You would expect the Ripple Delete to affect the tracks where sync lock is turned on. A1 and all the video. You turned the sync lock off on A3, but you still have the A3 track target toggled on in blue. So it will still ripple delete. The track toggle in a sense will supersede the sync lock in that case. 

If I'm reading this correctly, comments are saying that if you turn off one single sync lock on a track and ripple delete, all the other tracks should also be ripple deleted, even if their sync lock is turned on. If I'm understanding what you're asking, I would very much disagree as the sync lock is very track-dependent as it should be. 

[TheEditWolf]

Hello ScottSimons,

I’m a bit confused about whether you agree with me or not. Maybe it would help if you could tell me how I can shorten the music on A3 without affecting the other tracks. Because without the A3 track target toggle turned on in blue, ripple delete won’t work since Premiere doesn’t know which track I want to delete from.

[ScottSimmons]

@TheEditWolf To only make an extract/ripple delete on audio track 3 you would have to have sync locks turned off for other tracks and the blue toggle turned on for A3. You're correct that w/o the blue toggle on, PPro doesn't know where to make the extraction. This would be the same in Avid, with sync locks turned off in Avid, just togglethe A3 track on and you can make an extraction only on that track.  Where PPro differs from Avid is if you have all the Sync locks turned on and you just turn off sync lock for A3, PPro will still extract every track which makes sense to me as Sync Lock is on for every track (assuming you have the A3 blue track target on).

It's just different from the same sync lock Avid behavior as it's a different tool. I think Avid editors tend to leave sync locks all off way more that PPro editors so when I teach switchers I'll often advise to leave all of PPro's sync locks off as you learn it if you're that kind of Avid editor. But that said, PPro doesn't have the easy Sync Lock toggle all but clicking in the timecode track which is missed dearly. Nor is there a keyboard shortcut which would also be nice. 

If you don't know the swipe shortcut in PPro then it's a good one to help with this, recently added:

Tool Tip Tuesday for Adobe Premiere Pro: Swipe the Timeline Track Controls

[TheEditWolf]

Good, I’m very glad that you understood my suggestion so well, and I appreciate that Premiere has its own unique approach, even if it differs from what I expect.

As someone who works with both Avid and Adobe, I would love to see this function behave consistently across both platforms. In my experience, Avid handles this aspect quite elegantly - especially when sync lock is actively used.

I hope more editors like Ali Jaber and sabine_7781 share their perspectives as well, as it could be valuable feedback for future improvements. After all, small workflow adjustments - like not having to disable sync lock on all tracks just to work on one - could really enhance the professional experience in Premiere.

[ScottSimmons · Accepted solution]

I don't disagree that that would be a useful change. You could file it as a feature request, but honestly, I feel like it probably wouldn't get much traction. Partly because there is, I would guess, a tiny percentage of Premiere users who actually actively use Sync Locks. And partly because it's such a niche, more "pro" feature. I don't feel like that's Adobe's focus right now. 

A number of editors have been actively lobbying Adobe to fix one of the most annoying things: where it will automatically add tracks in the timeline if you've got more tracks in the Source monitor. It has been discussed over and over. I even ended up writing a post called My single most hated feature in Adobe Premiere Pro as a way to articulate the issue outside of multiple forum posts and Twitter threads and things like that. All we ask is a simple checkbox like is available in AVID and Resolve. It's been discussed ad nauseam for years, but never addressed. 

[ScottSimmons]

And if you'd like a little background on this "pro" feature of disabling PPro's automatically adding of audio tracks @TheEditWolf then head over to this thread that has been running for a couple of  years:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-ideas/remove-auto-add-audio-tracks/idi-p/13515717#commen...

It actually goes back before that thread was started, back when there was the old User Voice forums where folks could vote on stuff. 

[TheEditWolf]

I have read the thread. You have my absolute agreement on this one.

[Ali Jaber]

I did some tests and I agree, when turning off sync-lock of a certain track, ripple edit operations should not affect other tracks.

The current behavior should be treated as a bug to be fixed.

[sabine_7781]

I understand exactly what TheEditWolf means. You have to laboriously de-sync all other tracks before you can work on just that one track – without affecting the others. That's not time-efficient, to say the least. Especially if the timeline contains many tracks. Workarounds like completely locking the other tracks are just as impractical. I'm used to working differently with the other NLE (Avid), just as TheEditWolf described. And the Avid way simply makes sense. If a sensible solution could be found, I'd be more than happy.