When two people talk at the same time, automatically split into left and right channel?

[avpromedia]

I have a video interview of two people. Ocassionally, both talked at the same time.

Fortunately, I have a lapel mic on each person. In those ocassions, I'm thinking of putting the left person's audio on the left speaker, and the right person's audio on the right speaker. This way viewers can choose to lean to one side if they want to hear that person more clearly.

But when only one person is talking, I want that voice to come out of *both* speakers.

Is there a way to set this up to happen automatically so I don't have to find and edit each occurance?

Some sort of speech channel ducking?

How else can you handle two people talking at the same time?

[Mike Dziennik · Accepted solution]

Unconventional for sure. I'd be inclined to have the audio panned right the way through if it's an issue,

Otherwise, there is no way I can conceive of to have this happen automatically. Premiere would need to know exactly when both contributors were speaking over the top of each other and it doesn't have this functionality.

I suggest you put your mix on one track and the lapel mics on separate tracks panned to the corresponding side. You can then duck the mix and pull up the lapels when this happens.

One better: set up a multicam with the same video but switch the audio between 2 cams (mix on Cam1 and panned lapels on Cam2). Then you can switch the multicam angle when you wish to hear the panned tracks...and switch back again afterwards. You could add an audio disolve on the edits to smooth them out.

[neil wilkes]

I would go as far as to say that hard panning to left/right with 2 people talking at the same time will be an extremely uncomfortable listen, if not outright irritating.

Can I ask what the logic is here please, out of sheer interest?