Why is Premiere pro with 3rd party audio plugins (mostly waves) unusable?

[davidtarrodi]

I use Premiere Pro for all my work and I cannot believe that Adobe insist on editors moving to a whole new app for audio mixing (audition) to make a final edit for every production you make - mainly becuase all features I need to make an audio mix is already in PRP - BUT things aren't working as smooth as they should considering PRP i sold as a "high end editing platform for professionals". The audio track mixer hasn't been updated since I don't know when and the plugins I use (and a whole lot of other professional audio engineers) will simply not run smooth in Premiere. It is so strange since it seems so very basic to e.g. get a small VST compressor to work smooth in a mixer. (and I can't believe the inserts in the mixer are "locked" so you cannot rearrange, copy or paste them after putting them in the mixer ???)

My top issue is my Waves 10.0 plugins. I have never had a nice experience with them in Premiere - but I still choose this sluggish performance over the very destructive way to hop over to Audition and make my audio mix there.

I use Premiere Pro 2019 v13.1.2 and Waves 10.0.0.16 and the things that not work is simply changing the parameters inside of the plugin. When dragging let's say the threshold of a compressor the plugin won't respond until I let go of the knob and then it can be way off what I intended - and it has been like this with every version of PRP and every version of Waves I've come across last 5 years. It is in other words unusable BUT I still choose these plugins over Audition since I still manually can type the values I want and let's face it it's not that many parameters to work with so it should be easy to build a PRP version that can handle these plugins.

And yes - waves plugins are way better than to ones included with Premiere. I just don't find the compressors, EQs etc. good enough to value them over sluggish performance in my Waves plugins. Please add the simple code to PRP to make third party audio plugins run smooth. It is such a basic thing - even completely free video editors I've tested handle these plugins better than PRP.

I have considered moving to Davinci Resolve - when testing it for 1hour I was amazed how smooth even the editing was compared to Premiere, not to mention how well my waves plugins worked, and it's unbelievable that PRP is so slow in so many sections considering how much I pay for the software every year.

Let me know If I'm missing out on something about why my waves plugins don't work.

My Specs:

Windows 10 64bit

1x512gb SSD for System

4x4tb Raid 0 HDD for Media

1x1tb NVMe M.2 for Cache

1x4tb SSD for Proxy

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

[R Neil Haugen]

Editing audio in Audition is only destructive if you edit by clip. Don't.

Edit in Audition by sequence, it sends the whole sequence over in multi-track version and works very nicely.

Neil

[davidtarrodi]

I understand that the workflow "Premiere > Audition > back to Premiere" is working for some people but still, if the only thing I need to do in my audio post production process simply is putting some compressors, limiters etc. in a track mixer, why shouldn't this be possible in a smooth and trouble free way in the track mixer that is already present in Premiere? Why put a track mixer in there if it can't handle simple tasks the right way?

Ok - and how do I get the audio mix back to Premiere and apply it to my timeline so that I can make further adjustments to the edit after the audio mix is done? A none destructive workflow would allow this - but if this was possible, why couldn't Adobe implement the audio features that is in Audition to Premiere instead? At least the simple things like re-arranging inserts in the mixer and some more fine tuned clip volume controls? All the essential audio parameters are basically in Premiere already, the only problem is they haven't bothered updating them for a couple of years. It makes me wonder in what direction they are heading for the future updates, not to mention the last "overwhelming" new feature "free form view" in the browser window - what is this anyway? I get that it can be helpful to some people that make short fast edits for their social media channels but if Adobe Premiere claim to be a professional editor they should at least make the pro-things work before thinking of adding features like "now you can arrange your clips as a storyboard before you make your edit" - I think it's stupid. Makes me want to change editor to e.g. Davinci Resolve where everything works as it should according to me.

Don't get me wrong, I love Adobe in many ways, dynamic link with AE and the ability to copy paste things like time-remapping between the apps and there are tones of features that makes me use Adobe - but my life would be so much easier if the things above would work as they should in Premiere. I make A lot of audio editing in Premiere already when I'm editing the actual film and I find it very inconvenient to need to changes program just to make the "final adjustments". If I had to hand over the audio to someone else, that someone could tell me which program she or he would want to use but If I'm doing it myself I would rather stay in the same environment for the whole process.

[R Neil Haugen]

All edits from Audition should appear in the ECP in Premiere when you save them from Audition.

So it should have much more functionality for you

And the freeform view is the first time for me that the thumbnail view of the project panel has a real usable function. As it is for many.

We all work differently.

Neil

[davidtarrodi]

To me it seems, the only way to get the edits back to premiere is to "export each track as a stem" or "mixdown session to". Can you explain ECP? Save what from audition? As a session file? Nothing happens in Premiere when I save the audition session.

Waves plugins work smooth in Audition but this still doesn't answer my initial question. Why aren't they working in Premiere? Aren't they supposed to? Am I the only one using waves plugins in Premiere?

[SpaceCherryFilms]

I’m using Waves v9 and having the exact same problem in CC2019 v13.1. When I updated to the newest version of premiere it was resolved.  But I had to downgrade back to 13.1 b/c Newest version had way too many bugs, which adobe just doesn’t want to fix. 

[davidtarrodi]

Exactly - why release a new version when it is still full of bugs? that's why I find Black Magic Design much more reliable. They have Resolve 16 availbale for download but as a Beta version and still I used it for hours now with no noticed bugs. Should there be a bug I can accept since it is a Beta version.

[SpaceCherryFilms]

Same here, I’m using resolve as well, Im slowly making the switch over to it.  There beta is more stable than Premiere which is pathetic.

[R Neil Haugen]

I work a lot with colorists, heavily based in Resolve, and some of those shops are still locked into Resolve 14.x as they didn't find any 15.x version stable in their shop.

Was s big topic of discussion around the Flanders/Mixinglight booth, with the 14.x version users very interested if anyone on 16.x was going to be able to do things they needed that were broken on their systems in 15.x.

"Stable" and "bug-free" vary greatly by shop, gear, practices, and maybe the phase of the moon or something.

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

Edit in Audition by sequence, it sends the whole sequence over in multi-track version and works very nicely.

It's still 'destructive' though.  The process creates new audio files for use in Audition, with PP audio effects baked in and no way to undo them after the send.  Additionally, all the work done in Audition is just as destructive, with no way to undo it once you send it back over to PP.

It's a very sloppy process compared to having the Fairlight mixer right in Resolve.  Adobe needs to take a lesson from BMD on this one.

[R Neil Haugen]

No, the audio in Audition is only destructive if you use Waveform mode. I don't. It is not destructive in Multi-Track mode.

Neil

[davidtarrodi]

Can you specify your workflow please. I find nothing about it online.

Non-destructive = Editing in Premiere Pro -> sending the timeline to Audition -> make mixing and final adjustments with EQ, limiter etc. -> send the timeline back to Premiere -> What happens now if we'd lite to change the edit from the first timeline in Premiere? Is there a link from the previous timeline to the Multitrack in Audition that let's me update the Audition session so that it gets the latest edits? What if We make edits after coming back to Premiere?

Please specify: "All edits from Audition should appear in the ECP in Premiere when you save them from Audition." What is an ECP? Never heard of it

I am very curious!

And to be clear - this wasn't a thread about PRP Audition Workflow initially but a thread about why my very basic third party VST plugins won't work smoothly in the track mixer inside of Premiere.

One thing I have to take back - noticed that in the newest version of Premiere Pro the inserts are re-arrangable in the track mixer. FINALLY!

[R Neil Haugen]

The ECP ... Effects Control Panel. That's where all effects have always been listed with their control options.

And there are many plugins being used regularly. A number of editors I know have several and routinely use them. I don't as I've not found the need for my work.

There are several online articles and tutorials on doing this, if you search for them. And I do understand a user, even a relatively experienced one, either not knowing or not understanding the process. Adobe sucks at explaining the full capabilities of these programs.

Massively.

Like all the hogwash about Lumetri being 8-bit. Totally bull effluvium but it's what so many believe.

Neil

[davidtarrodi]

The Effect control panel don't show me any edits, keyframes or anything else if I send the timeline back to Premiere from the finalized audio in Audition. How do you accomplish this? The only options I get in Audition is to either export every track as a stem or make a mixdown to either mono stereo or surround. This procedure will make new audio files and do not embed any keyframe edit data that I could see or control later on in the effect control panel.

[davidtarrodi]

Since you haven't answered I suppose there is no way to actually achieve what we need.

Waves plugins should work in PRP. I now run latest PRP and updatdd to waves version 12. Still same thing. Completely unresponsive controls. 

"Go to Audition and edit instead" you said - but I can't since there isn't any wat to do this non-destuctively.

[excited_Genie16B8]

It is not destructive in Multi-Track mode.

Have things changed?  I've never used any version of 2019.

Used to be there was no way to send a sequence over to Audition, do the work, send it back to PP and still access the original audio clips.  The process would always create new clips.

To the best of my knowledge, Audition is only a destructive editor.  Saved changes will overwrite the original audio file, which is why PP was creating new audio files when you send something over.  That's no longer true?

[davidtarrodi]

Things have not changed

[Nerd02]

I suffer from unresponsive controls with waves plugins (9.0) in premiere pro cc2020 aswell, but one solution has been, not to have the audio track mixer window open, when using waves plugins. It's wierd, but the same thing has been the case with the essential graphics window, that seems to slow down responsiveness in other parts of premiere pro. Go figure.

[davidtarrodi]

I too suffer from this - still after 3 years of trying to get Adobe to understand the very basic thing to add audio plugins in the track mixer and edit them in a smooth way. 1 million updates later and still the same thing but a bunch of useless other functions like "sort all your clips in the browser as you would on your desktop - freely and in a total mess"

[davidtarrodi]

Strange solutions to strange problems. Adobe is walking around in a maze it seems trying to setup code for there basic functions so you have to come up with your own solutions ...

[R Neil Haugen]

I just sent a PrPro project over to Audition using "Export sequence to Audition" that had Parametric EQ applied and set in PrPro.

It opened in Audition, with the track with the ParaEQ effect showing that effect in the track rack. I could open, edit the paramaters set back in PrPro. I saved the file in Audition.

Sent it back via "Export to Premiere Pro" ... it added additional tracks back in Premiere, and on those, showed the ParaEQ effect in the Track Mixer. I checked ... and yes, these were the modded settings I'd just done in Audition.

As additional tracks again ... nothing overwritten. My EQ effects in the Premiere track mixer were editable in Audition ... and came back still editable in Premiere. The original track in Premiere still had the ParaEQ settings I'd first set, and was fully playable.

Nothing destructive, and the effects were applied and editable through the whole process.

This isn't as easy to 'see' as it should be, that I'll definitely agree and up the ante on. I've talked with the devlopers about this at NAB for years. But it's a ton better than it used to be.

In Resolve, of course, they use 'pages' to go from essentially one app to the other. Yea, that's a bit clearer to the user in some ways. But Fairlight is still a separate app, simply accessed via the Fairlight "page" in Resolve. Pretty slick UI work, that.

Neil

[davidtarrodi]

Ok. That sounds interesting. But what happens with the actual clips that are in the tracks that are exported? If I would change the edit after coming back from Audition, then I would need to do the round trip all over again wouldn't I?

[R Neil Haugen]

The original clip is unchanged, and in fact the audio tracks are still there as they were. The re-worked audio is on tracks down below them. So you can say remove those audio tracks if you wish, or mute them, whatever.

The audio that's come back from Audition can of course be edited in Premiere using typical means. And as I noted, the ParaEQ effect I'd applied in the Track mixer in PrPro went to the track's rack in Audition, and was in the track mixer's Effects section on return. Fully editable.

Neil

[Jyôti]

Hello to all. Now,  May 3rd. 2022: All issues with audio plugins VST on Premiere Pro 2022 still intact. Simply, I want to use a Waves Audio Compressor, and all parameter stuck while touch something. Waves Audio work perfect on Pro Tools, Avid Media Composer and Resolve Davinci... Adobe, why are you so stubborn? You get my money every single new moth, but you can't fix a so basic issues... And not, Audition aren't an audio editing option.

Thanks.

[R Neil Haugen]

Most any advanced audio work in the Adobe suite is by design and intention done in Audition.

That's what that app is there for.

I don't understand why you don't want to use the process as designed.

Neil