Exporting AAF/OMF to ProTools workflow questions...

[JeremyW]

2015.0.2

OSX 10.10.5

iMac

3.4 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB RAM

I'm trying to wrap my head around the workflow for Premiere in a professional environment. When editing, it is much easier to have a sequences audio Clip Channel Format be in Stereo - you only need to make one fade instead of one for the left and the right channel, and one set of keyframes works on both left and right because they're on the same audio track. Great, half the time clicking as two mono tracks. When I go to export an OMF or AAF to send out for finishing to ProTools however, it always seems to mix down the left and right channels into one mono track. What's going on? Can I not export a stereo sequence to an AAF or OMF and retain the stereo tracks? It astounds me if this is true.

What this means is that I have to recreate my edit in a mono sequence, highlight all media used, right click > Modify > change the Clip Channel Format to Mono then matchframe every audio clip and redrag into the new mono timeline and recreate the fades and keyframes. Obviously this is a terribly stupid and time consuming thing to do. Sure I could work in a mono sequence but then it would take twice as long to keyframe and adjust fades and my timeline has twice as many tracks to scroll through. Am I don't something wrong? This process should take 30 seconds.

Settings:

When Exporting an AAF it has Breakout to Mono Enabled. If I turn that off it just errors (Cannot export audio effect "Internal Volume Stereo" because it is not supported. Effect was ignored.) and I can't do anything so fine. I don't really change any options here: 48KHz/16 bit/Embed Audio/Aiff/trim audio files and I give it some handles. I have tried not embedding the audio, also with no success.

When Exporting an OMF I just do about the same: 48KHz/16 bit/Embed Audio/Aiff/ Trim with handles. I have also tried separate audio to no success.

[JeremyW]

Anybody? Doesn't anyone send AAF/OMFs to Protools? I can't imagine Adobe wants people to do this workflow when using stereo sequences!

[Jim_Simon]

anyone send AAF/OMFs to Protools?

I use Audition.  It's included with the subscription, and does not require an intermediary file format.

[HeathVerite]

Just to clarify.. You use Audtion to send an OMF to ProTools, or you just don't use ProTools?

The latter isn't an option for most people if your workflow isn't all 'in-house' . Most sound studios use ProTools exclusively.

[Jim_Simon]

I don't use ProTools.  I do everything in-house, so I use what I have.

[Michal_K]

Well, I'd love everyone to use Audition, but the sad truth is, I know nobody, who is using it in a professional environment. It's just ProTools everywhere.

and unfortunately I have very often some problems with an omf or, even much worse, aaf, when I'm sending it to the audio post production.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi JW,

Did you ever find a solution to this issue? Did my links assist you at all?

Please let us know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[BNC10a]

Kevin,

I actually use the omf export for Cubase and have been for years. As you mentioned, the omf exports two mono channels for each stereo file (i.e. music.) But upon import into Cubase they must be repanned left and right. The panning is not retained in the omf. They always come in centered.

I no longer have Nuendo, so I can't test the aaf exports.

RESH

[JeremyW · Accepted solution]

It's been awhile now but I believe the problem was that somehow they were mono tracks (which you can still put stereo clips on) and I didn't know to recognize the little sound icon in the upper right corner of each track meant that. As far as I'm aware there is NOTHING ELSE to tell you this is a mono track. That is why they were mixing down to mono.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Thanks for clarifying, JW.

Kevin

[pould4499968]

This sounds (haha) like my problem. I would like to have less soundlayers to work with instead of more. Any way too have a clip whit 1 audio track (that contains 2 different mics that recorded sound to 1 clip) export as L-mono and R-mono via OMF? My soundguy is complaining that its all 1 mono track. the waveform in my timeline show different forms so the 2 different mics are actually in there. Export to OMF and then import to protools leads to single channel mono. And unless theres a trick in Protools to seperate them we;d need to fix it in Premiere.

[pould4499968]

it was the mono vs stereo track sequence setting. The speaker logo is mono, no speaker logo is stereo. I had everything on mono, hence the audio problem. With the audio tracks back to stereo everything works as intended.

[DavidNDobson]

Be sure to use adaptive tracks for everything, standard tracks seem to reduce a stereo track to a single mono track on export to omf (and import into Audition.)

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Jeremy,

When I go to export an OMF or AAF to send out for finishing to ProTools however, it always seems to mix down the left and right channels into one mono track. What's going on? Can I not export a stereo sequence to an AAF or OMF and retain the stereo tracks? It astounds me if this is true.

According to the Help doc, "By default, Premiere Pro hard pans the Left channel to the left and the Right channel to the right on export to OMF." I'm not sure if that helps, but may lie at the heart of a potential solution. Here's the help doc:  Adobe Premiere Pro Help | Exporting OMF files for Pro Tools

You should be able to export an OMF with stereo tracks intact, however, if you are having unexpected behavior with your export, you might consider sending the audio to Audition and export an OMF from there. Let us know the results if you try that.

Thanks,
Kevin