Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 | Go to CS4 Help

Importing digital audio

You can import digital audio clips stored as audio files or tracks in video files. Digital audio is stored on computer hard disks, audio CDs, or digital audio tape (DAT) as binary data readable by computers. To keep quality as high as possible, transfer digital audio files to your computer via digital connections. Avoid digitizing the analog outputs from your audio sources through your sound card.

Note: If you want to capture an audio‑only file from a digital video source, choose Audio from the Capture pop‑up menu in the Logging pane of the Capture panel. Adobe Premiere Pro does not support audio-only capture for some formats, such as HDV.

For maximum editing performance and audio quality, Adobe Premiere Pro processes each audio channel, including audio channels in video clips, as 32‑bit floating‑point data at the project’s sample rate. To do this it must conform certain types of audio to match the 32-bit format and the project sample rate. If it is necessary, conforming is done when a file is imported into a project for the first time, taking time and disk space. A progress bar appears at the lower right of the Adobe Premiere Pro window when conforming begins.

You can work with audio files, even applying effects to them, before they are fully conformed, but you will be able to preview only the part of the files that have been conformed. You won’t hear unconformed sections on playback.

These rules determine which types of audio get conformed:

Adobe Premiere Pro does not conform uncompressed 32kHz or 48kHz audio, such as might be found in DV AVI, AVI, uncompressed AIFF and uncompressed MOV files, if the sample rate of the imported file has either a 1:1 or 2:3 ratio to the project’s sample rate. For example, a DV AVI file containing 32 kHz audio will not be conformed when imported into a project with an audio sample rate of 48kHz, since the sample rates are in a 2:3 ratio. However, a file containing 48 kHz audio will get conformed when imported into a project with an audio sample rate of 32 kHz, as the sample rates are in a 3:2 ratio.
Adobe Premiere Pro does not conform a file that was conformed in one project when you import it into another project with the same audio sample rate, so long as you haven’t moved or renamed the file since it was conformed. Adobe Premiere Pro keeps the location of the conform files for all files it has conformed in the Media Cache Database.
Adobe Premiere Pro does conform compressed audio, such as might be found in MP3, WMA, MPEG, or compressed MOV files, regardless of their sample rates.

To avoid conforming, use audio editing software, or transcoding software, to convert your files to supported uncompressed formats with sampling rates in a 1:1 or 2:3 ratio with your project’s audio sample rate.

In addition to conforming some files, Adobe Premiere Pro also creates a pek file for any file containing audio when it is first imported into a project. It uses these pek files for drawing the audio waveforms in Timelines. Adobe Premiere Pro stores pek files in the Scratch Disk location specified for the Media Cache through the Project Settings dialog box.

You can use CD audio (CDA) files in a project, but before you can import them into Adobe Premiere Pro, you need to convert them to a supported file format, such as WAV or AIFF. You can convert CDA files using an audio application such as Adobe Audition®.

Note: Make sure that you own the copyrights or have licensed the copyrights to any audio tracks you use.

Using compressed audio formats

Music stored in formats such as MP3 and WMA are compressed using a method that removes some of the original audio quality. To play back compressed audio, Adobe Premiere Pro must decompress the file and may need to resample it to match your output settings. These conversions are likely to degrade audio quality. For this reason, use an uncompressed or CD audio version of the audio clip whenever possible.

Using audio from Adobe Soundbooth

You can use Adobe Soundbooth to perform advanced audio editing. If you export the audio from Adobe Soundbooth to an audio file format compatible with Adobe Premiere Pro, you can import the audio into Adobe Premiere Pro projects.

Comments

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Comments

smuratore said on Oct 29, 2007 at 2:49 PM :

Good catch. It should have read "Audition" instead of "Soundbooth." This will be corrected in the next revision of Help.

smuratore said on Dec 20, 2007 at 11:23 AM :

A good explanation of the rules Adobe Premiere Pro uses to determine whether to conform audio is given in this article: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=672151&rl=1
Scroll down to the Conforming topic. The article describes Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, but the behavior in CS3 is almost identical.

smuratore said on Jun 27, 2008 at 2:49 PM :

You will hear playback for files needing no conforming as well as for conformed portions of files needing conforming. You will not hear playback for unconformed portions of files needing conforming. This is true for both the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor.

No screen name said on Jun 27, 2008 at 2:08 PM :

It says "you will not be able to hear playback for unconformed file" does that include the ones that aren't ever conformed (e.g. uncompressed DV AVI with a 1:1 ratio). Does this "playback" only for the preview in the Project Panel, or does it include Source and Program monitors as well.

Barry Hopwood said on Jul 3, 2008 at 11:24 PM :

The way I'm reading the Help files, you can't import digital music (including scores?) when you have an HDV project.

This can't possibly be the correct interpretation, can it?

smuratore said on Aug 5, 2008 at 8:41 AM :

No, the Note only says that you can't capture audio-only from an HDV source. You can capture audio-and-video from an HDV source. You can also import digital audio files into HDV projects.

No screen name said on Aug 21, 2008 at 2:54 PM :

I would like to import songs I have purchased on itunes into my project on Premiere Pro CS3. It doesnt see them and they are unsupported file formats. Which formats are supported and how to I convert the ones that are unsupported audio files?

smuratore said on Aug 26, 2008 at 10:21 AM :

You probably won't be able to transcode your iTunes music because of digital rights management protections. However, supported file formats are listed here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/3.0/WSCE104033-D011-4699-84E2-72DE29332157.html

No screen name said on Sep 2, 2008 at 4:27 PM :

I'm having a problem with a complete lack of audio when i import clips then move them onto the timeline. There is no audio file what-so-ever only video the file is in a mpg or mpeg format coming from my sony camera. The audio on the camera is 5.1 dolby. I've tried everything i can think of but cant get this problem resolved. Any useful suggestions?

smuratore said on Sep 17, 2008 at 3:40 PM :

It is likely that the audio codec used to record the video is not installed locally. See related comments on this page: http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/PremierePro/3.0/WSCE104033-D011-4699-84E2-72DE29332157.html