Adobe introduces major new audio updates in Premiere Pro ahead of 2024 Sundance Film Festival

Sound design is a key part of the video editing process, transforming visuals into an immersive, emotional experience that has the power to connect audiences to new places, characters, and experiences. But for editors, there’s often too much time spent thinking about which audio tool to use and searching through panels and menus to find it. This “mouse mileage” — the distance the mouse travels when using a computer — has long been a top pain point that stands between editors and their edit.

Today we’re excited to introduce the beta release of an intuitive, new audio workflow that makes it faster and easier to edit and mix sound directly in Adobe Premiere Pro. Whether you’re an experienced pro, a newcomer to editing, or you’re working on your audio skills, our new audio workflow will put the right tools for the job at your fingertips so you can focus on storytelling — and get to a final sound mix that sounds great with fewer clicks.

The audio workflow changes now available in the Premiere Pro (beta) include:

• Interactive Fade Handles: Now you can simply click and drag from the edge of a clip to create a variety of custom audio fades in the timeline or drag across two clips to create a crossfade. These visual fades provide more precision and control over audio transitions while making it easy to see where they are applied across your sequence.
• AI-powered Audio Category Tagging: When you drag clips into the sequence, they’ll automatically be identified and labeled with new icons for dialogue, music, sound effects, or ambience. A single click on the icon provides access to the most relevant tools for that audio type in the Essential Sound panel — such as Loudness Matching or Auto Ducking.
• Redesigned FX Clip Badges: An updated badge makes it easier for you to see which clips have effects added to them. New effects can be added by right clicking the badge, and a single click opens the Effect Control panel for even more adjustment without changing the workspace or searching for the panel.
• Modern, Intelligent Waveforms and Clips: Waveforms now dynamically resize when you change the track height and improved clip colors make it easier for you to see and work with audio on the timeline.

Whether your project is completed inside Premiere Pro or moves to other finishing tools, it’s become critical that picture and audio look and sound finished throughout the editing process so the narrative can shine through. As more professional editors than ever choose Premiere Pro than ever, we’re prioritizing core workflows so you can tell your story with powerful industry standard tools.

Our product managers, designers, and engineers worked closely with hundreds of professional editors to understand how to improve this core editing workflow without impacting muscle memory. We worked through iterating designs, testing ideas, and incorporating feedback based on real world use cases over months of development, and we’re excited these features are available for you to use today.

We encourage you to try this in the Premiere Pro (beta) and give us your feedback! If you’re a Creative Cloud member, you have access to beta apps. You can even install the beta side-by-side with the current release of Premiere Pro without issue.

Adobe at the Sundance Film Festival

According to the annual Sundance Institute survey, Adobe's creative tools remain the go-to choice for filmmakers, with 83 percent of this year's entrants using Adobe software such as Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop, Frame.io, and the Substance 3D Collection. Premiere Pro continues to emerge as the festival's most popular video editing software, utilized by 57 percent of Sundance films, including notable entries like “Dìdi (弟弟)”, “Will & Harper”, “FRIDA”, “Thelma”, and “Little Death”.

Adobe's Commitment to Diversity

As the presenting sponsor and official editing platform of the Sundance Film Festival, Adobe demonstrates its commitment to fostering diversity in the film industry. The newly announced Adobe Film & TV Fund, with a $6 million commitment, aims to support underrepresented creators and filmmakers, fostering inclusivity both on-screen and behind the camera.

Availability

All these features are available now in beta. For more information on how to access the beta apps, please visit the Premiere Pro (beta) page.