When it comes to audio mixing in Media Composer, there are two schools of thought.  Alternating Left and Right Audio, which is what I call “Old School”, and there’s the “newer” way of thinking, which is assigning audio tracks by their actual configuration, meaning that you can have mono, stereo and 5.1 tracks all living in Harmony in your Media Composer (or other NLE) timeline.  The question is, however, how do you actually set this up in Media Composer, as it’s not as readily apparent, as in other applications.  In this “In-Depth”, we’ll check it out!

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, most NLE’s like Resolve and Premiere work with the “newer” concept of each audio track can be whatever it is.  Meaning that if you have audio from a Tascam recorder that was recording the contestants on a reality show, all of that audio, even thought it might come in as an 8 channel audio file, are really Mono tracks, and will be assigned as that in your timeline(s).  Music, for the most part, will come in as a stere file, and will be treated like that, when you drop it in your timeline, meaning that if you look at the audio waveform for that single “stereo” track, you’ll see two waveforms per track, for each stereo file in your timeline.  

All of this makes sense, so that does beg the question.  Why would an editor work with alternating left and right audio, do they still work this way, and how would you even set this up?  Let’s break it down.

WHY WORK WITH ALTERNATING LEFT AND RIGHT AUDIO?

To be honest, it’s old school editors like myself (and many, many others) that work this way, and have worked this way from the beginning of Media Composer.  There are many large scale productions of “popular reality show(s)” that I’ve worked on that still work this way.  To be honest, whether we work this way or not is really driven by the audio post facility, and what their requirements are, but none that I have come across really care whether they’re given the audio as alternating left and right or not.  They leave it up to editor preference.  So, I guess we should take about what this workflow actually means.

WHAT IS ALTERNATING LEFT AND RIGHT AUDIO?

The concept is actually pretty simple.  All audio that falls on an odd numbered track is considered to be on the left channel and all audio that falls on the right channel is considered to be on the right track.  All of your mono audio (VO/On Camera Dialogue) can be on either odd or even, just make sure it’s panned center, and all of your stereo audio (Music & FX) would have to be on an odd channel and an even channel (not the other way around), so you don’t get the stereo pair swapped.  The concept is pretty simple and, to be honest, with both Premiere and Resolve, you probably wouldn’t work this way, as most editors in those applications would have probably never seen this, and not want to set things up this way, as it’s not a “default” configuration for either application.  For Media Composer editors, it is, and I’ll show you how to set it up right now.

ALTERNATING LEFT AND RIGHT AUDIO SETUP

Now, I say “setup”, but this is really more a way to see how to toggle this feature either on or off, depending on how you like to work as, by default, it’s turned off in Media Composer, which is always something that editors need to consider, when they’re installing a new version of the application.  The toggle is actually tucked away in your audio settings.  Once there you’ll see, in the middle of the interface window, the “Default pan for mono tracks” feature with a radio button.  You’ll notice, in my example, that it’s already toggled to “Alternating L/R”. but by default, it’s set to “Centered”.

To be honest, this feature is totally tucked away, and it’s description is, well, not very helpful, unless you know what you’re looking for.  It would be better placed, or accessible from within the audio mixer, which is where most people would look for it.  As you can see, the “feature” is really a “How do you want to deal with mono audio in your timeline” feature, as opposed to an audio mixing feature, which is where I think the problem comes into play.  So, once you’ve decided on how you want Media Composer to handle mono audio tracks, how to you work moving forward?

NEW SCHOOL vs OLD SCHOOL

Alright, if you’re new to Media Composer, chances are you’ll go with the “Centered” option for your audio.  What does that mean for your workflow?  Well, any single track audio that you drop into a Mono Track in your timeline will automatically be panned to center, which is Media Composers way of assuming that it’s either dialogue, voice over, or was some type of audio recorded on location that only had one input.  All other tracks that are dropped onto their respective channel types (i.e. – stereo), will automatically pan the audio to the left and right, making any other audio panning unnecessary.   If you’re a New School Media Composer editor, and have stepped into a project that utilizes the Alternating Left and Right Audio setup for your timeline, consider that every track matters.  All stereo audio will need to have track one on an odd channel and channel two on an even track.  This becomes exceptionally important when moving audio from track to track.  If you have your stereo music on tracks 3/4 and need to move them to new audio tracks lower in your mix, you have to make sure that you’re moving to them 11/12 or 23/24 as an example.  Never to 14/15, as you’ll swap the stereo pair, and get into some funky audio situations.  You’ll also have to remember that if you’re working with the Alternating Left and Right Audio setup that any mono audio placed into your timeline will automatically default to pan to either Left or Right based on whether it’s placed on an odd or even audio track, so you’ll find yourself in the audio mixer constantly “mono’ing” those channels to have them coming out of both audio tracks, so your mix sounds correct.

If you’d like to check out more of my “In-Depth’s” on Media Composer, you can find them here:

Media Composer Project Creation
Avid Attic

And you can download a 30 day trial of Media Composer at this link.