Audio sample rates in Premiere

Last updated on Apr 2, 2026

Learn which sample rates Adobe Premiere natively supports and how audio conforming affects your workflow.

Natively supported sample rates

Premiere supports the following audio sample rates without requiring conforming when used in sequences with matching settings:

Sample Rate

Common Use Cases

8000 Hz

Telephony, voice recording

11025 Hz

Low-quality audio, legacy formats

22050 Hz

Compressed web audio, podcasts

32000 Hz

Digital broadcasting, video conferencing

44100 Hz

CD audio, music production

48000 Hz

Professional video, film production

96000 Hz

High-resolution audio, music mastering

How Premiere processes audio

Premiere processes all audio channels, including audio embedded in video clips, as 32-bit floating-point data at your sequence sample rate. This ensures maximum editing performance and audio quality across your project.

Audio conforming behavior

Premiere conforms certain audio types to match the 32-bit format and sequence sample rate when you first import files into a project. A progress bar appears in the lower-right corner during conforming, and Premiere saves the conformed audio as CFA preview files in the Audio Previews scratch disk location you specified.

You can work with and apply effects to audio files before conforming completes, but you can only preview sections that have already been conformed.

Conforming rules by audio type

Uncompressed audio

  • No conforming: Audio recorded at natively supported sample rates used in sequences with matching sample rates
  • Delayed conforming: Audio used in sequences with non-matching sample rates (conforming occurs only when you export or create audio preview files)
  • Immediate conforming: Audio recorded at non-supported sample rates (upsampled to the nearest supported rate or an even multiple, for example, 11024 Hz becomes 11025 Hz)

Compressed audio

Premiere conforms all compressed audio formats (MP3, WMA, MPEG, compressed MOV files) at the source file's sample rate. If you use conforming audio in a sequence with a different sample rate, playback occurs at the sequence rate without additional conforming.

Note

To avoid conforming delays, use audio editing or transcoding software to convert files to uncompressed formats at natively supported sample rates before importing.

Related files

Premiere creates PEK files for waveform display when importing audio. These files are stored in your Media Cache Files location (specified in Preferences > Media) and are separate from conformed audio files.