Record audio in Premiere Pro

You can record to an audio track in a new sequence or record to a new audio track in an existing sequence. Premiere Pro saves the recording as an audio clip and adds it to your project.

Before recording audio, make sure that your computer has sound inputs. Premiere Pro supports ASIO (Audio Stream Input Output) devices (Windows) and Core Audio devices (Mac OS). Many devices have connectors for connecting speaker, microphone cables, and breakout boxes.

If your computer has an ASIO or Core Audio device for connecting sound input devices, make sure that the sound device settings and input volume level options are properly set. Refer to your operating system’s Help for details.

In Premiere Pro, set the default device options in the Audio Hardware Preferences for specifying the input channel used when recording.

After you connect input devices and make all preliminary settings, you can use the Audio Track Mixer in Premiere Pro to record audio. Use controls in the Audio Track Mixer to adjust the monitoring levels.

You can also record voiceovers on audio tracks directly from the Timeline without using the Audio Track Mixer workflow.

An audio clip is created from the recording and is added to both the Timeline and Project panels.

If you want to use audio that isn’t yet in digital form (for example, from an analog cassette or a live microphone), you need to digitize it through an audio or audio/video digitizer/capture card.

Important points

• The quality of digitized audio and the size of the audio file depend on the sample rate (the number of samples per second) and bit depth (the number of bits per sample) of the digitized audio. Also, stereo audio requires twice as much disk space as mono audio.
• These parameters, controlled in the Capture section of the Project Settings dialog box, determine how precisely the analog audio signal is represented in digital form. Higher sample rates and bit depths reproduce sound at higher levels of quality, but with correspondingly larger file sizes.
  
• Capture audio at the highest quality settings your computer can handle, even if those settings are higher than the settings you’ll specify for final export or playback. This provides headroom, or extra data, that helps preserve quality when you adjust audio gain or apply audio effects such as equalization or dynamic range compression/expansion.
  
• Although the DV format can record two independent stereo audio pairs, Premiere Pro can capture only one stereo pair. It may be possible to select either stereo pair 1, stereo pair 2, or a mix of both, depending on the DV hardware you use. For details, see the documentation for the DV hardware.

Set the location for captured audio

Prepare the audio input channel for recording

When you enable recording for a track, the track can record from the Default Device channel specified in the Audio Hardware section of the Preferences dialog box. This dialog box includes the ASIO Settings button (Windows only), which you use to enable audio inputs connected to the computer. Submix and master tracks always receive audio from tracks within the sequence, so recording and track input options are unavailable for them.

Record audio from a microphone or another analog source

You can record audio using the Audio Track Mixer, or you can record a voice-over directly from the Timeline on to an audio track.

Record audio using the Audio Track Mixer

Record a voice-over on an audio track from the Timeline

You can record a voice-over on an audio track directly in the Timeline by following these steps:

Mute input during recording

Muting input can prevent feedback or echo when the computer is connected to speakers.