Migrating from Premiere pro to Pro tools

[peter_g]

I intend to edit my project in premiere pro, track lay audio and bring this all into a studio to be mixed with protools and a professional mixing desk. Can anyone suggest how this would be best achieved? Would I be better off forgeting about track laying in premiere and track lay in some other program that produces pro tools compatible files? Maybe Track laying in this program against an .avi/.mov file exported from premiere?

I'd greatly appreciate all insights.
Thanks a bunch,
Peter G

[peter_g]

The problem that would arise if I were to do that is when I export that rough mix the audio gets made into two (stereo) tracks - the left speaker and the right speaker. What I need to do is maintain the individual tracks from start to finish so I can assign a fader on the mixing desk to each track. Doing what you suggested would make this impossible as there would only be a single stereo fader as appose to 5 or 6 faders, each with a different type of audio (e.g Production sound, Foley, atmosphere, music, V.O etcetera).

The following would be the perfect process:
1. Edit the picture in Premiere pro. The only sound editing that would be done is making sure that audio overlaps in an appropriate way during cut aways and the like.

2. export a .mov file to "program X". This .mov file would be, as you say, low resolution video with perfect, uncompressed 24-bit 48khz production audio. (I do my production sound in 24-bit)

3. Tracklay in "program X", probably adding effects and probably leaving some effects to be done in protools

4. Save my work from "program X" as a ".protoolscompatiblefileX" file.

5. Load that ".protoolscompatiblefileX" file in protools.

6. use exactly the same low res video file, minus the audio in protools, synced against the ".protoolscompatiblefileX" file.

7. Mix

8. As sn-films said, render a .wav file and import it into the original premiere project.

The only questions are what program is "program X" and what file format is ".protoolscompatiblefileX"? I'm sure that such a program exists for the PC.

Thanks Sn-films and thank you all,
Peter G

[sn-films]

I've been using Sonic Foundry's ACID for cleaning up audio. I'll do the rough mix in Ulead's MediaStudio pro and render out a small (320x240) AVI file with the audio set to 48kHz. I use the smaller clip for all my mastering and soundtrack work using ACID. I don't have access to Pro Tools, but I assume you can follow the same process. Once you're happy with the audio, render out a WAV file and import that into your video project's timeline and turn off the source audio tracks before you render your final AVI or MPEG.

I've found that using an MPEG-1 video codec at 320x240 uses significantly less system resources that a full 720x480 AVI file compressed with a standard DV1 codec. Once you start piling on track compressors, audio plugins, etc., coupled with half-a-dozen software synths, you'll want to have as much CPU available as possible.

Good luck.