Preparing Audio in Premiere

For audio mixing, ideally we’ll have stems (audio splits) for dialogue (DX), SFX and Music as well as an OMF Export which is an export of all of your audio clips in the correct location on a timeline. This bundled timeline file can be opened in our audio software ProTools and gives us more flexibility in the mix since we can improve fades, tighten audio edits and adjust individual clip levels that would not be possible with just the stems.


Here’s how to export an OMF file for Pro Tools from Adobe Premiere

  1. In a Timeline panel, select a sequence.
  2. Select File > Export > OMF
  3. In the OMF Export Settings dialog box, type a title for the OMF file into the OMF Title field.
  4. From the Sample Rate and Bits Per Sample menus, choose the settings needed for your sequence – usually 16bit or 24bit and 48kHz.
  5. From the Files menu, choose Encapsulate. With this setting, Premiere Pro exports an OMF file containing the project metadata and all the audio for the selected sequence. Encapsulated OMF files typically are large – anything from 50-500MB or more is typical.
  6. From the Render menu, choose Trim Audio Files. With this setting, Premiere Pro exports only the portions of each clip that are used in the sequence: the clip instances. You can choose to export each clip instance with extra length, handles, added to the start and end of the file.
    In the Handle Frames field, specify the length of the handles, in video frames. This amount of time is added to the start and end of the exported files when you choose Consolidate Media. The default setting is one second, in frames, at the sequence frame rate. One second is fine, two seconds is even better (so 25 or 50 frames at 25FPS)
Then zip it up and send it over via your transfer tool of choice (WeTransfer recommended). Why zip I hear you ask? Zipping a file adds an extra level of safety to the transfer – a zip file either opens or it doesn’t so there’s no chance of any files being missed out or a partly transferred OMF being used.

We’ll also need a reference video for which an H264 mp4 or MOV file will be perfect.