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Mix audio and adjust volume with Premiere Elements

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Premiere Elements

Premiere Elements

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  1. Adobe Premiere Elements User Guide
  2. Introduction to Adobe Premiere Elements
    1. What's new in Premiere Elements
    2. System requirements | Adobe Premiere Elements
    3. Workspace basics
    4. Guided mode
    5. Use pan and zoom to create video-like effect
    6. GPU accelerated rendering
  3. Workspace and workflow
    1. Get to know the Home screen
    2. View and share auto-created collages, slideshows, and more
    3. Workspace basics
    4. Source Monitor and Program Monitor
    5. Preferences
    6. Tools
    7. Keyboard shortcuts
    8. Audio View
    9. Undoing changes
    10. Customizing shortcuts
    11. Working with scratch disks
  4. Working with projects
    1. Creating a project
    2. Adjust project settings and presets
    3. Save and back up projects
    4. Previewing movies
    5. Creating video collage
    6. Creating Highlight Reel
    7. Create a video story
    8. Creating Instant Movies
    9. Viewing clip properties
    10. Viewing a project's files
    11. Archiving projects
    12. GPU accelerated rendering
  5. Importing and adding media
    1. Add media
    2. Guidelines for adding files
    3. Set duration for imported still images
    4. 5.1 audio import
    5. Working with offline files
    6. Sharing files between Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Photoshop Elements
    7. Creating specialty clips
    8. Work with aspect ratios and field options
  6. Arranging clips
    1. Arrange clips in the Expert view timeline
    2. Group, link, and disable clips
    3. Arranging clips in the Quick view timeline
    4. Working with clip and timeline markers
    5. Sequence settings
  7. Editing clips
    1. Reduce noise
    2. Select object
    3. Candid Moments
    4. Color Match
    5. Smart Trim
    6. Change clip speed and duration
    7. Split clips
    8. Freeze and hold frames
    9. Adjusting Brightness, Contrast, and Color - Guided Edit
    10. Stabilize video footage with Shake Stabilizer
    11. Replace footage
    12. Working with source clips
    13. Trimming Unwanted Frames - Guided Edit
    14. Trim clips
    15. Editing frames with Auto Smart Tone
    16. Artistic effects
  8. Color Correction and Grading
    1. Color Correction and Grading (LUTs)
    2. Color Correction Panel
    3. Color Correction Settings
  9. Applying transitions
    1. Applying transitions to clips
    2. Transition basics
    3. Adjusting transitions
    4. Adding Transitions between video clips - Guided Edit
    5. Create special transitions
    6. Create a Luma Fade Transition effect - Guided Edit
  10. Special effects basics
    1. Effects reference
    2. Applying and removing effects
    3. Create a black and white video with a color pop - Guided Edit
    4. Time remapping - Guided edit
    5. Effects basics
    6. Working with effect presets
    7. Finding and organizing effects
    8. Editing frames with Auto Smart Tone
    9. Fill Frame - Guided edit
    10. Create a time-lapse - Guided edit
    11. Best practices to create a time-lapse video
  11. Applying special effects
    1. Use pan and zoom to create video-like effect
    2. Transparency and superimposing
    3. Reposition, scale, or rotate clips with the Motion effect
    4. Apply an Effects Mask to your video
    5. Adjust temperature and tint
    6. Create a Glass Pane effect - Guided Edit
    7. Create a picture-in-picture overlay
    8. Applying effects using Adjustment layers
    9. Adding Title to your movie
    10. Removing haze
    11. Creating a Picture in Picture - Guided Edit
    12. Create a Vignetting effect
    13. Add a Split Tone Effect
    14. Add FilmLooks effects
    15. Add an HSL Tuner effect
    16. Fill Frame - Guided edit
    17. Create a time-lapse - Guided edit
    18. Animated Sky - Guided edit
    19. Select object
    20. Animated Mattes - Guided Edit
    21. Double exposure- Guided Edit
  12. Special audio effects
    1. Mix audio and adjust volume with Adobe Premiere Elements
    2. Audio effects
    3. Adding sound effects to a video
    4. Adding music to video clips
    5. Create narrations
    6. Using soundtracks
    7. Music Remix
    8. Adding Narration to your movie - Guided Edit
    9. Adding Scores to your movie - Guided edit
  13. Movie titles
    1. Creating titles
    2. Adding shapes and images to titles
    3. Adding color and shadows to titles
    4. Apply Gradients
    5. Create Titles and MOGRTs
    6. Add responsive design
    7. Editing and formatting text
    8. Align and transform objects
    9. Motion Titles
    10. Appearance of text and shapes
    11. Exporting and importing titles
    12. Arranging objects in titles
    13. Designing titles for TV
    14. Applying styles to text and graphics
    15. Adding a video in the title
  14. Disc menus
    1. Creating disc menus
    2. Working with menu markers
    3. Types of discs and menu options
    4. Previewing menus
  15. Sharing and exporting your movies
    1. Export and share your videos
    2. Export settings
    3. Sharing for PC playback
    4. Compression and data-rate basics
    5. Common settings for sharing

Learn to add, adjust volume, and mix audio using the Audio Mixer in Premiere Elements.

Audio Mixer is a tool for adjusting and fine-tuning the audio levels of your project in real-time. It controls multiple audio tracks, including dialogue, music, sound effects, and narration. It functions similarly to a physical audio mixing console, allowing you to balance and blend various audio elements to achieve the desired sound mix for your video.

Adjust volume and mix audio in the Audio Mixer

Audio Mixer

Use the Audio Mixer to adjust audio balance and volume for different tracks in your project. You can adjust the balance and level of audio contained within your video clips and within the soundtrack and narration audio. For example, you may want to increase the volume of the narration and decrease the volume of the soundtrack at different points for emphasis, or so that quiet voices can be heard above the music.

You can adjust settings while listening to audio tracks and viewing video tracks. Each track in the Audio Mixer corresponds to an audio track in the Advanced view timeline and is named accordingly. As you make adjustments, keyframes are added to the track. You can specify a default minimum interval for keyframes in the Audio preferences.

Note:

Ideally, you should mix the volume for one track from beginning to end before moving on to the next track. Same for mixing balance.

  1. (Optional) Select Adobe Premiere Elements 2025 > Settings > Audio (in the Preference dialog box) and set a value between 1 and 2000 milliseconds for Minimum Time Interval Thinning to limit keyframes to intervals larger than that value. If you don’t want to hear audio while you scrub audio, deselect Play Audio While Scrubbing.

  2. In the Advanced view timeline, select the Tools panel and select the Audio Mixer option or select Tools > Audio Mixer.

  3. Drag the current-time indicator to where you want to start mixing audio.

  4. Select Play in the Monitor window and adjust the controls in the Audio mixer. Select write keyframe to save changes to the track:

    • To adjust the balance for a track, turn (drag) the Balance control left or right.

    • To increase the volume for a track, drag the Level control up or down.

    Note:

    You can specify the spacing of keyframes in the Audio preferences.

Mute track, Solo track, Write keyframes

These buttons, abbreviated as M, S, and Write keyframes, allow you to focus on different audio elements and disable audio tracks. 

Mute – Mutes the selected track and plays audio from the other tracks. 

Solo – Audio is played only from the selected track. All the other tracks are muted. 

Write – It saves adjustments and creates keyframes during playback. Changes are made when playback begins. It does not wait for the settings to be changed.

Note:

The user must enable the Write keyframe to save the volume and balance adjustments.

Smart Mix

SmartMix tool can be found in the Audio Tools. Sometimes, the background music is loud, and the dialog in a clip isn't audible. To ensure that the dialogs are easily heard, the volume of the background music must be lowered. SmartMix enables automatic adjustment of the volume of the background music.

Place dialog clips on the Audio 1 track or the Narration track (Foreground tracks) and music on the Soundtrack track (Background tracks) for best results. Premiere Elements analyzes clips on all Foreground tracks for dialogs. Keyframes are then smartly/automatically created to lower the volume level to ensure that the dialog in the Foreground track is audible. SmartMix adjustments apply to all audio clips on the Advanced view timeline, not just the selected clip. When you use SmartMix on an audio track, the keyframes you applied previously to the soundtrack are deleted.

Change foreground and background tracks

By default, when you create a track, it is a Foreground track. You can change the track type per your requirement. You can also disable a track to ensure that the track is ignored when you perform a SmartMix.

  1. Select Tools > Smart Mix.

  2. In the Smart Mixer panel, select one of the following options from the menu below the track name.

    • Foreground

    • Background

    • Disabled

    Note:

    Select the option Disabled to ignore the track when you perform Smart Mix.

Change Smart Mix preferences

To change SmartMix options, select Adobe Premiere Elements 2025 Editor > Settings > Preferences (dialog box) > Audio. You can change the following options:

Track Default Criteria

Specify the type of track. The available options are: Foreground, Background, and Disable. When you create a track, by default, it is a Background track.

Merge Pause Of

Specify the threshold, in seconds.

Lower Background

Specify the percentage by which you want the volume to drop.

Normalize Dialog

Normalize the dialogs to ensure that the volume remains constant throughout the duration of the clip.

Adjust volume in the Advanced view timeline

You can adjust the clip volume directly on an audio track in the Advanced view timeline. By dragging the Volume graph up or down, you can, for example, make the volume of a clip match that of its neighbors or mute it entirely.

Note:

You can also raise and lower volume with keyframes.

  1. To resize an audio track for better visibility, position the pointer between two tracks in the track header area so that the Height Adjustment icon appears, and then drag up or down.

  2. Select Volume in the upper left corner of the clip. Then, select Volume > Clip Volume.

  3. Position the pointer over the Volume graph: the yellow line running horizontally across the audio track of the clip. The pointer changes to the white double‑arrow icon.
  4. Drag up or down to adjust the level uniformly. Drag any existing keyframes to move them.

    As you drag, the decibel level is displayed. A positive number indicates an increase in volume; a negative number indicates a decrease.

Adjust the input level of clips

If the original volume of the clip is too high or low, change the input level, or gain, before adjusting to the output levels. However, if the level of source audio was set too low when it was recorded, increasing the gain amplifies noise. For best results, record audio at a high volume level that is not so high as to cause distortion. Without adjustment, well-recorded audio peaks between 0 dB and -6 dB in the Audio Meters panel. Recording audio above 0-dB results in clipping.

  1. In the Advanced view timeline, select the clip. To work with multiple clips, do one of the following:

    • To select non-consecutive clips, Ctrl-click/Cmd-click each clip.

    • To select consecutive clips, select in the Project Assets panel and drag a marquee around the selected clips.

    • To select all the clips, press Ctrl-A/Cmd-A.

  2. Select Clip > Audio Options > Audio Gain.

  3. Do one of the following:

    • Select the zero value and type gain value (0 dB equals the clip’s original gain).

    • Select Normalize to automatically boost gain where it’s too quiet or reduce gain where it’s too loud. Premiere Elements displays the amount required to reach maximum gain without clipping.

Mute a clip

  1. Do one of the following in the Advanced view timeline:

    • If the clip is linked to the video, Alt‑click the audio track of the clip in the Advanced view timeline to select just the audio portion.

    • If the clip isn't linked to the video, select the clip to select it.

  2. Select Clip > Enable. (When you disable a clip, the check mark disappears next to the option in the clip menu, and the clip name dims in the track.)

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