Auto ducking in Premiere

Auto ducking makes using interview or voice over with music easy. This is a quick way to adjust levels and mix different types of audio.

First, make sure you are in the audio workspace by going to Workspace > Audio or using the drop down workspace menu. Next, set audio types.

Select clips of a particular type (for example, Music or Dialogue), and click to assign the audio type in the Essential Sound panel on the right.

Set Loudness level

If your clips have varying levels, click Auto-Match in the Loudness section in the Essential Sound panel to automatically adjust loudness to a level appropriate for the audio type.

Auto Ducking settings

Select the music clips and choose options that set the way audio ducking is applied. Click to select the types of audio that will trigger ducking.

  • Adjust the sensitivity to set the responsiveness of the ducking.
  • Adjust the amount that the level will be reduced by.

Set the duration of fades between different audio levels.

Generate keyframes

Click Generate Keyframes to add keyframes to the selected clips based on the settings you chose. You can adjust ducking keyframes manually.

Ducking can be applied again with new settings. Each time you click Generate Keyframes, existing keyframes are replaced with new keyframes based on the current ducking settings.

Table of Contents:
00:14 – Select audio workspace
00:49 – Problem Music is louder than interview
01:12 – Categorize audio types
01:39 – Select music
01:50 – Duck music against dialog
02:17 – Adjusting ducking
02:21 – Adding keyframes
02:24 – View in isolation with ~
02:32 – Expand track by double clicking
02:51 – Adjusting keyframes