A sequence may contain several video and audio tracks.
When you add a clip to a sequence, it is important to assign which
track or tracks it is to be edited to. You can target one or more
tracks, for both audio and video. Target tracks depending on the
editing method you use: editing from the Source Monitor, dragging,
or copy/pasting to the timeline.
In advance of making an insert or overwrite edit, you
can map the tracks of a clip loaded in the Source Monitor to one
or more tracks of a sequence by dragging the source track indicator
representing each of the source clip’s tracks into one or more selected
tracks of the sequence. Audio source track indicators can be placed
only in audio tracks matching the source clip’s channel configuration.
For example, the audio track indicator for a stereo clip can be
placed only in a stereo track in a sequence. After the tracks are
targeted, edit the clip by pressing the Insert or Overwrite buttons
(or use the shortcuts).
Highlighted source track indicators of video and audio tracks
When you drag a clip to a sequence as an insert or overwrite
edit by dragging, you target the track automatically by dropping
the clip into the track. You do not need to specify tracks in advance.
A drag edit is an overwrite edit by default. If you are performing
an insert edit with the clip, press Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac
OS) as you drag. As you make the edit, triangles appear showing
the affected tracks.
Targeting a track while dragging a clip to a sequence
When you add clips to a sequence by pasting, (or keyboard
shortcuts), you must specify target tracks in advance. You can target
more than one video track or more than one audio track at a time.
Also, you can choose to target a video track only or an audio track
only. Click the track or tracks you want to target in the track
header area of a Timeline panel. The track header area for a targeted
track appears highlighted.
You can also assign
keyboard shortcuts to some track targeting commands.
Highlighted track header of targeted video and audio tracks
If you overwrite a clip, only the clips in targeted tracks are
affected, whether you drag the clip or use a Source Monitor’s Overwrite
button.
If you insert a clip, the clip goes into the targeted tracks,
and clips in any unlocked tracks where the source clip lands shift
to accommodate the insertion. You can specify other tracks to also
shift by enabling Sync Lock on them.
To insert a clip and not shift clips in other
tracks, Ctrl-Alt-drag (Windows) or Command-Option-drag (Mac OS)
the clip into the track.
You can drag video clips to any video track; however, you can
drag audio clips only to a compatible audio track. Audio clips can’t
be added to the master audio track or submix tracks, and they can
be placed only on audio tracks of the matching channel type: mono,
stereo, or 5.1 (see Audio tracks in a sequence).
Clips with linked video and audio can be dragged to either a
video or an audio track, but the clip’s video and audio components
appear separately, in the appropriate corresponding tracks.
Note: You can drag a clip to any unlocked, compatible track in a
sequence, no matter which tracks are currently targeted. You can’t
target a locked track. Locking a target track deselects it as the
target.
For more information about targeting and patching tracks in Premiere
Pro, see this video by Learn by Video and Video2Brain
by Maxim Jago.
Andrew Devis shows how to use Sync Lock and track targeting in this video on the Creative COW
website.
Frank Rohmer provides a video tutorial on the Adobe
website that explains mapping source tracks to target tracks.
