Multicam fiasco isn't over... it just got moved!

Question

I was overjoyed to find out that Premiere Pro CC will bring us something Adobe users have never had until now... a multicam tool that actually works! (i.e. the painfully stupid 'auto switch back to original camera angle when playback stops' problem has finally been fixed. ALLELUIA!)
However, this video proves that the problem hasn't been so much fixed, as it has been relocated: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-premiere-pro-cc/using-clip-mixer-to-adjust-volume-and-pan/.
This video illustrates, rather to the presenter's repeated frustration, that whenever a user records audio levels live using the new Clip Mixer, stopping playback switches to the original level before playback started (jump to 6:00 into the video to see this happen).  Sounds familiar multicam users?
At this point, I have to ask: SERIOUSLY ADOBE????!!!!!
The pre-CC multicam tool in Premiere was a royal PITA to use due to the serious, and rather unthinkable IMO, lapse of logic in the workflow.  So now, after years of allowing this nonsense to go on, Adobe finally fixes Premiere's multicam workflow only to relocate its completely unwanted 'auto switching' bug to their new Clip Mixer??????
As good of an improvement as Premiere CC may be, this clear-as-a-bell workflow issue is making me lose faith in Adobe.  You'd think that at least 1 programmer on PP's team would have to good sense to see the workflow problem here.  Are we supposed to believe that the quality control at Adobe is this weak?  Or was this done on purpose so that 5 years from now it will finally be fixed and touted as a 'new feature'? (For the record, the fixed Multicam is NOT a new CC 'feature' IMO.  It's just a fix to a problem that never should have been created nor passed QC in the first place.)
Hopefully the 'auto switch back to original audio level' is just a bug that will be fixed soon, rather than a conscious design decision.  Otherwise, I cannot express how disappointing it is to be treated by Adobe as users who don't know any better than to understand just how wrong it is for keyframes to automatically appear when playback stops.  Either way, once I can test PP CC for myself, to confirm the serious issue that the video above illustrates, I will be sending Adobe plenty of official Feature Requests/Bug Reports for them to fix their new tool and make it work properly in accordance to sane human logic.  I would encourage everyone else to do the same.
End of rant.

Answer 1

PierreLouisBeranek wrote:
You may blame the instructor for not knowing about this switch - although it means that he doesn't really understand what he's doing - but not Adobe. The mixer is working as it should, some people simply don't know how to operate it.
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I am that instructor. At the time I created the tutorial (April 2013) and up to this moment, the Premiere Pro prerelease site, new features documents had not noted that there was an option in the Audio Clip Mixer panel fly-out menu to choose between "Keyframe Mode Latch" and "Keyframe Mode Touch" (it's set to "Latch" by default).
Had I known, I would have tested those options. In any event, it appears P Pro's Track and Clip Audio Mixers' Write, Latch, and Touch features behave incorrectly. No matter which option you select (you can choose only Latch or Touch in the Audio Clip Mixer), after stopping playback, P Pro adds a keyframe, one frame after the stopped position, at the volume level when you started recording keyframes in the Mixer.
This behavior does not match standard Write, Latch, and Touch methods. At the very least it should match the way things work in Audition and other audio products like Logic Pro:
Write: When playback starts, overwrites existing keyframes with current settings. Continues to record new settings until playback stops.
Latch: Begins recording keyframes when you first adjust a setting, and continues to record new settings until playback stops.
Touch: Similar to Latch, but gradually returns settings to previously recorded values when you stop adjusting them. Use Touch to overwrite specific sections of automation while leaving others intact.
Bottom line: only Touch reverts to the original volume level and it should do that gradually. In Audition, the duration of the change can be set in preferences.
In any event, I have filed a bug report on this. I plan to re-record the tutorial once I hear back on what Adobe plans to do about this behavior.
Jeff Sengstack