Replacing Existing Video Clip Audio with Seperate Audio
 

I'm hoping there is a relatively simple solution to this problem. When filming, we recorded our main audio to a seperate source. In the end, we ended up with a tremendous amount of footage and audio clips. To save time, we decided to start editing before matching the audio clips. This way, we would only have to sync the audio clips with the video clips we chose to use for the final edit as opposed to all of them.

Is there a way to replace the audio in a video file and keep the integrity of the file the same so Premiere will not notice a difference and continue to load the file and cut it the same as it has been doing in the timeline?

Or, is there possibly a way to import the seperate audio file inside of Premiere and link it directly to the correct video file in a way that will cause Premiere to cut the new audio files the same way it cut the original audio files?

Hopefully I didn't shoot myself in the foot by jumping the gun, but man it would've taken me 20 years to sync the audio on every clip we shot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I'm not positive I entirely understand your questions, and
 

I'm not a PPro expert, but when I need to use audio other than the original audio linked to the video, I'm pretty sure I do this:
- place the video with it's original audio on the timeline.
- then bring in the separate, different audio to a different audio track.
- select the video.
At that point you should see the video and it's orig audio are "linked", i.e. both are highlighted when you select one or the other;( you can always right-click to see what options are available: if "unlink" is an option, the clips are linked; if "link" is an option, they are unlinked).
- right-click on the original video, which brings up choices.
- click "unlink" from among those choices; that separates the orig video from the orig audio.
Then:
- delete the orig audio,
- move the "new" audio to the audio track from where you just deleted the orig audio, (you may want to try syncing before you delete the orig audio)
- move the audio clip left or right to sync it up, (unless you've already done this),
- once in sync, select both the video and the "new" audio clip (CTRL+left-click),
- right-click on either and you should see the same choices as when you first right-clicked on the video, then
- choose "Link".
Once the video and the new audio are linked, cutting will, I'm pretty sure, affect both at the same point.

Be sure to click on the respective clips, not on the entire track.

I try to sync-up the new audio before deleting the original by using the on/off buttons for each track to listen to each respective audio clip. To do that, I sometimes also enlarge the audio track by dragging the header/control area so the audio waveform is easier to view. I often fine-tune syncing simply by lining up the waveforms by sight.

I'm pretty sure when you delete the orig audio this way, you're only deleting it, i.e. preventing it from being used, in the current project; YOU ARE NOT DELETING THE AUDIO FROM BEING USED AGAIN, AS IT STILL EXISTS - AND IS LINKED TO THE VIDEO - IN THE ORIGINAL, CAPTURED FOOTAGE.

Save your project often.

I'm pretty sure this will work, though, as I said, I'm not positive I understand exactly what you're looking to do.

Others may chime-in to confirm/deny that this will work, or offer an easier way to reach your goal.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.

Better Clarification
 

Denis,

Thank you so much for responding. I apologize, but I don't think I explained myself very well.

I have already edited most of my footage using the original audio embedded in the video clip. At this point, I'd like to find a way to replace the embedded audio with the seperate audio we recorded without having to re-edit everything. The only other option I know of is to try and sync every cut, but since the clapper is only at the beginning of the video and audio clips, I don't see it syncing very well - not to mention it would probably be more work than completely starting over and syncing all of the video and audio clips from the beginning.

Maybe there's a way to copy the cuts from the video clip to the seperate audio clip if I make them exactly the same length?

Now I get it.
 

(and thanks for the explanation).

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of a quick way to accomplish your goal, though others here may be. Perhaps you might find some suggestions in the Adobe forums. If you find a way to accomplish it w/out having to re-edit, please post it here.

Best of luck.

If I understand you right .... the on-camera audio is just a poor quality version of the separate audio you want in the final product, so it will be easy enough to sync - just import the new audio clip to roughly the right place in the timeline, expand the timeline so that you can see both audio waveforms in detail, and drag the imported clip so that the waveform lines up. You'll find you can can easily get it frame accurate.

Obviously it will be a bit tedious doing this it clip at a time, but I can't image any method that could avoid that given the original decision you made.

Once you are done, you can simply mute the original audio tracks. Or you could unlink the original audio and then relink the video to your replacement audio clip ... that would be worth doing if you think you might want to do further editing, later.