Is there a way to smooth random audio dropouts with ffmpeg or Premiere?

Question

I have large amounts of footage with audio tracks that have random dropouts throughout which last for ~0.5 seconds each (all audio dropouts are consistent in duration).

I need to smooth out the drops, such as quick fade out/fade ins to the audio track.

There are a lot of these drops scattered randomly, so an automated method to detect and fix would be ideal.

If this isn't achievable with ffmpeg, is it possible with Premiere?

Example dropout in an audio track:

Answer 1

Neither Premiere nor ffmpeg support such an operation as far as I know.

But you could edit the audio with another program. Most DAWs (digital audio workstation) have more features to edit audio than video editors.

One such DAW is "Reaper". It comes with a free trial period, so you can test it for yourself if it's a good fit for your workflow. I'm sure other DAWs offer similar features but I don't use them and hence can't tell you more. I also don't know whether Adobe's Audition can do that.

The steps to solve the problem in Reaper are:

1. create a new track, insert the media file that contains the audio track
2. use the action "Item: Auto trim/split items (remove silence)" where you select the mode "split and keep silent areas". Play around with the other parameters if the splits are done at the wrong place. When splits are created, Reaper automatically adds a crossfade by default (can be changed in Preferences->Project->Media Items Defaults->"Create automatic fade-in/fade-out for new items").
3. Render the audio and re-import it into the video editor, if needed.