Apple iMovie HD User Manual download pdf (Page 17)

Camcorder Sound

Settings

Most miniDV camcorders provide two

sound-recording settings: 12-bit and

16-bit. Always record using the 16-bit

setting. If your sound and picture syn

chronization drift over the course of a

long movie, it’s probably because you

recorded using 12-bit audio.

Muting an Audio Track

You can mute an audio track entirely by

unchecking the box to its right in the time

line viewer. If you uncheck the box next to

the video track, iMovie HD mutes the vid

eo’s sound. This can be handy when

you’re replacing the audio in a series of

clips with an audio bed—a segment of

background audio that will play across

multiple clips.

Splitting Audio Clips

You can divide an audio clip into two or

more separate clips whose position and

volume you can adjust independently.

First, select the audio clip you want to

split. Next, position the playhead where

you want to split the clip. Finally, choose

Split Selected Audio Clip at Playhead

from the Edit menu or press

1-T.

Sound Effects

iMovie HD’s library of built-in

sound effects, accessed through

the audio section of the Media

pane, covers a lot of aural ground.

But there’s always room for

more sound, and the Internet is

a rich repository of it. One of

your ﬁrst stops should be

FindSounds, a Web search

engine that lets you locate and

download free sound effects by

typing keywords, such as chick

adee

. SoundHunter is another

impressive source of free sound

effects and provides links to

even more audio-related sites.

Most online sound effects are

stored as WAV or AIFF ﬁles, two

common sound formats. To

import a WAV or AIFF ﬁle, use

the File menu’s Import command

or simply drag the ﬁle directly to

the desired location in the time

line viewer.

Managing Sound

Effects

If you assemble a large library of

sound effects, you might ﬁnd

yourself needing a program to

help you keep track of them. You

already have such a program:

it’s called iTunes. Simply drag

your sound effects ﬁles into the

iTunes window. Use the Get Info

command to assign descriptive

tags to them, and you can use

iTunes’ Search box to locate

effects in a ﬂash. You might

even want to create a separate

iTunes music library to store

your sound effects.

Music Sources

You’ll ﬁnd a symphony’s worth

of music on the Internet.

For private, non-commercial

projects, try Freeplay Music

(www.freeplaymusic.com).

You can download and use

its music clips for, yes, free.

For commercial projects, how

ever, be sure to carefully read

the company’s rate card and

licensing requirements.

Plenty of music is also available

from sites such as SoundDogs,

KillerSound, and Award Winning

Music. These sites have powerful

search features that let you

locate music based on keywords,

such as acoustic or jazz.

Loopasonic is another cool

music site. It offers hundreds of

music loops—repeating riffs—

that you can assemble into

unique music tracks and use in

GarageBand (which, of course,

you can use to compose your

own movie music).

And for building custom-length

music tracks, you can’t beat

SmartSound’s Movie Maestro

software. Movie Maestro pro

vides an expandable library of

songs, each of which is divided

into blocks that the Music

Maestro software can assemble

to an exact length.

Sources for Sound Effects and Music

Get links to sources of sound effects and music.

www.macilife.com/imovie

More Sound Advice

Waveform Tips

When you’ve used the View menu to

display audio waveforms, iMovie HD’s

timeline snapping feature snaps the play

head to silent portions of clips (speciﬁ

cally, when you scroll to within three

frames of silence).

To work with more precision when viewing

waveforms, zoom in on the timeline. If the

audio in a track is on the quiet side, the

waveform may be hard to see. Solution:

select the audio clip and press the up-

arrow key. This accentuates the spikes in

the waveform. To make the spikes smaller,

press the down-arrow key.

When you import an audio clip or music

track, iMovie HD must render the track’s

waveform—a red progress bar appears

at the bottom of the audio track, and the

waveform appears a bit blurry until iMovie

HD renders it. Because this process takes

some time, you may want to leave the

waveform display turned off unless you

need it for precise editing or volume

adjustments.

Trimming Audio

You can trim the start and end of an

audio clip using the same direct-trimming

techniques described on page 232. As

with video clips, you can reclaim audio

that’s outside of a clip’s boundaries by

resizing the clip.

Scrubbing Audio

Here’s a handy way to locate the exact

spot to trim or split an audio clip. Zoom

in on the timeline, then press the Option

key while slowly dragging the iMovie HD

playhead. Your audio plays back, but is

slowed down. The sound even plays

backwards when you drag the playhead

to the left. (Beatles fans: import some

White Album songs from your iTunes

library and have fun.)

Extracting Audio

At times, you may want to use only the

audio portion of a clip. For example,

you’re making a documentary about your

grandmother’s childhood and you’d like

to show old photographs as she talks.

To do this, drag the video clip to the

timeline, then select the clip and choose

Extract Audio (

1-J) from the Advanced

menu. iMovie HD copies the audio,

places it in Audio Track 1, and mutes the

audio in the video clip.

Next, select the video clip in the timeline

and press the Delete key. The video van

ishes but its audio lingers on, and you

can now position still images and other

clips in the video’s place. You can also

drag the audio elsewhere in the timeline.

Overlapping Audio in

the Timeline

iMovie HD may provide just two audio

tracks, but that doesn’t mean you’re lim

ited to two simultaneous sounds. You can

overlap multiple audio clips in the time

line’s audio tracks: simply drag one audio

clip on top of another.

Repeating Sound Effects

You might want some sound effects to

play for a long period of time. For exam

ple, iMovie HD’s Hard Rain sound effect

is less than 10 seconds long, but maybe

you need 30 seconds of rain sounds for

a particular movie.

For cases like these, simply repeat the

sound effect by dragging it from the

Audio pane to the timeline as many times

as needed. You can also duplicate a

sound by Option-dragging it in the time

line. If the sound effect fades out (as

Hard Rain does), overlap each copy to

hide the fade.

You can build magniﬁcently rich

sound effect tracks by overlapping

sounds. To create a thunderstorm, for

example, drag the Thunder sound effect

so that it overlaps Hard Rain. Add the

Cold Wind sound while you’re at it. And

don’t forget to use iMovie HD’s audio

controls to ﬁne-tune the relative levels of

each effect.

spread M15

iMovie HD: Making Movies

More Sound Advice

iMovie HD: Making Movies

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