Help Me With iMovie 09
October 28, 2011 8:19 AM Subscribe
I need to do some slightly fancy audio swapping and synching in iMovie 09, but I'm inexperienced with the app.
I won't use correct iMovie vocabulary 'cuz I'm a newbie. So, in plain language:
I have eight video clips that need to be joined into one movie (which I will eventually edit). They're already imported and set up in proper order in the iMovie storyboard.
I have a separate MP3 audio sound track I need to swap in (which means stripping the current audio track from the video). This separate track spans the eight clips (i.e. it's one single track, not eight snippets). As-is, it should pretty closely synch with the joined 8 video tracks; it'll just need a bit of massaging.
So I need to:
1. join the eight clips into one (not as an export from iMovie, though, because I still need to edit once I've done all this stuff!)
2. strip all existing audio
3. add the new audio
4. edit the audio track, adding or subtracting milliseconds here or there to make sure the synch's just right (I'm an experienced audio editor; I hope iMovie will allow me to edit audio independently, and I won't need Final Cut for this).
Can anyone please walk me through the steps?
I won't use correct iMovie vocabulary 'cuz I'm a newbie. So, in plain language:
I have eight video clips that need to be joined into one movie (which I will eventually edit). They're already imported and set up in proper order in the iMovie storyboard.
I have a separate MP3 audio sound track I need to swap in (which means stripping the current audio track from the video). This separate track spans the eight clips (i.e. it's one single track, not eight snippets). As-is, it should pretty closely synch with the joined 8 video tracks; it'll just need a bit of massaging.
So I need to:
1. join the eight clips into one (not as an export from iMovie, though, because I still need to edit once I've done all this stuff!)
2. strip all existing audio
3. add the new audio
4. edit the audio track, adding or subtracting milliseconds here or there to make sure the synch's just right (I'm an experienced audio editor; I hope iMovie will allow me to edit audio independently, and I won't need Final Cut for this).
Can anyone please walk me through the steps?
iMovie will allow this. To eliminate the audio from your original clips you'll need to use the audio adjustments pane, which you access from the little gear icon which appears above your clips when you mouse over them in the timeline. You can not (as far as I know) REMOVE the audio track, but you can mute it, which is much the same. Select all the clips at once and then access the audio adjustments to do it all at once.
I'm not in front of my Mac to try the next step, but off hand I think what you'll need to do to add your own audio track and then edit it is drag your file into the timeline as a sound queue rather than as background audio. This means dragging it onto the clip at the point at which you want it to begin rather than onto the background around your clips. Then it should appear as a green linked audio clip, which you should be able to edit in much the same way you do video clips. iMovie's audio editing features are a little basic but I think you'll be able to get what you want.
posted by raygan at 8:53 AM on October 28, 2011
I'm not in front of my Mac to try the next step, but off hand I think what you'll need to do to add your own audio track and then edit it is drag your file into the timeline as a sound queue rather than as background audio. This means dragging it onto the clip at the point at which you want it to begin rather than onto the background around your clips. Then it should appear as a green linked audio clip, which you should be able to edit in much the same way you do video clips. iMovie's audio editing features are a little basic but I think you'll be able to get what you want.
posted by raygan at 8:53 AM on October 28, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks raygan
Don't I need to join the 8 segments somehow, first? I don't want my audio track to just squeeze into one of those segments.
Also, the track I'm adding is stereo. So the idea of muting the existing track will only work if iMovie allows three audio tracks.
One workaround would be to go back to my source videos and use Quicktime 7 to strip off the audio, then re-import them into iMovie. Come to think of it, I could join the segments easily enough in Quicktime 7. If so, I'd be left with one long video track, and it'd be easy to add the audio. Hmm.....
posted by Quisp Lover at 9:44 AM on October 28, 2011
Don't I need to join the 8 segments somehow, first? I don't want my audio track to just squeeze into one of those segments.
Also, the track I'm adding is stereo. So the idea of muting the existing track will only work if iMovie allows three audio tracks.
One workaround would be to go back to my source videos and use Quicktime 7 to strip off the audio, then re-import them into iMovie. Come to think of it, I could join the segments easily enough in Quicktime 7. If so, I'd be left with one long video track, and it'd be easy to add the audio. Hmm.....
posted by Quisp Lover at 9:44 AM on October 28, 2011
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posted by Quisp Lover at 8:22 AM on October 28, 2011