- Reference 4.1 Understanding a Project
- Exercise 4.1.1 Creating a Project
- Reference 4.2 Defining the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.2.1 Appending the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.2.2 Rearranging Clips in the Primary Storyline
- Reference 4.3 Modifying Clips in the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.3.1 Performing Insert Edits
- Exercise 4.3.2 Rippling the Primary Storyline
- Reference 4.4 Timing the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.4.1 Inserting a Gap Clip
- Exercise 4.4.2 Blading and Deleting
- Exercise 4.4.3 Joining a Through Edit
- Exercise 4.4.4 Refining Some Sound Bite Edits
- Reference 4.5 Editing Above the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.5.1 Adding and Trimming Connected B-roll
- Exercise 4.5.2 Understanding Connected Clip Sync and Trimming Behaviors
- Reference 4.6 Creating a Connected Storyline
- Exercise 4.6.1 Converting Connected Clips into a Connected Storyline
- Exercise 4.6.2 Appending Clips to a Connected Storyline
- Reference 4.7 Editing Below the Primary Storyline
- Exercise 4.7.1 Connecting a Music Clip
- Reference 4.8 Finessing the Rough Cut
- Exercise 4.8.1 Adjusting the Edits
- Exercise 4.8.2 Adjusting Clip Volume Levels
- Exercise 4.8.3 Connecting Two Additional B-Roll Clips
- Exercise 4.8.4 Refining Edits Using Cross Dissolves and Fade Handles
- Reference 4.9 Sharing Your Progress
- Exercise 4.9.1 Sharing an iOS-Compatible File
- Lesson Review
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Exercise 4.8.2 Adjusting Clip Volume Levels
The two basic rules of mixing audio are: Don’t peak the meters; and if it doesn’t sound good, change it. That change should not be a knee-jerk reaction. Don’t get in the trap of continuing to boost the volume of a clip to make it louder than the other clips. If the sound bites are too quiet, you don’t necessarily crank up the sound bites. Maybe you need to turn down the volume of the music or B-roll nats.
In this exercise, you will perform some simple volume level adjustments to ensure that the sound bites are clearly audible, and that the overall audio mix does not reach up to 0 dB on the Audio meters. A safe target is to not allow any of your loudest audio to go above –6 dB on the meters.
The Audio meters in Final Cut Pro averaging a good, safe -12 dB playback level
In the Dashboard, click the Audio Meter button.
The larger Audio meters open to the right of the Timeline. Although you’ll delve deeper into audio mixing in Lesson 6, right now you just want to ensure that during playback your audio levels don’t peak at or beyond the 0 dB level on the meters.
A few minutes ago, you changed the volume of a single music clip. When you want to change the volume levels of multiple clips at once, you can use a keyboard shortcut.
In the takeoff storyline, select all the B-roll clips.
While watching the clips’ volume controls, press Control-– (minus sign) and Control-= (equals sign) to lower and raise the volumes of the selected clips.
Each shortcut key press lowers or raises the playback volume level of the selected clips by 1 dB. As these clips have wildly different audio content, you should adjust only one or a few at a time.
Play through the entire project, listening to the mix while watching the Audio meters. Select a clip or multiple clips, and drag the volume control or press the shortcut keys so you can clearly hear Mitch talking, and also to keep the Audio meters below –6 dB.
The peak indicators, the thin lines left over from the highest meter reading, should not go much over –6 dB.
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Know Your Volume Controls
When dealing with audio, always remember that you have access to at least two volume controls. The volume level controls internal to Final Cut Pro are the only ones that affect your audience. Turning down your Mac computer’s volume or external speaker volume control does not affect the audio volume in Final Cut Pro.
The built-in Mac speakers are good quality for a computer, but they won’t do the job for professional editing. At the very least, you’ll want to have good over-the-ear studio headphones, and at best, powered near-field loudspeakers. Audio monitoring equipment is a key investment that will add immeasurably to your final output’s quality. Just because you’re not listening on good equipment doesn’t mean others won’t either; viewers with high-quality equipment will probably notice audio issues you couldn’t even hear.
