Audio and mixing

Set a clip's volume and fades

1. 1.Click an audio clip0:00
2. 2.Drag its volume0:01
3. 3.Set a fade out and its shape0:02

Description

The AI trailer’s music on A1. Clicking the music clip shows it in the clip inspector: Volume is dragged down, a two-second fade out is set, and the fade shape changed to Constant power. The waveform on the timeline shows the volume line and the fade.

1. Click an audio clip. The clip inspector shows it.
2. Drag Volume (0–200%). The line on its waveform follows.
3. Drag Fade in and Fade out (up to 5 seconds), and pick a Fade shape: Linear, or Constant power, which holds the level up through the fade (what a crossfade uses).
4. Pan puts it left or right; Mute silences it; Loop repeats it to fill its length.

Its right-click menu has the same: Volume (150, 100, 75, 50, 25%), Fades, Mute and Loop.

Move an audio clip by dragging it, to another time or another audio track; trim its edges like any clip. ⌘B cuts it at the playhead.

Crossfade two clips

Click the earlier of two clips on the same track and click Crossfade into … in the inspector (or right-click → Crossfade into next): it fades out over one second while the next fades in, at constant power.

Cut the scenes to the beat

Click the music clip, then Detect onsets in the clip inspector: its hits become markers labelled onsets on the ruler. Cut to the beat then moves each cut on V1 onto the nearest one. See Audio.

Generate music, effects or a voice-over

The sparkle in the bin's header opens Generate: a music bed, a sound effect or a voice-over made with AI, placed at the playhead on an audio track. See Generating sound.

Mix the tracks

1. 1.Click Mixer0:00
2. 2.Drag a track’s fader and pan0:01
3. 3.M mutes a track, S solos it0:04

Description

The AI trailer in Edit, playing. The Mixer tab replaces the timeline with a strip per audio track: A1’s fader is pulled down and back up, its pan is moved to the left, and M mutes it and S solos it while the trailer plays; each fader shows its level in dB.

1. Click Mixer in the timeline header. The timeline makes way for a strip per audio track.
2. Drag a track's fader (shown in dB) to set its level, and its Pan to place it.
3. M mutes it, S solos it (only soloed tracks are heard). Click Timeline to go back.

A track's level and pan apply to every clip on it, on top of each clip's own volume and pan, in the preview and in the export.

Duck the music under a voice

Put the voice or dialogue on A1 and the music on A2. In the Mixer, under Smart mix, click Duck A2 under A1 (or run Duck music under voice from the command palette). Wherever A1 plays, A2 drops to a quarter of its level, with a quarter-second ramp in and out. It writes volume keys on the music clips, which you can change afterwards.

Hear it while you scrub

Turn on Scrub audio (the waveform button by the transport): dragging or stepping the playhead plays a snippet of the sound under it, to find a beat by ear.

A scene's own sound

A video's audio, and sound added to a frame in Animate, plays with the scene wherever it is in the sequence. Right-click the clip → Mute its sound to leave it out.

Reference