Mixing sound

The Mixer remembers its panel and channel-strip scroll positions for each project in this browser. Switching panels or reopening the project returns to that view; playback stays paused.

The Mixer sets how loud each audio track is and where it sits between the left and right speakers. What you hear while you edit is exactly what your export contains: the export uses the same levels, volume points, solo and mute.

Open the mixer

1. Click Mixer on the rail. Each audio track has a strip, in track order (A1, A2 …), and the Master strip is last. If the timeline has no audio track yet, the panel offers Add audio track.

   

   

2. Drag a strip's fader up or down to set the track's level, from silence (−∞) to +6 dB. The level shows under the fader. Grab the handle anywhere and it moves only as far as you drag; click elsewhere on the fader to jump there. Double-click the fader to return it to 0 dB, in one step of undo. With the fader selected, the arrow keys move it by 0.5 dB, or by 3 dB with Shift; Home silences the track and End sets +6 dB.

3. Drag Pan to place the track to the left (L 40) or the right (R 40). C is the centre. With Pan selected, the arrow keys move it by 1, or by 6 with Shift. Double-click it to centre it again.

4. M mutes the track. S solos it: while any track is soloed, you hear only the soloed tracks. A muted track stays silent even when it is soloed. Mute and solo are saved with the project, and each click can be undone.

The Master strip sets the level of the whole timeline. Every change you make in the mixer is heard at once, even while the timeline is playing, and each drag is one step of undo.

Read the meters

Beside each fader, the meter shows how loud the track is while the timeline plays, from −60 dB at the bottom to 0 dB at the top. It is green, turns amber above −6 dB and red above −1 dB. A thin line holds the loudest moment for about a second.

The small light above the meter turns red when the sound reaches 0 dB, the loudest a file can hold, and stays red until you click or tap it. If it lights, lower that track's fader or the Master.

Shape a clip's volume

1. On an audio clip, the yellow line is the clip's volume, on the same scale as a fader: the top of the clip is +6 dB, and an untouched clip's line sits just below it, at 0 dB. With no points on it, drag the line up or down to change the whole clip. Ctrl-click the line (Cmd-click on a Mac) to add a volume point. Drag a point to move it; it stays between the points either side of it. Drag the line between two points to move both. Select a point and use the arrow keys: Up and Down change its level by 0.5 dB (3 dB with Shift), Left and Right move it by one frame (ten with Shift). Press Delete to remove it: the clip stays.

Volume points are the same keyframes you see in the clip's keyframe lane, so editing one changes the other. For a whole recording that is too quiet or too loud, use Gain in the clip inspector instead: see The clip inspector.

Audio effects

Six effects fix the sound of a clip. They are free, you hear them at once, even while the timeline plays, and your export sounds the same.

1. Click Effects on the rail, choose Audio, and drag an effect onto an audio clip. Dropped on a video clip that has its sound on an audio track, it goes to that audio clip, the one you hear.

2. Select the clip: its effects are listed under Audio effects in the clip inspector. Each setting can be dragged, typed or keyframed like any other. Effects work from the top of the list down, so Move up and Move down change the sound: an EQ before a compressor is not the same as one after it. Turn an effect off with fx, put it back to its starting settings with the reset button, or remove it.

• High-pass removes everything below its Frequency: rumble, wind, handling noise. 80 Hz is a safe start for a voice.
• Low-pass removes everything above its Frequency: hiss and harshness.
• Parametric EQ raises or lowers three bands: Low below its frequency, Mid around its frequency (a higher Q is narrower), and High above its frequency. It starts flat.
• Compressor turns down the sound above its Threshold, by its Ratio: at 4:1, a sound 4 dB over the threshold comes out 1 dB over. Attack and Release set how fast it reacts and lets go; Makeup turns the result back up.
• Limiter holds peaks near its Ceiling. It reacts very fast, but a very short peak can still pass the ceiling by a fraction of a decibel.
• De-esser softens harsh "s" sounds: it turns down only the sound above its Frequency, and only when that part is louder than its Threshold.

The clip's Gain comes before its effects and its volume line after them, so a fade-out stays a fade-out. Captions and Insert scene hear a clip with its effects, because they are part of the clip's own sound. Denoise audio cleans the clip's original recording, and its effects still apply to the cleaned sound afterwards.

Loudness

How loud a mix sounds is not the same as how high its peaks reach. Video platforms and broadcasters measure loudness in LUFS and turn every video to the same level, so a mix that is too quiet ends up quiet next to everything else, and one that is too loud is turned down. The Loudness section under the strips measures your mix the same way.

1. Play the timeline and read the four numbers:

   • Momentary: how loud the last moment is (under half a second).
   • Short-term: how loud the last three seconds are.
   • Integrated: how loud everything you have played is, as a whole. This is the number platforms use. Reset starts it again.
   • True peak: the highest point the sound reaches, in dBTP, including between samples.

   Click Measure to measure the whole timeline at once without playing it. It is free and runs on your computer, and it hears the timeline exactly as an export of the full timeline does. An export of only In to out is measured on its own when it is exported.

2. Choose a Target: Social (−14 LUFS) for social media and video sites, or Broadcast (−23 LUFS) for television. Integrated then shows how far under or over the target your mix is. The export uses the same target: see Exporting your film.

Ducking

Ducking lowers the music while someone speaks, and brings it back up when they stop. It does it with ordinary volume points on the music clips, the same yellow line as above, so you can see every dip, drag it, or delete it. What you hear and what you export are those points.

1. Under Ducking in the Mixer, mark each audio track: Dialogue for the voices, Music for the music. A track left at None is neither heard for speech nor lowered.

2. Choose how far the music dips with Amount (−12 dB to start with) and click Duck music. Wherever someone speaks on a Dialogue track, the music starts going down just before the line and comes back up just after it. Short pauses inside a sentence keep it down, so it does not bounce.

Ducking is free and runs on your computer, and each click is one step you can undo.

• After a re-cut, click Duck music again. It replaces the points it wrote before, including any of them you dragged, and writes new ones.
• Remove ducking takes away every point ducking wrote and nothing else.
• Your own volume points are never changed. Where a dip would land on one of them, or inside a held or curved stretch of your own volume line, that dip is skipped, and the line under the buttons says how many were.
• A dialogue clip whose media is not linked on this computer cannot be heard, so its speech is not found; the line under the buttons says how many were left out.
• Speech is found from the sound of the Dialogue tracks, so steady room noise does not count, and a quiet recording works as well as a loud one.