Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 in a Snap

82. Change the Audio Volume of a Video Production

By now, you are probably carrying several tracks of audio in your production. Not only do you have the native, embedded audio, but you might have added music, sound effects, and narration. You're probably wondering how you are going to manage all the audio and make it sound good together.

We've already covered the basics of editing an audio track in Add Audio Files to a Video Production, but this task goes a little farther and shows you how to manage several tracks.

Select Show/Hide Tracks

From the Production Editor taskbar, select the Show/Hide Tracks icon. This brings up the Show/Hide Tracks window.

Check Audio Tracks

Within the Show/Hide Tracks window, select all the audio tracks you are using in your production, including native. This allows you see all of the tracks you need to edit. If you are not using one or more tracks, uncheck the box next to it.

Deselect All Other Tracks

After you have selected the audio tracks, uncheck the boxes next to all the other tracks. This hides them in the timeline view so you can focus on the audio.

Click OK

When you are done selecting the audio tracks you want to edit, click OK. This closes the Show/Hide Tracks window and takes you back to VideoWave where you can have up to four tracks of audio in your view.

Mute or Add Fades to an Audio Track

Your native audio is not always the best audio to leave with the track. If you are planning to create a music video or you just want to narrate your video production and don't want to use any of the native audio, you can mute the native audio track. Select the track and click on the Adjust Volume icon in the Production Editor taskbar to bring up the volume adjustment. Check the Mute box. Your audio track turns grey, indicating that it is dormant.

If you would like to fade the volume of the track you have selected, check either the Fade In or Fade Out box. You can also adjust the volume of the entire track by typing in a decibel level or using the slider.

Click anywhere inside VideoWave to exit the volume adjustment.

Edit the Volume Envelope for an Audio Track

You might want to adjust the volume of a small portion of an audio track for a variety of reasons. For instance, if you are occasionally narrating a production to which you have added a music track, you probably want to fade the music down during the narration.

Click the Edit Volume Envelope icon in the Production Editor. This increases the width of all of your audio tracks. If you need to, stretch the Production Editor up so you can see all of your tracks.

From here, you can easily make volume adjustments. Click on any volume line to add a node or handle that you can drag to any volume setting. Two nodes are needed to change the volume in a relatively short amount of time.

Make the needed changes throughout your production. Preview your changes as you make them by using the playback controls in the Preview window. That way, you can make sure your volume levels don't clash.

When you are finished making changes, click on the Volume Envelope icon once again to shrink the tracks to their smaller size.

Tip

You might want to click on the Edit the Volume Envelope icon before you make any adjustments to your audio so you can get a better view of what you are doing.

Reset Track View

After you have reset the tracks to their normal size, click on the Show/Hide Tracks icon once again and follow the steps to restore the track view that you would prefer. At this point, you might want to hide all of your audio tracks and focus on the other tracks.