How to Edit Audio

Prerequisite

You have:

created a project

uploaded a film

created a cue on a lane (i.e. Score or Sound Design)

entered that cue and uploaded at least one audio file

Editing

We’re in the Workspace window. Once you add an audio file from the left pane to the Sync Area underneath the picture, that piece of music is now in Edit Mode. Here, you can:

adjust the in-point by by dragging the left handle.

adjust the out-point by dragging the - you guessed it - right handle.

drag the entire audio underneath the picture to an earlier or later spot by grabbing the bar that reads “drag to position” (make sure the audio is shorter than the timeline or use slipping, described below).

slip the audio within the in- and out-point, allowing you to chose a different stretch of audio while keeping the in- and out-points exactly where they are.

Spotting using the Sync Point

If you need frame accurate precision, we’ve got just the right tool for you: while in Edit Mode, click the ‘Sync’ button in the top left of the audio edit. You now have two options:

You can sync to playhead. Simply place the playhead at the frame where you would like the audio edit to slide to. You can use the mouse or the left and right arrow keys. Next, hit the ‘playhead’ button. Whoosh. It’s spotted.

You can spot it to a timecode. When you click ‘TimeCode’ in the Sync Point, you can now enter the timecode unit by unit. Try using the up- and down-arrow keys for incremental adjustments, or the left- and right-arrow keys to move to the next unit. Or simply type the numbers. Once done, click the arrow button to the right, and Zwoooosh! It’s spotted. Please note, the timecode Freque may needs to be offset to correspond to the film. You can adjust this in the edit settings here.

It gets even better: you can drag that Sync Point tool to any part within the audio edit and sync to that particular point. This is great if there is a hit that needs to correspond to a particular moment in the picture, or a ramp at the end that needs to hit a certain frame.

Volume Editing

While in Edit Mode you can switch to Volume Automation by clicking the Automation Button on the top right of the audio edit header.

Click to create node points.

Double-click to delete them.

Drag to adjust their position.

You can set an overall default clip volume by clicking on the loudspeaker icon to the right of the Automation Tool. This increases or decreases the volume of the entire audio edit.

To Save or To Discard

When you have just dragged in a piece of audio from the left pane, clicking ‘Discard’ will take it out of the Sync Area and you’re where you started. If you have tweaked an existing audio edit, clicking discard will revert simply back to the last saved version before you started editing.

Save will keep your changes. If you have worked on an audio edit that was created by someone else in your team, your audio edit will show up as a separate track. If you created the original audio edit in the first place, your newest edit replaces now the prior one.

Going back in History

Because humans are imperfect, we have implemented a history button that allows us to look at prior edits and bring them back. To the future. If you will.