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About audio waveforms
Audio waveforms are visual representations of the actual sound. Audio waveforms
appear in clips in the following ways:
As the bottom portion of a video clip, colored blue Â
As a detached or an audio-only clip, colored green Â
Audio-only clip
Audio portion of a video clip
An audio waveform’s amplitude and length change according to the underlying
sound’s volume and duration. A short, loud sound such as a drum beat has a
sharp, peaked waveform, whereas low-level crowd noise has a lower, more uniform
waveform. These properties make it easier to nd specic edit points when trimming
clips or keyframing eects.
In Final Cut Pro, audio waveforms change according to a clip’s volume level or applied
eects. The waveform appears larger when the volume is high and smaller when the
volume is low.
You edit audio clips in the Timeline by rst listening to a clip’s audio through
playback and skimming, and then applying changes to the clip, using the waveform
as a reference.
View audio waveforms at the audio sample level
For even more precise editing, you can zoom in to audio clips at the audio sample
level. Audio samples show the audio waveform at a fraction of a second (for example,
1/48,000 for audio recorded at a sample rate of 48 kHz). Sample-accurate editing
resolution is available only for connected audio clips (that is, audio clips not in the
primary storyline) or compound clips that contain only audio.
208 Chapter 9 Addandadjustaudio