Apple Final Cut Express HD - Manual (Page 425)

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Audio Editing Basics
Good audio edits are usually subtle and go unnoticed by the
listening audience. After you assemble your video and audio,
you can edit your audio independently in the Timeline.
This chapter covers the following:
 The Goals of Audio Editing (p. 425)
 Using Waveform Displays to Help You Edit Audio (p. 427)
 Learning About the Audio Controls in the Viewer (p. 428)
 Editing Audio in the Viewer (p. 431)
 Editing Audio in the Timeline (p. 438)
 Creating or Separating Stereo Pairs (p. 442)
 Working With Audio at the Subframe Level (p. 444)
 Examples of Ways to Easily Edit Audio (p. 446)
Note: For details about audio mixing, see “ Overview of Audio Mixing ” on page 561.
The Goals of Audio Editing
Most viewers are quite good at distinguishing audio changes from one clip to the next,
as well as incorrect audio-video synchronization. As you work on refining the audio in
your project, your edits will focus on eliminating these major distractions to the
audience. In particular, keep in mind three important goals:
Make sure your audio edit points aren’t noticeable.
Editing audio clips in a sequence mainly involves finding good edit points that sound
natural. Audio edit points are often more effective when they are offset from the
corresponding video edits. Although you may set your initial audio and video edit
points in the same place to create a quick rough cut, editing your audio more finely
may involve changing many of your edit points to split edits. Some of those split edits
may have only a few frames offset between the audio and video edit points, but those
frames will turn an otherwise obvious cut into a much smoother transition.