Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 669)

• Drag a clip item from your sequence to the Viewer.
2 Move the Canvas or Timeline playhead over the clip item you want to open, then press
the Return key.
Note: Make sure the track that contains the clip item is the lowest-numbered track with
Auto Select turned on.
3 If the clip contains both video and audio items, click one of the audio tabs in the Viewer
to see the waveform display.
For information about how the audio tabs are labeled, see “Viewing Audio Tracks in the
Viewer.”
Viewing Audio Tracks in the Viewer
Clips in Final Cut Pro can have up to 24 audio items. Clips with multiple audio items have
a separate tab for each mono audio item or pair of stereo audio items in the clip.
The way audio clips appear in the Viewer depends on whether they’re mono or stereo.
• If audio clip items are mono: They’re represented by individual mono tabs in the Viewer,
called Mono (a1), Mono (a2), and so on. Each mono tab displays the waveform for one
clip item, and levels applied to one are completely independent of any other. Mono
clip items are also referred to as discrete audio.
Discrete mono audio is useful when you recorded to separate channels with
independent microphones. (For example, separate lavalier and boom microphones are
often used during interviews to capture the same voice two different ways—providing
a backup audio track in case one microphone records poorly.) Using discrete audio
allows you to adjust levels and pan settings independently for each audio clip item.
You can also trim the In and Out points of each audio item separately in the Timeline.
Mono (a1) and (a2) tabs
669 Chapter 43 Audio Editing Basics