Adding Sound Effects

You can't capture every sound when you're shooting the laser blasts in Star Wars weren't real, for example (they were actually recordings of wrenches striking power cables). Sometimes you need ready-made sound effects (many are included with iMovie), or you can even create your own.

To add a sound effect to your movie:

1. Switch to iMovie's Audio pane.

2. From the popup menu, choose iMovie Sound Effects (Figure 10.25).

   Figure 10.25. iMovie includes a number of common sound effects that you can add to your movie.

   

3. Double-click an effect's name to preview it, or select an effect and click the Play button.

4. Drag the effect you want to the Timeline Viewer and drop it into one of the audio tracks (Figure 10.26).

   Figure 10.26. A sound effect appears in the Timeline like any other audio clip.

   

   You can edit sound effects just as you can with any other audio clip in iMovie.

Tips

• Kudos to Apple's engineers: iMovie automatically displays the Timeline Viewer when you start dragging a sound effect.

• A broad assortment of audio clips are available. Apple lists some you can download (www.apple.com/imovie), and there are many companies that sell or license audio libraries.

To add new sound effects to iMovie:

1. Quit iMovie.

2. Make sure the sound file is in the AIFF or MP3 format. A number of utilities, such as Apple's QuickTime Pro Player, can convert sound formats.

3. Locate iMovie in your Applications folder in the Finder. Adding sound effects entails opening up the iMovie application's package file in essence, you're changing the iMovie application itself, so it's not a bad idea to make a copy of it.

4. Control-click the iMovie application icon and select Show Package Contents (Figure 10.27).

   Figure 10.27. Control-click the iMovie application icon to display the contextual menu above.

   

5. Open the Contents folder, then the Resources folder, and locate the Sound Effects folder (Figure 10.28).

   Figure 10.28. Copy your sound effect file to the Standard Sound Effects folder.

   

6. Copy your sound effect file to the Standard Sound Effects folder.

7. Close the window and launch iMovie. The sound is now listed in the iMovie Sound Effects list.

Tips

• Many iMovie 2 sound effects appear in the Sound Effects folder, but not in iMovie 3. Move them to the Standard Sound Effects folder to use them in the latest version.

• Don't go overboard with adding sound effects to iMovie's library: the more items, the longer it takes iMovie to launch.

• A cheap and easy way to create your own sound effects is to record them in iMovie using the narration feature (see "Recording Voice-overs" earlier in this chapter).