Locking and Unlocking Audio Clips

After you extract an audio clip, it appears with a pushpin icon at its far left. This icon indicates that the video and audio tracks are synchronized, or locked, at that point. But you can unlock the clip, then drag it elsewhere on the Timeline.

To unlock an audio clip:

1.

Select the audio clip (not the video clip) in the Timeline Viewer. If you've just extracted the audio clip, it should be already selected.

2.

Choose Lock Audio Clip at Playhead from the Advanced menu, or press Command-L. (If you don't see this command, it means the audio clip isn't selected.) The pushpin icon disappears (Figure 10.10). Figure 10.10. Once unlocked, you can position an audio clip anywhere in the movie. Here, the clip on the right is shifted out of sync with its video. Similarly, you can lock an extracted audio clip to any video clip in your movie. Locking it ensures that the sound remains synchronized, even if you add video clips later (Figure 10.11).

Figure 10.11. The unlocked audio clip gets pushed further out of sync when a new video clip is added.

To lock an audio clip:

1.	Position the audio clip where you want it to appear on the Timeline.
2.	Move the Playhead to a spot where the audio and video clips overlap (it doesn't have to be at the beginning).
3.	Choose Lock Audio Clip at Playhead from the Advanced menu, or hit Command-L. A new pushpin icon appears at the Playhead location (Figure 10.12).

Figure 10.12. Choosing Lock Audio Clip at Playhead anchors the audio clip at a specific location.

Tip

• Position the playhead in the middle of the clips you want to lock. Then you can trim the start and end points of the clips without disrupting the synchronization.