56 Change the Movie s Volume

56 Change the Movie's Volume

Before You Begin

46 About Movie Maker Audio

48 Add a Soundtrack to Your Video

54 Adjust Audio Levels

See Also

57 Fade In and Fade Out Your Soundtrack

You can change the volume of a single clip or a group of selected clips. You can even change the volume of an entire movie by selecting all the clips and then adjusting the volume. You'll want to change the entire movie's volume if it's generally too loud or too soft when you play back the movie. You'll want to adjust the volume of individual clips if some are too low in relation to surrounding clips. You don't want your audience to keep working the volume control just to hear your movie at an adequate level.

You can adjust the volume of an audio clip on the Audio track or adjust the volume of an audio clip on the Audio/Music timeline. Volume adjustment is one of the few things you can do to the Audio track without affecting the video track, which is synchronized with the Audio track. (If you delete a clip from the Audio track, the video clip associated with it leaves the Video track at the same time.)

Movie Maker gives you three options for adjusting volume:

• Raise or lower a clip's volume

• Mute the clip's volume completely

• Reset the clip's volume to its original level

1. Right-Click Clip
   
   Locate the clip you want to adjust. The clip may reside on the Audio track or on the Audio/Music track. Right-click over the track to display the menu.
   
   
2. Select Volume
   
   Select Volume from the menu to display the Adjust Clip Volume dialog box.
   
   

   NOTE

   

   The volume changes on the clip's playback, but the actual clip volume inside the clip's file does not change. Therefore, you might insert the same sound effect multiple places in your movie and lower the volume in one place and raise the volume in another.

3. Drag Left to Decrease
   
   Drag the volume's slider control left if you want to decrease the clip's volume.
   
   
4. Drag Right to Increase
   
   Drag the volume's slider control right if you want to increase the clip's volume.
   
   
5. Click to Mute
   
   Click the Mute clip option to silence the clip's playback volume completely. If an audio clip also appears on the other audio track, only the clip you right-clicked is muted.
   
   
6. Click to Reset
   
   If you want to reset a clip's volume back to its original level, click the Reset button.
   
   
7. Click to Close
   
   Click the OK button to apply whatever volume changes you requested for the clip.