Mixing in the Music Track

Now that we've selected the track that best fits our project, we will add it to the Audio 2 track and manipulate it slightly so that the volume of this music track doesn't overwhelm our clip. As it is right now, it's a bit too loud.

Add the Music to the Project's Soundtrack

If you don't have Quicktracks installed, this music track is also on the DVD supplied with this book. To retrieve it, click the Get Media from button on the Media panel to access the Get Media from view, if it's not already active.

Select DVD, Digital Camera, Mobile Phone, Hard Drive Camcorder, Card Reader.

When the Media Downloader displays, click the Advanced Dialog button to switch to Advanced mode.

Select the SmartSound - Underwater - Ascent [00;31;24].wav clip for this project.

Click the Get Media button. Premiere Elements copies the SmartSound - Underwater - Ascent [00;31;24].wav clip from the DVD onto your hard drive and adds it to the Available Media list for this project.

Drag and drop the SmartSound - Underwater - Ascent [00;31;24].wav clip from the Media panel on to the Audio 2 track. Be sure to line up the head of the music clip with the start of the Audio 2 track.

As is, this track is too loud for our project. We won't be able to hear the ambient sounds in the parkscene.avi clip. To correct this, on the Properties panel for the SmartSound - Underwater - Ascent [00;31;24].wav clip, adjust the clip so that the volume is at or near negative 10 decibels (-10 dB).

Tip

You can also adjust the volume using the rubberband on the SmartSound - Underwater - Ascent [00;31;24].wav clip by dragging the rubberband lower in the clip. Note that as you drag the rubberband, Premiere Elements gives you feedback as to the decibel level (db) that track is at:

Click on Fade In on the Properties panel. This way, the music track will gently begin playing from silence at first.

Tip

You might want to apply a Fade In to the first video clip in the Video 1 track and a Fade Out to the last video clip in the Video 1 track. This will create a nice fade up from black and fade down to black for the project.