Section 8.2. Audio Clips | iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

8.2. Audio Clips

In many regards, working with sound files is much like working with video clips. For example, each piece of sound appears as a horizontal colored bar in the Timeline Viewer. You can move a clip around in the movie by dragging horizontally; cut, copy, and paste it; delete it by selecting it and then pressing the Delete key; and so on.

Figure 8-2. A view of the right end of the Timeline Viewer. Drag the Playhead so that the vertical line beneath it strikes the piece of sound you want to listen to. Then turn off the track checkboxes to isolate the track you want. (The top box represents audio from the original videotape.) Press the Space bar to begin listening.
Hint: If you've turned on "Snap to items in Timeline" in iMovie Preferences, the Playhead snaps neatly against the beginnings and ends of audio clipsand bookmarks, chapter markers, and video clipswhen you drag it. In fact, it even snaps against bursts of sound within an audio clip, which helps you find the start or end of silent bits. (You can Shift-drag to override the snapping setting.)

As you work, remember to use the Zoom slider (at the lower-left corner of the Timeline Viewer) to magnify or shrink your audio clips as necessary.

8.2.1. Renaming Sound Clips (or Not)

When you click an audio clip, iMovie intensifies its color to show that it's highlighted. The bottom edge of the Timeline Viewer displays the audio clip's name and duration, as shown in Figure 8-1. (You can also see a clip's name by pointing to it without clicking, as shown at middle in Figure 8-1.)

To rename an audio clip, double-click it. The Clip Info box appears, where you can type a new name into the Name box.

8.2.2. Listening to a Sound Clip

To isolate and listen to a particular audio clip, proceed as shown in Figure 8-2.

Tip: Once your movie is playing, you can loop a section of audio (play it repeatedly as you study the effect) by clicking repeatedly in the same spot on the Scrubber bar, keeping the mouse very still. With each click, the Playhead snaps back to replay the segment from the position of your cursor.