Final Cut Pro HD | H•O•T Hands-On Training [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

A Quick Tour of the Audio Mixer

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The Audio Mixer looks more complex than it really is. It actually isn't frightening once you understand it. On the far left is a list of all the audio tracks in your sequence. In the middle are the channel stripsone for each audio track. Each channel strip is identical to all the others, so once you know how one works, you know how they all work. On the far right is the master fader and a duplicate set of Audio Meters.

There are four areas of the mixer that can be explained quickly:

Master Fader

Audio Meters

View controls

Pop-up menu

First is the Master Fader which controls all the audio levels for your entire sequence. Here's the rule for the Master Fader: Don't touch it. Leave it at 0 and pretend it doesn't exist. If you have problems with your mix, fix it by adjusting individual tracks, not the master. Adjusting the master is a bad habit that will get you in trouble.

The Audio Meters, next to the Master Fader, correspond directly with the meters on the Audio Meter. Both zeros are equal. The Master Fader, though, shows how far over zero a particular sound has gone. If left unchanged, it will still distort. It will still sound bad on tape. But, at least now you know how far down you need to lower the volume to correct the clipping.

The View controls (across the top) allow you to display a subset of your audio tracks in the sequence. This is especially helpful when you have more audio tracks than you have room to display in the mixer.

Here's how this works:

The pop-up menu in the top corner is best left set to Auto. This means that when you click the Viewer, the mixer shows you the audio tracks in the Viewer. When you select the Canvas or Timeline, the mixer shows you the tracks in the Timeline. However, you can force it to always show the Canvas or Viewer by selecting it in this pop-up menu.

The heart and soul of the Audio Mixer is the channel strip. Every channel strip is identical in layout and operation. You change the level by sliding the large fader up and down. You change the pan by sliding the small fader from side to side. The numbers below each show the amount of change. Setting the level to the thick black line, labeled Unity above, means you are making no change to the audio level of a clip.

The Mute and Solo buttons are identical in look and operation to those you discovered earlier in the Timeline.