From Mute to Magic: Editing Audio in Final Cut Pro

How to Edit Audio of a Video on FCP

Benjamin Arango

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Final Cut Pro (FCP) is one of the most powerful editing tools often used by professional editors around the globe. In this article we are going to teach you 2 simple ways of editing the audio in Final Cut Pro.

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Those of you reading this article as a guide to audio editing of videos on Final Cut Pro, needs to remember that this is just a basic tutorial for this professional editing software. However, if you are new to the field of video editing then you should consider using the Wondershare Filmora for Mac . It is a powerful but simple tool that is just the right editing software for beginners. The advanced tools of this software would even allow you to use a lot of special effects like picture in picture, tilt shifts, split-screen, and much more.

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How to edit audio on FCP

There are 2 ways of editing audio of videos on FCP-clip-level audio editing and advanced audio editing.

Section 1 Clip-level audio editing

While dragging the audio or video clip onto the timeline you have surely seen the level line right above the clip waveform. One can just drag the level line and move it up or down for adjusting the dB of any given clip.

The job of the tiny white points on the right and left side of the clip is to apply the fade in and fade out effect on the audio. The left sided point can be dragged to the right to mark the ending of the fade-in effect of the clip. The right point has to be dragged left to set the start of the fade-out point.

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Note: In this level, any effects and adjustments in audio are applicable for the entire clip including the audio channels within it. All the adjustments in the individual audio channels made by you would be preserved by FCP. This implies that when one reduces the volume for just one channel but increases the volume of the entire clip, then the single channel’s volume is only raised in proportion to the volume of the other channels. Ideally, you should do your edits at the clip-level when you have only one or two audio channels on your video clip.

Section 2: Advanced Audio Editing

The audio of the video can be detached for editing the audio file separately. The Audio Inspector of FCP provides you with all precise controls of audio edit like pan, effect, volume, equalization and audio configuration.

In order to detach the audio, you need to go to Clip > Detach Audio. Or you can just right-click on the video file and click on Detach audio.

Note: There is a fine difference between ‘Detach Audio’ and ‘Expand Audio’. In Expand Audio, the audio clip is synced with the video. For instance, while moving the audio to the timeline, the video clip would also go with it. In case of detaching audio however the audio file would remain as a standalone clip that can be inserted into any portion of the video.

The Audio Inspector would allow you to apply the following effects:

• The volume can be increased by dragging the handle on the right side and lowered by dragging it towards the left.
• Audio Equalization would allow the user to apply various effects (bass, loudness, boost, etc.) on the audio clip. It can also be adjusted by using the in-built audio equalizer.

• Pan- Users can select from a number of Pan modes like surround sound or stereo. When you select ‘surround’, Final Cut Pro would provide you with a Surround Panner which would allow you to fine-tune the effects by moving the white point.

• Effects- for this option one needs to go to the effects browser of the Audio Inspector or just hit comd5. This would allow you to choose many different audio effects such as echo, distortion, spaces and much more. Just double-click on any effect to find a range of editing options.

• Audio Configuration: The audio configuration tool would allow the user to modify the audio channel with mono, stereo, or reverse stereo.

Here’s the video tutorial on how to edit audios in Final Cut Pro:

Benjamin Arango

Benjamin Arango is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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