Audio Track Trimming

sgparry wrote on 12/7/2005, 7:03 PM

When I add music from a CD it is sometimes longer than the video track and I need to cut the end portion to the same length as the video portion. I have been doing this by dragging the video track back to the place I want it. It is a little awkward. Is there a procedure for just cutting off the remainder of the audio track from the point I select?

Thanks

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/7/2005, 7:28 PM

Place the cursor at that point and press S to split the track. Click on the portion after the split to select it and press the Delete key to delete it.

Tim L wrote on 12/7/2005, 7:36 PM

You can "split" any event, including an audio event.

Put the cursor where you want to chop off the cd track, and click somewhere in the cd audio event to "select" it. Make sure none of your other audio or video events is selected. Then, press the "S" key to Split the event into two separate events. (In VMS 4, there was actually an icon at the top of the screen to do this.) The split occurs wherever the cursor is. (Double-check that you didn't accidentally split any other audio or video tracks when you do this... If so, Ctrl-Z to undo, or click Edit > Undo) Now just delete the second event. If you need to adjust, you can still drag the right edge of the remaining event left and right as necessary.

Also, if you need to adjust just a little bit, you can CTRL-stretch or shrink a soundtrack to adjust the length to match the video. VMS won't change the pitch of the audio, just magically spread it out a little or shrink it. For example, if you have a 3 minute video, and your music is only 2:50 seconds, you can ctrl-stretch the music out to 3 minutes to match your video, and nobody will even notice. The pitch of the recording is maintained. I'm sure there are limits to how much you can stretch or shrink before something doesn't sound right, but this is a very useful feature.

Tim L

EDIT: Okay, simultaneous post here. Chienworks types faster and is more to the point than me. Sorry to sound like a broken record (or like a looped audio track).