iMovie 11: How to work with multiple audio tracks?

[keybounce]

I want to work with multiple audio tracks from a screencast. I cannot figure out how.

I have several audio files, one from each person that I'm playing with (output from our chat program). And, I have an audio track from the program I'm recording. All are stereo (even the chat -- "Mumble" gives positional information in chat).

Nothing is in iTunes or garage band. I've never used either. Don't know how.

My goal is to be able to take all these, make sure they are lined up properly (audio tracks will all be off slightly based on when people joined the chat and started talking). Adjust volumes on them separately (the program's audio, and one of the chat voices will need adjusting; the other voices are auto adjusted by Mumble).

I cannot even figure out how to import the various audio tracks, let along how to adjust their start times to get them all lined up.

Help, please?

 

[Dave Braine]

There may well be a limit, but I'll say that you can add as many tracks as you want.

There's two ways of adding an audio track. You can drop it in to the Project away from a clip and it becomes a Background track. You'll see the background of the Project turn green.

The second way is to drop it on top of the clip and move it around to get the start point right. It then becomes associated with that clip. You can drop further tracks onto the same clip and they just stack up underneath and then you can fade the audio in and out on each track as required. I've just dropped 5 tracks on to a clip.

Do a search in iMovie Help for audio, then scroll down to "Adjust the volume of a portion of an audio or a video clip"

 

[keybounce]

And that hint gives the answer: I don't "import" the audio, I just drag-and-drop from Finder into the project section of the window.

 

[Dave Braine]

I just drag-and-drop from Finder into the project section of the window.

All the above still applies.