Volume and levels

Three audio tracks: System Audio, Microphone and Background Music. Keeping them apart is what makes any of this easy.

One level for a clip

Select an audio clip and open the Audio tab. Volume sets its level and Mute silences it entirely.

The common case takes ten seconds: music at a quarter, voice untouched, system sound muted unless it is part of the demonstration.

Volume that changes over time

Double click an audio clip on the timeline to add a volume point. Add several and drag them, and the level moves between them.

This is how you duck the music under a sentence, fade a track out at the end, or drop the system sound while you talk over it. Cilevi does not lower the music for you automatically, so a video with music under narration needs this, and it takes about a minute.

Nudging a clip in time

Nudge on the Audio tab moves the clip a few milliseconds earlier or later, as far as its neighbours allow. It is there for the case where the sound is very slightly out of step with the picture, which happens with some capture devices.

If it is the camera's sound rather than a clip, use Offset on the Camera tab instead: that belongs to the recording, so it stays right no matter how you rearrange the timeline.

Getting the level right

Aim for your voice to be comfortably the loudest thing, with music well underneath it and system sound underneath that. If you would rather not judge it by ear, use Match loudness, which measures the clip and sets one gain so it lands on a target. See Voice clean up and loudness.