Ducking background music not working properly

Question

Level 1

105 points

Ducking background music not working properly

Hello.

I've made a short movie (3 clips) and want to duck my background music. I'm just using Apple jingles, three, one after the other. I've ticked "ducking" in the audio adjustments box for each clip. The first piece of background music has lowered volume but the following two do not.

Anyone know what to do?

Rachel

iMac Core Duo 17" 2GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.10), MacBook 1.83GHz 1GB RAM; iPod nano

Posted on Oct 4, 2007 10:14 AM

Reply

Answer 1

RachelM Author

Level 1

105 points

Oct 4, 2007 11:18 AM in response to RachelM

I've found a way around it for now. I just lowered the volume of each individual music track to 15%.

I suppose I'm not strictly wanting to "duck" the music level as I was it lowered throughout the whole movie, not an individual clip. Having played around a bit more, I've found I can duck the volume in one clip but not in 2 or more adjacent clips. A bug?

Is there an easier way to change volume levels of multiple tracks? It doesn't seem to be possible to cut and paste adjustments in the way you can with video clips.

Rachel

Reply

Answer 2

Oct 4, 2007 1:00 PM in response to RachelM

RachelM wrote: I've found I can duck the volume in one clip but not in 2 or more adjacent clips.

That's my experience. The ducking is just impossible to control reliably, some video clips it works and the next successive video, with the same background song playing on, and the same ducking setting, the music just doesn't go down.

Also the ducking Percentage scale seems very flaky. I sit there with one video segment selected and change the ducking by 1% increments, and hit the spacebar to play, and somewhere between 4% and 6% the music volume goes from nothing to full volume. But some clips, I can set it to 0% and the music is still there, loud.

Reply

Answer 3

RachelM Author

Level 1

105 points

Oct 5, 2007 2:09 PM in response to RachelM

I've been fiddling around with this and I think it maybe only started after the 7.1 update. In one of my movies made prior to it, the background audio was decreased in various clips. Now, if I try and edit that same movie the ducking is inconsistent. In particular, it doesn't seem to be able to duck consecutive clips.

I've submitted a bug report to Apple.

Rachel

Reply

Answer 4

DBee_77

Level 1

14 points

Oct 21, 2007 2:28 PM in response to RachelM

I have the same issue. Is clearly a bug. Same for fading, has stopped working.

Reply

Answer 5

Mickmac1

Level 1

10 points

Nov 8, 2007 10:28 PM in response to DBee_77

I just ran into this. Have any of you found a fix for this? There is a paste for audio command but it does not seem to work for me. Adjusting each and every clip in my project, as well as having it not work properly all the time, is not something that I'm happy about. Any fixes would be appreciated.

Mick

Reply

Answer 6

Nov 30, 2007 10:21 PM in response to RachelM

I just bought my first mac last weekend and am having this problem as well. Unfortunately I don't have the option to go back to iMovie 06. Bug fix please!

Kritter

Reply

Answer 7

Nov 30, 2007 10:32 PM in response to KritterMan

Found that you could download 06, but I'd still like for the ducking in 08 to work as it should.

Kritter

Reply