Starting and Stopping Music

In that case, you would drag the song in, and then shorten it by dragging the right edge to the left until it matches your photos.

When you want the music to start again, drag the song in again and drop it where you want it to start. Drag the left edge to the right until it starts where you want.

Appleman1958 said:

When you want the music to start again, drag the song in again and drop it where you want it to start. _Drag the left edge to the right until it starts where you want_.

(underlining is my emphasis)

You replied:

But that causes the song to start over again. I need a way to split it into continuous parts so I can have it playing over just the pictures

What Appleman meant was to drag the left edge of the clip inwards until you reach the point where you wish the clip to resume playing, thus effectively creating a new start point for the clip. He wasn't saying that you should move the entire clip to a new start point. It's referred to as "clip trimming" - you just need to click on the very end of the clip and drag - don't grab the whole clip! Once you've dragged to the exact start point, then you can move the clip into place under your photos (at the point where that section of the movie finishes). You will also need to drag the right edge inwards to the point where you want that section of music to temporarily stop. That will be the start point for your next section, of course.

You may be able to split the audio track into segments using QuickTime Pro or Garageband, then import those segments into iMovie. First you would need to check the exact timing you need for each piece in iMovie. I will test QuickTime Pro for you shortly and post back.

John

Hi again MacandSneeze,

I just ran a test using QuickTime Pro (version 7.6.6). As I thought, it is quite easy to split the audio into segments, using Edit>Trim to Selection.

There may be more efficient ways to do this, but I started by opening the music track in QT Pro, then dragging the markers into the appropriate position to highlight the desired section, then going to the Menu item Edit>Trim to Selection. Save and name that piece appropriately.

Open the original music track again, and drag the markers to your next section, then go through the same steps as above. You need to do this for each section you want to use in iMovie.

I just split a song (Something Stupid would you believe!) into 3 segments using the above method. The first segment was 30 seconds, then one minute, and finally one minute 4 seconds - making a total length of 2 minutes 34 seconds (the original song length).

As I said, there are probably better ways of doing all this. I was hoping to be able to simply split the track into 3 segments in one go. There is probably a Help item that explains how to do this, but I didn't bother to look it up, as I achieved the desired result using my own method 🙂

John

I have just discovered that QuickTime X (version 10.0) also has a nice trimming function - so you don't need QuickTime Pro to achieve what I outlined in my last post.

In QT X, the menu item Edit>Trim opens a bar showing the audio waveforms. Here you can drag the end markers to highlight the section required, then click on the Trim button. Repeat for each section - but again you have to open the original music file to trim for each section.

John

See this [video tutorial.|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/movies/imovie08.html#audioclips] You will get several ideas for how to do it.

I have offered a way to do what you ask, but that is fine if you want to seek other ways.