How to adjust music and why did my music background change from green to purple?

Hi Matt - the following extract from iMovie Help should get you back on track:

From iMovie '11 Help ( http://help.apple.com/imovie/#mov3b0fbc0a )

To pin background music to video

In the Project browser, move the pointer along the upper-left edge of the background music well until it turns into a hand, and then drag the top-left corner of the background music well slowly to the right. A pin icon appears in the corner of the background music well, and the background color changes from green to purple.

Continue dragging the pin until it’s positioned above the video frame where you want the music to begin playing.The background music well turns to purple, indicating it’s been pinned to a video frame.

After you pin music to a video frame, unless you “unpin” it, the music stays with that frame even if you rearrange the order of your video clips.

To unpin background music

If you’ve pinned background music to a video frame and now you want to rearrange the background music clips in your movie, you can unpin it.

In the Project browser, click to select the background music well (it becomes outlined in yellow), and then choose Clip > Unpin Music Track.

The Clip menu appears in a light gray bar across the top of your computer screen.

Here's an alternative method for adding music to your video (which I use in preference to the back ground method) -

Rather than dragging the music to the grey background area, drag it directly on top of a video clip, close to where you want it to start. When you drop the music, a narrow green strip (bar/track) will appear below the video thumbnails. You can slide this back and forth in order to get it to start in the exact position. You can also drag the ends in to shorten or trim the music track. Or drag them out again to lengthen the track. You can also split the audio and show the audio waveforms, adjust volume within a track and so forth. Check iMovie Help for more details.

John

Message was edited by: John Cogdell

divedeeepr wrote:

I tried both of those options and it did not resolve the 2 seconds of "dead" air in the beginning of my song....I am trying to delete the first two seconds of "no music" in the track so that the music starts with the first frame. I can't slide the song anymore left to get the wave form where the music actually starts in teh song to line up with the beginning of the clip

Hover the pointer over the very beginning of the audio track (the green bar). You will see an icon in the shape of a vertical black line with left/right arrows on the sides. Click and drag inwards to trim off the frames not required. Lots of songs have a second or two of blank space at the start.

You can't drag the audio track further left than the start of your video clips - you have to trim it as I've described.

John

divedeeepr wrote:

One more thing that might be the problem...I am using an iMovie theme for this project...I tried to add addtiional clips to the beginning of my project....the music carries to the beginning of my project now but when it gets to the iMovie transition (I'm using the film clip theme) the music disappears under the clip and then starts back up after that transition passes. Your thoughts?

I've just run a test using the Filmstrip theme opening title. Both the audio on the video track and the music I've added play back fine. Double-click on the video clip (not the added audio) to open the Inspector. In the Audio tab make sure Ducking is not turned on. This feature will lower the volume to the percentage set in the slider for any tracks below the video. And vice versa if you activate Ducking on added audio tracks.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what is happening.

John

Another thought. You may have inadvertently dragged across the waveforms then lowered the volume line on the music track for the section under your theme title.

To adjust the volume on a section of an audio track, click on the start point then drag across to the end point, That section will now be outlined in yellow. Now you can drag the volume line up or down to adjust the level for that section.

John