Apple Final Cut Pro 5 - Manual (Page 804)

Chapter 1 Overview of Audio Mixing 17
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Overview of Audio Sweetening in Final Cut Pro
Once you finish editing your movie, you need to sweeten the soundtrack, which means
adding additional sound effects, music, narration, and so on. You can create multiple
audio tracks in your sequence to organize your audio, and add markers to indicate
where specific sound and musical accompaniment is required.
Categories of Postproduction Audio
Postproduction sound is broken down into the following categories:
 Dialogue: Actors speaking onscreen, voiceover, or narration.
 Automatic dialogue replacement (ADR): Dialogue recorded during postproduction to
replace missing or problem production dialogue. Also referred to as looping or
automated dialogue replacement.
 Foley effects: These effects capture the sounds of humans interacting with their
environment. The movements of actors onscreen are re-created by Foley artists while
the sounds are recorded and later placed in sync with the picture. Foley effects
include footsteps, punches, clothing rustle, silverware or glass on tables, and so on.
 Sound effects: Sound effects enhance the believability or mood of a scene. You can
purchase stock sound effects libraries for use in your projects, or you can create your
own sound effects. Sound effects are usually recorded during postproduction, once
the picture is edited and it is clear what sounds are required. Examples include
mechanical sounds, explosions, vehicles, animals, a clock ticking, a telephone ringing,
and so on.
 Ambient sounds: These sound effects are added during postproduction to establish
the sonic environment of a scene and to keep background noise levels consistent
from cut to cut. These are sometimes referred to as sound beds. For example, cricket
sounds are often added to night scenes; car and traffic noise for city scenes; crowd
sounds for a busy bar or restaurant scene, and so on.
 Music: Music has many different uses, depending on the type of project you are
working on. For example, in a music video, the music influences the picture by
establishing the rhythm of the editing, while narrative movies use music in the
background to influence the mood of a scene.
Creating Additional Tracks for Audio Sweetening
Final Cut Pro sequences support up to 99 audio tracks, so you can create discrete
tracks, or groups of tracks, for each category of sound. For example, you can use a
separate track for each actor in a scene, or each character’s Foley track, such as
footsteps, clothing rustles, and so on. For more information, see Volume II, Chapter 8,
“Working With Tracks in the Timeline.”