Muting sound in VS11

[Gordy]

I would like to know how to bleep out or mute sound in a video.
I would like to eliminate some comments in a video without removing the video part. If there is a way to just remove sound that would be great.

any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

[Ken Berry]

If you want to mute a whole clip, simply use the mute button (Edit screen, virtually dead centre of your computer screen -- there's a little digital clock-looking window, and to the right of that, a speaker icon with, just to its right, a little window with (by default) 100 in it, and to the right of that, a crossed-out speaker. That is the Mute button. You can also achieve the same effect by simply changing 100 to 0.

To cut out just a small part of audio within a clip, you have to use 'rubber banding'. Go into Audio view, and your timeline view of the frames in the video is replaced by a pale green background with a red line running through the middle. The line represents the audio.

You go to the part when you want to mute the audio, and bring your mouse to just a little before where you want to begin the muting. Place it on the red line and the normal Windows pointer becomes an upward pointing arrow. Click it once with the left mouse button. A key frame marker will appear in the red line (K1). Now move the mouse to the beginning of where you want to mute the audio and insert another key frame (K2). Now move to the very end point of the part you want to mute, and insert another key frame (K3) and then a short way to the right of that, and insert another (K4).

Now go back to K2 and click *and hold* the left mouse button on that key frame and pull it to the bottom of the pale green background column. Then go to K3 and do the same. You will now have an audio line which runs straight down the middle to K1, then the audio will fade out quickly to nothing (K2), remain inaudible to K3, then fade back quickly to normal audio levels at K4. In other words, you have stretched the audio "rubber band" and muted just a portion of a clip.

[Gordy]

Thats awesome, it works great.

thanks alot
Gordy

[Gordy]

Ken

Now that you have showed me how to mute part of a clip by "rubber banding", which is great. Is it possible to record just the sound from a video clip and insert it into the voice track of those muted parts so there is some sound there.
If not thats quite ok, I am pleased that atleast I am able to mute out parts of a clip.

thanks

[Ken Berry]

Easy peasy. With the video in the main timeline, and in the Edit page, then just to the lower right of the mute button, you will see the command 'Split audio'. Click that, and your original sound track of the video will now appear separately in one of the sound tracks. Now go to Share and again roughly in the middle of screen, you will see various commands, including 'Create Sound File'. Click that and a dialogue box will appear, allowing you to name the new file and select the format it will be saved in. But if you intend to use it in a VS project, then save it as the standard .wav format, which is the default which first appears.

If you need to top or tail the file to fit into a specific length of time, then you will need to use a third party audio editing program. There is a great free one called Audacity (Google for it). I personally use Nero's Wave Editor.

[Gordy]

Thanks Ken, that is very helpful.
One more question, now I am trying to add the sound to those muted areas. There is a icon for auto scroll timeline but it does not seem to work. I am having to click on the mouse button millions of times to find the areas that i have muted. How do I get the auto scroll to work so I can just stop it when I see the muted sport. i got a 1 hr video with about 30 muted spots.

thanks

[Ken Berry]

You've got me!! I can't say I have ever heard of an auto scroll icon in VS, though of course it might be there!!

But there are about 3 ways I can think of to scroll quickly through the timeline to get to a particular point. First is to simply drag the pointer that sits in the ruler above the timeline -- inverted triangle with a solid blue triangle inside it.

Second, there is a white slider immediately below the various tracks in the timeline, which again you simply seize with the mouse button and pull along to get where you are going.

And third, within a clip, when you highlight it and have a mouse with a scroll wheel, simply put the mouse pointer in the video timeline and roll the scroll wheel. The video will move along till you get to the point you are after. Reverse the scroll, and the video moves in the opposite direction.

A fourth option could be to use the jog slider below the preview screen. As you pull that along, the pointer in my first option above also moves along through the video. But I don't think this option gives you as much fine control as the others...

And I would be interested in learning about the auto scroll icon...

[sjj1805]

He means that very small hardly noticeable icon at the very bottom left of the screen.



Click it once so that the timeline toggles between either
scrolling when you click the 'play' button on the preview screen
remaining static when you hit the 'play' button on the preview screen.

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for pointing that out Steve, but I have simply ignored it. At any rate, I have just tried toggling, and regardless of which of the two states it is in, the timeline is automatically scrolled when I either hit play or drag the jog slider.

[jamesd1]

When I apply the method of putting nodes on the audio wave form and dragging them down as far as they will go, it does not completely mute the audio but rather it reduces the volume by about 90%. What is that.

I'm using X10.

Thanks

James