[This article was first published in the April, 2009, issue of
Larry's Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.]

Nicolas Nilsen writes:

Someone gave me a short QuickTime movie (.mov) with very bad sound. So I launched SoundTrack where the video appeared OK. I corrected the sound etc. And I exported (save as) as a QuickTime sequence... BUT the exported movie has no sound! I must be missing something ! What am I supposed to do ?

Larry replies: Nicolas, thanks for writing!

You made this question even more challenging by sending me a screen shot of the German version of STP! (It is hard enough for me to speak English clearly...)

I did a test to make sure of these steps. Here's what I did and everything worked.

1. Open the video clip in STP by dragging it on top of the STP icon in the doc. It automatically opens as an audio file project.

2. Make all necessary changes.

3. Normally, for a multitrack mix, you would Export. For an audio file project, you File > Save As. From the pop-up menu, be sure to change it from Audio File Project to QuickTime Movie. Also, the bit-depth needs to be 16-bit, and the sample rate should be 48,000 for all audio recorded with video.

4. Because audio editing in STP is non-destructive, you need to flatten the file; that is, you need to permanently change the file based on your modifications in order to save them properly into the QuickTime file. When this dialog appears, click Continue.

5. The QuickTime movie is saved.

6. Just to be sure, I opened the movie and verified (by typing Command+J) that the audio track was included and enabled, and that the audio played properly.

Everything worked fine.

Larry Jordan is a post-production consultant and an Apple-Certified Trainer in Digital Media with over 25 years experience as producer, director and editor with network, local and corporate credits. Based in Los Angeles, he's a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America.

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