When you focus on getting how your video looks right, it’s easy to overlook how it sounds. Luckily, most video editors provide the tools to refine, adjust and optimize your video’s audio without using separate software.
In this article, we walk you through how to edit audio in a video using online and downloadable tools. We also cover all the basic audio editing features and processes you should know about.
TL;DR
- Most video editors offer a minimum of essential audio editing tools. Some platforms offer entire dedicated audio-editing suites.
- Basic audio editing involves cutting, trimming, removing background noise, and adjusting your levels.
- The best solution for easy and intuitive editing is Riverside’s in-built editor with a background removal & audio normalizer tool.
Can I edit audio in a video editor?
Yes, you can edit audio in a video editor. Despite their name, video editors aren’t just focused on the visual elements of your video recording. They usually also include several tools that let you fix, toggle and adjust your video’s audio.
How to edit audio in video: The basics
You might be wondering why or how you should edit your audio. Here’s what you need to know:
1. Audio correction
Audio correction refers to the process of cleaning up your audio to ensure it sounds the best it can. This means editing out gaps, popping sounds, and other unwanted noise from your recording.
Background noise removal
Background noise removal tools help to eliminate unwanted ambient sounds from your recording. They are essential for clarifying and isolating the audio you actually need.
2. Volume adjustment
You may want to reduce the volume of a specific track’s audio or remove it all together.
3. Equalization (EQ)
Equalization is a key stage of audio processing during which you adjust and manipulate the volume of specific frequencies within your audio. You could even eliminate certain frequencies altogether in favor of the ones you want to emphasize. Essentially, you take your audio apart to a granular level to create a balanced mix.
4. Adding sound effects and music
You can add emphasis using sound effects and music as well as editing and adjusting your recorded audio. Ideally, your video editor will have a pre-loaded media library you can use.
5. Audio transitions
Having quick cuts between different audio clips is not always ideal. Adding transitions such as fades is important for achieving that seamless flow.
5 Best video editors for audio
Achieving high-quality audio edits doesn’t mean paying for yet another editing tool. Here are the best video editors that offer audio editing features too:
Best online video editors for audio
Riverside
Price: Riverside has four pricing plans:
- Free
- Standard - $15/month
- Pro - $24/month
- Teams (enterprise) - contact for pricing
Riverside is a browser-based studio-quality recording and editing platfor. You can record up to 4K video and 48kHZ audio without worrying about faulty internet connection impacting your recordings. Riverside uses local recording, so everything records directly on your device instead of relying on the web. Each participant’s video and audio records in separate tracks to give you more editing control.
There’s no need to use an external editor for professional videos. With Riverside’s text-based video and audio editor, creating a polished video is as easy as editing a text transcript. We use Ai transcriptions available in over 100 languages that you can use to edit and navigate through your recordings. Any text you delete in these transcripts automatically removes the matching video and audio in your recording timeline.
You can also make use of our automated tools which are easy to use. There’s tools to customize your background and branding, plus fine-tune audio with background noise removal and audio normalizatio. . There’s also a media board to add sound effects live in your recordings.
If you’re on trend, you're likely using short-form content for your social media. Well what if you could turn one long recording into multiple short videos at the tap of a button? With Riverside's Magic Clips tool you can. The feature uses Ai to find key moments in your recording and automatically turns them into short shareable clips. This saves you hours of time and effort!
The best part is you don’t have to worry about files going out of sync. With Riverside’s multisync, everything stays aligned no matter how much you edit.
Best for: Creators obsessed with recording quality who want to use an intuitive and innovative tool. The editor gives creators the best of both worlds - you can edit quickly within Riverside or head to your dedicated video editing platform for enhanced control.
Best software for video audio editing on Mac & PCs
iMovie
Price: Free with Apple devices.
iMovie is a beginner-friendly video editing platform on all Apple devices that includes a few key audio editing tools. It has a bank of free-to-use music and sound effects to help you add some flair to your audio. You can also easily add audio transitions and voice overs, trim and cut your existing audio clips, and play with the playback speed of your tracks.
Best for: Video creators who are on a budget, are already using a Mac computer, and are just starting in their video editing journey.
Premiere Pro
Price: $20.99/month
Premiere Pro is Adobe’s professional-grade video editing suite. It also includes a dedicated audio workspace with several features that help to ‘fine-tune your sound’ and edit your audio. These tools allow you to repair and adjust your audio and embellish it with sound effects and music.
Premiere Pro’s audio editing workflow is intuitive but caters to more advanced editors.
It lets you color code your tracks and intuitively rearrange and edit as you go, set automatic levels for the same kinds of tracks (e.g. dialogue), or add atmosphere using the ‘ambience audio tag’.
Using ‘Dynamic Link’, you can also send your Premiere Pro audio sequences over to Adobe Audition for more in-depth edits.
Best for: Professional (or ambitious) video editors who want ultimate control over their video and audio recordings.
Final Cut Pro
Price: $299.99
Final Cut Pro is Apple’s video and editing platform aimed at creators who require powerful tools and granular control. It has many audio-focussed tools, including Voice Isolation that automatically enhances speech. You can also draw on several bundled plugins for audio compression and EQ.
Best for: Expert video editors who work across Apple devices.
Da Vinci Resolve
Price: $295
DaVinci Resolve is the ultimate audio and video editing platform. It offers a powerful collection of video and audio editing tools packaged in a modern interface to meet beginner and professional expectations. You can also work collaboratively with your team on the DaVinci resolve interface.
The platform’s hundreds of audio tools are integrated through the Fairlight, which is its audio mixing panel. This means you can switch between visual and sound editing in one click.
Fairlight makes your life easier with customizable keyboard hotkeys and a multi-function edit selection tool. Add effects, record voiceovers, equalize and mix your audio, and repair your sound using Fairlight’s native functions and plug-ins. There’s even professional Automatic Dialog Replacement that eliminates the need for another application.
Best for: Professionals, especially those with a team, who want access to all the features they could ever need to achieve industry-leading results.
Read more: Best Audio Editing Software for All Levels and Budgets (2024)
Editing audio video with Riverside
If you’re looking for an intuitive, seamless and high-quality way to edit your audio and video - Riverside is for you. Let’s take a look at some of Riverside’s main features:
Record high-quality audio and video
The first step to achieving studio-quality audio and video edits is producing high-quality recordings to play with.
4K video & 48kHz audio
You can capture studio-quality recordings with 48kHz audio and up to 4K video from your browser or mobile device. Our Local recordings ensure issues with internet connection won’t impact quality. Instead, you can smoothly record with up to 8 remote guests no matter where they are.
Separate audio & video tracks
With Riverside you can record a separate audio and video track for each participant. This gives you the control you deserve during post-production because you can edit each track individually rather than being confined to one consolidated track.
CFR (Constant Frame Rate) Videos
Your separate video tracks are always recorded with a constant frame rate. This ensures that all your tracks stay in sync and makes it far easier to edit the video.
Echo cancellation
You can toggle echo cancellation on and off for individual call participants. This eliminates any echo from their audio recording.
Editing audio with Riverside
Riverside’s editor has various features to help speed up your post-production process. Let’s look at the specific audio editing tools:
Text-based video and audio editing
With Riverside editing a video is as easy as editing a transcript of your recording. Any text you delete in the video editor’s transcript, automatically removes the matching video and audio in your actual recording. You can also use these AI transcriptions to navigate through your recordings without rewatching anything.
Background noise remover
Riverside’s background noise remover automatically removes unwanted ambient noise from your recording. This cleans up your overall audio and makes for a far better listener experience.
Automatic audio normalization
Sometimes, different participants’ recording volume varies. This leaves you with some tracks that are louder or quieter than others. Riverside’s audio normalization tool offers a quick and easy solution: balance your sound levels automatically in the editor.
Best practices to improve the audio of a video
To help you achieve the best results possible, here are some best practices to keep in mind to improve audio quality:
- Always use a dedicated mic. Using an external mic to record your audio is key to giving yourself the best-quality audio during post-production. Though relying on your camera’s in-built mic is tempting, this likely won’t live up to your expectations.
- Always opt for a platform that locally records each of your participants. This is the best way to guarantee the quality of your audio and video recording when working with remote guests.
- Multitrack recording. The ability to work with each person’s audio separately is invaluable. This means you can fix everyone’s specific glitches or audio impurities freely.
- Work with platforms that record to lossless and uncompressed file formats. Look for tools like Riverside that record 48kHz WAV audio.
FAQs on How to Edit Video Audio
Here are the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about editing video audio.
How do I edit audio on iPhone video?
If you want to make simple edits to your iPhone video, such as simply muting the audio, you can use your Photo app’s built-in features. If you want a bit of added control, download iMovie for free. Using iMovie, you can adjust your audio and add sound effects.
Where can I edit video audio?
As we’ve seen in this article, you can use your video editor to make substantial-high-quality edits to your video’s audio. Though, your abilities will vary depending on which platform you’re using.
How do I cut audio from a video?
The exact workflow will depend on the video editor that you’re using. Most video editor tools offer a straightforward and intuitive workflow for cutting or adjusting the audio for your video, though.
How to change the audio of a video?
Using your video editor tool, you can make all kinds of changes to your video’s audio - from adjusting the audio volume, adding effects, or even getting rid of it altogether.
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