iMovie for Mac: pause background music while video plays

[cwa107]

I am working on a video for my son’s high school graduation. I have a ton of pictures and a few video clips in my timeline. Throughout the video, I have a number of background audio tracks that I’d like to pause during certain video clips, then resume when the video clip is over, I can’t seem to find a way to do this. It seems like this would be a common use case, is it possible that iMovie simply doesn’t have this capability? I know I can fade the audio volume down, but since some of the video clips are of my kid performing with instruments or singing, I’d really like to just hold the audio track while the video plays. If someone knows a good way to do this, I’d very much appreciate your advice.

 

[lclev]

If I am following you correctly - can you split the audio track you want to pause then move the clipped part to after the audio from the video? Right click and select split - move the audio and then insert video with it's audio. I played with this idea with a video I had and it is doable but I had to separate the audio from the original video then split it. One thing I notice is once the audio is separated from the video it is no longer synced so if you are matching lips to words it will get off.

Not sure this helped. I work in Premiere Pro and it works a lot differently.

Lisa

 

[cwa107]

If I am following you correctly - can you split the audio track you want to pause then move the clipped part to after the audio from the video? Right click and select split - move the audio and then insert video with it's audio. I played with this idea with a video I had and it is doable but I had to separate the audio from the original video then split it. One thing I notice is once the audio is separated from the video it is no longer synced so if you are matching lips to words it will get off.

Not sure this helped. I work in Premiere Pro and it works a lot differently.

Lisa

Thanks Lisa, yes, you're getting the idea.

I will experiment with splitting the audio tracks (they're iTunes, purchased songs - so it should be interesting to see to what extent they allow me to modify them).

 

[MightyGem]

they're iTunes, purchased songs

From my experience, you can't put purchased music into iMovie.

 

[cwa107]

From my experience, you can't put purchased music into iMovie.

That may have been true at some point in the past, however, it is not the case now.

 

[MightyGem]

That may have been true at some point in the past, however, it is not the case now.

It still is for music purchased before it changed.

 

[pm-r]

From my experience, you can't put purchased music into iMovie.

I'm a bit late here and do very few projects with iMovie, but Apple seems to say differently or at least imply so:

Add songs and other audio files to your iMovie project...

Add songs and other audio files to your iMovie project - Apple Support (CA)

Add songs from your music library in the Music app, and add other audio files stored on your device, in iCloud Drive, or in another location.

support.apple.com

I didn't notice any mention of before or after any timeline...



- Patrick
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[cwa107]

Thanks for your comments. Tyler graduates today and the video is ready to go. I appreciate your help.

 

[MightyGem]

I'm a bit late here and do very few projects with iMovie, but Apple seems to say differently or at least imply so:

Add songs and other audio files to your iMovie project...

Add songs and other audio files to your iMovie project - Apple Support (CA)

Add songs from your music library in the Music app, and add other audio files stored on your device, in iCloud Drive, or in another location.

support.apple.com

I didn't notice any mention of before or after any timeline...



- Patrick
=======

Hmmm...I have two types of music bought from the iTunes Store. Protected and Purchased. Protected tracks are from many years ago. At sometime, Apple changed the designation from "Protected" to "Purchased" and relaxed some of the restrictions that applied to "Protected" music tracks.

When I open the "Audio and Video" tab in iMovie, I get a note saying that so many files are unavailable. I've always thought that these are my purchased tracks.

A quick go just now shows that some purchased tracks can be added into iMovie and some can't. Strange.

 

[Slydude]

@MightyGem Can you look at one or two of the songs that you cannot add? I suspect that the ones you cannot add are tagged as protected. The ones labeled as purchased probably work., I'm working from memory here but here's what I think is the root of the confusion:

In the early days of the iTunes Music Store songs that a user purchased had copy protection and tagged "protected" and showed that way in iTunes. At a later date, the licensing changed and songs purchased from the Music Store after that date had no protection and were tagged as "purchased" in iTunes.

IIRC Apple also offered users the option to have the copy protection removed for a small per-track fee. I think the replacement tracks were also at a higher bitrate as a bonus. I can't really test this because I think all of my tracks are purchased. I took advantage of that option when it appeared.

 

[pm-r]

I suspect that the ones you cannot add are tagged as protected. The ones labeled as purchased probably work.

Man what a confusing mess, I think I shall just wait until I actually need to use anything and then see what the possibleI conditions are.

I just used the phrase MightyGem posted for a Google search and then started reading some of the hits:

iTunes Store. Protected and Purchased - Google Search

My brain is too tired to go through it all at this point and there are just too many depends on and other conditions to easily tell what will work and what won't work and maybe how...

My hats off to any other members who want to try and translate it all... And then I don't know what may change in the rules when used in Canada...




- Patrick
=======

 

[Slydude]

The process wasn't as confusing as you might think. I'm working from memory so I might have things a bit wonky. I think the process kinda evolved over a few months.

 

[MightyGem]

I suspect that the ones you cannot add are tagged as protected. The ones labeled as purchased probably work.

Yes, that does seem to be the case.