The Gain Adjustment Window Rocks

In situations where you cannot adequately adjust the audio levels via the clip overlays–i.e., you can’t raise the levels enough–you should use the handy Gain Adjust dialogue box. (Actually, if you are serious about audio and need to perform a careful audio edit for broadcast, you should probably be working your audio with round trips to Soundtrack Pro, but that’s another kettle of fish.)

To invoke this useful functionality, simply select the clip (or clips) in question and hit OPT CMD L

With this dialogue box (see illustration), you can “normalize” the audio to a reference point of your choosing (I set dialogue, for instance, to -6 db). You can then readjust the levels using the clip overlays.

You can also choose to make this adjustment either “relative” or “absolute” which means you can either simply raise or lower the levels by a specific amount (absolute) or readjust the levels such that the peak is at your desired level (relative).

Because this shortcut does not appear next to the menu command (though it does appear in the awesome Button List), many people do not even know it exists as a shortcut. Hence it’s status here as a “ninja level” shortcut and it’s one of my faves.