Audio and mixing
Audio in the Editor works the same way as video: clips on tracks, with trims, splits, and transitions. The Preview panel adds two volume sliders (narrator and video) and every audio track has its own mute, solo, and waveform. This page covers the audio-specific controls.
Audio tracks
The default timeline ships with one audio track, A1. Imported storyboards put scene narration on A1. Add more audio tracks from the toolbar's Add audio track button, or right-click an empty area of the timeline background and pick Add audio track.
Typical track assignments:
- A1: narration or dialogue.
- A2: music bed.
- A3: SFX (sound effects).
- A4: ambient or room tone.
Waveforms
Every audio clip renders a waveform. Fawna uses Wavesurfer.js to draw the shape once the clip is mounted. Waveforms make it easy to align cuts to silence, hit a beat with a cut, or trim leading/trailing room tone.
Zoom affects waveform density: at low zoom, the wave appears as an envelope; at high zoom, individual transients are visible. Use this to find the exact millisecond where a consonant ends.
Per-track controls
On the left edge of each audio track, the label shows:
- Mute (speaker icon): toggles the whole track. Muted tracks are skipped during playback.
- Solo (S): adds the track to the solo set. Any tracks in the solo set play; others are silent. Multi-solo is supported (unlike most DAWs).
- Lock: prevents accidental edits to the track.
Right-click the track label for rename, delete, and more options.
Preview volume sliders
The Preview panel has two volume sliders beside the playback controls:
- Narrator volume
- Controls the A1 (narration) track volume during preview playback. 0 to 1.
- Video volume
- Controls the V1 (video) track's embedded audio volume during preview. 0 to 1.
These are preview sliders, not mix sliders. They change how the preview plays back for your ears. They do not rewrite the clip volumes. For permanent changes, adjust individual clip volumes from the clip's right-click menu.
Per-clip audio settings
Right-click any audio clip:
- Volume: set the clip's intrinsic gain (0-200%).
- Fade-in: add or remove a fade-in transition.
- Fade-out: add or remove a fade-out transition.
- Mute clip: silence this clip only (track-level mute is separate).
Adding a music bed
- Generate or upload a music file to the Library.
- Create a new audio track below A1.
- Drag the music asset onto the new track.
- Trim to the timeline length.
- Add fade-in at the start (1-2 seconds) and fade-out at the end.
- Lower the volume in the clip's right-click menu to around 20-30% so it sits under narration.
For scenes that shift mood, split the music clip at the scene boundary and cross-fade between two different music pieces.
Adding sound effects
SFX clips are typically short (under a second). Add them precisely:
- Place the playhead at the exact frame where the effect should hit.
- Drag the SFX asset onto a new audio track.
- Snap the clip's left edge to the playhead.
- Adjust per-clip volume to taste.
Use the zoom slider to get pixel-perfect alignment.
Use solo when iterating on one audio element. Solo the music track to hear only the bed. Solo narration + music to check levels. Solo off resets to the full mix.
Where to go next
- Library for finding and organizing audio assets.
- Audio Generation for creating narration, dialogue, or background audio outside the editor.