iMovie Voiceovers

In iMovie you can record directly from the microphone to narrate your video. You can start at any point and record your voice, then manipulate the audio track like any other. This comes in handy for regular videos, but also for photo slideshows created in iMovie.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at using Voiceover in iMovie.
So I'm using iMovie 10. We're going to take a look at Voiceover. Say you've got some video. I've got some sample clips and a sample project. You want to basically narrate basically what is going on. You want to add some audio here using the microphone built into your Mac or one you have connected to it. You can do that using the Voiceover function.
The way to find that is go Window and Record Voiceover. Then you get a special microphone here and it will react to your voice. You can also select some Options. So the Input Source, Volume and such. Then at any time you want you can start recording. 
It is important to position the playback head where you want it to be and it will start recording your voice and adding it as a track here.
To start recording press the microphone and it will countdown. Notice the playback head jumps back and when it gets to zero it is right where you want it to be. Notice that it is recording my voice here and adding this track to the bottom as I talk.
Then when I am all done I can hit the Voiceover button again and it will stop. There you go. You see that my voice is recorded in there. 
I can add other pieces of voiceover somewhere else. So if I want to start talking here I could. I could treat this just as a regular piece of sound. I can select it and delete it if I want. I can change the volume, put a sound curve in there to lower and raise the volume at different portions. I could also edit this. 
See I've got both sound editing here where it already preset for Lower the volume of other clips so you can hear my voice. Also the equalizer is turned on to voice enhance. I can change that to something else. I can even set Reduce Background Noise on.
So there is a lot you can do here with a simple Voiceover. It is great to be able to narrate what you are doing. Also if you are using iMovie to create a photo slideshow you can basically narrate the photo slideshow and then export it that way which is a little bit nicer of a slideshow than you might normally get exporting from a photo app.

Comments: 7 Responses to “iMovie Voiceovers”

Charles Szasz

10 years ago

Great tutorial on VoiceOver! I have not used this feature yet but I will be using it on a summer project.

Linda Taylor

Even though I'm still using iMovie '09, voiceover is a wonderful tool when creating projects for family. I've had difficulty trying to edit the audio clip though. For instance, trying to edit out a sneeze. Do you have any tips other than to re-record the voiceover?

Gary Rosenzweig

You can always split the audio clip before and after the sneeze and then delete the middle section with the sneeze.

Steve Jarnigan

Gary this is a great video. I was wondering if it's possible to use this feature on iMovie '09...I ask because I still use it instead of iMovie 10 due to the ease of use.

Thanks,

Steve

There was a voiceover function in iMovie 09. Just play around with it to learn its features.

Natalie

when trying to add a voiceover, I click where I want the recording to start but nothing happens no record button no countdown start nothing.I dont know what to do is it an old version. Its imovie 11, version 9.0

Things are indeed very different in earlier versions of iMovie. Refer to the Help to see where the commands are. Or, consider upgrading.

Comments Closed.

iMovie Voiceovers

Comments: 7 Responses to “iMovie Voiceovers”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information