The volume line

The volume line is the thin white line over a clip’s waveform. It shows how loud that clip plays over time, and you can drag it to change the level without leaving the timeline.

Keys: ⌥-click
Where: On a clip's audio part in the timeline
Agent tools: set_audioadd_actionset_action_endset_action

The line on a clip

Every clip with sound draws the line, except a nest clip. It’s the level you hear from that clip, with everything that shapes it folded in:

the clip’s Volume and its volume actions
its fades and crossfades
ducking from other clips
the track’s volume

The top of the clip’s audio part is +30 dB (3200 %) and the bottom is −60 dB or quieter. A clip at 100 % sits about a third of the way down.

A clip you can’t hear has its line along the bottom. That’s a muted clip, one on a muted track, or one silenced by another track’s solo.

A small square in the action colour marks each action end that sets the volume. Those squares are the line’s points.

The line starts below the action lane and is only drawn where the audio part is at least 12 pt tall, so at the Small track height it may not show.

Drag the line

Press within 3 pt of the line and drag up or down. The press selects the clip. The new level appears beside the pointer, such as “+2.5 dB”, or “−∞ dB” at silence. One drag is one undo step, “Set Volume”.

What the drag changes depends on where you press:

You press	The drag changes
Inside an action that sets the volume	That action’s end level
After such an action	The end level of the last one before the point
Anywhere else	The clip’s own Volume

The drag is vertical only and relative to where you pressed. It moves in decibels, and it covers the whole scale over the height of the audio part, so a taller track gives you finer control.

To go to silence, drag down to the very bottom of the audio part. Upwards, the level stops at 3200 %.

The readout is the level you’re setting, not the sum on the line. The line includes track volume and ducking, but a drag changes only the clip’s own level, so on a silenced clip the line stays on the floor while the readout changes.

Add a point

A point lets the level change partway through a clip.

Hold ⌥ and click the line where you want the point.
Keep the mouse down and drag to set its level, or let go and drag the line later.

A point is an action, not a keyframe. Frame Job adds an action running from the end of the previous action, or the clip’s start, up to where you clicked, ending at the volume the clip already has there. The click on its own changes nothing you hear. It’s one undo step, “Add Volume Point”.

Inside an action that changes only the volume, the click splits that action in two at the point. Both halves keep its curve, so a linear action sounds the same until you drag, and an eased one eases again on each side of the point.

The click beeps and adds nothing:

inside an action that doesn’t set the volume, or that changes anything else as well
inside an action that runs past the clip’s end, as one can after a trim
within one frame of the clip’s start, the start of the action it’s in, or the previous action’s end

Move or remove a point

To move a point in time, drag its action band. To remove one, select the band and press ⌫. See Move, resize or remove an action.

Clicks that reach the clip instead

Some presses on the line act on the clip, as they do anywhere else on it:

Press	What it does
`⇧`-click	Adds the clip to the selection or takes it out
`⌥⇧`-drag	Slips the clip
Double-click	Renames the clip

The fade handles, the action lane and the clip’s edges take a press before the line does.

Good to know

The line doesn’t respond on a locked track.
A clip with its sound switched off draws no line, and neither does one playing too fast to have sound.
Inside an open nest, the line is the nest’s own mix. It doesn’t include the volume, fades, mute or solo of the nest clip and the tracks outside it.

With an agent

There’s no separate tool for the line. A drag is set_audio, or set_action_end on the action that sets the level there, and a point is add_action then set_action_end, with set_action when it splits an action. See Tools: clip sound and Tools: animation.