Audio effects process the sound of a clip or track - to balance tone, control level, or clean up problems. They behave much like video effects: you stack them, reorder them, and can bypass or remove them at any time. The Audio layout puts the mixer, timeline, and effect settings together for sound work.
Adding audio effects
Apply an audio effect to a clip or a whole track. Choose the effect you want and it's added to that item's effect stack, ready to adjust in its settings. Effects are non-destructive - your original audio is never changed, and you can remove an effect to return to the untouched sound.
Where the effect goes depends on how you apply it:
- Drag it onto a clip to put it on exactly that clip.
- With clips selected, it goes on the selected clips. Clips on locked tracks are never changed.
- Double-click it in the Effects browser, press Apply, or use a keyboard favourite, and it is uses the track targets: so it goes on the first targeted audio track with a clip under the playhead. Untargeted and locked tracks are left alone.
Audio effects belong to clips, so they are not offered for a Marked Region. Audio crossfades still use marks.
A few things worth knowing as you adjust:
- Audio preview loops the audio while you adjust parameters, so you can hear changes without restarting playback.
- Track effects process everything on the track - ideal for a dialogue chain that every clip on the track should pass through. An effect on a track shows a note that it applies to the whole track.
- With grouped tracks, Link Grouped Audio Effects keeps the effects on the group's tracks adjusted together.
Stereo pairs and grouped tracks
A stereo pair is one piece of sound, so you work on it as one.
- It appears as a single tab -
A1/2, matching its track header - in Effects Settings and the routing panel, and everything you change there applies to both tracks. - Adding, replacing and removing an effect changes both sides of the pair. The same goes for other grouped tracks when Link Grouped Audio Effects is on.
- Reordering effects keeps a stereo pair in step.
- If a pair's effects have got out of step - in an older project, for example - both tabs are shown, so nothing is hidden.
- The tabs update straight away when you group or ungroup tracks.
Effect order
Effects process in order, top to bottom, and the order changes the result. As a rule:
- Clean up first - noise reduction and corrective EQ before anything else.
- Shape next - tonal EQ to taste.
- Control level last - compression and limiting to even out and set the final level.
Reorder effects in the stack to get the chain right.
The built-in audio effects
Lightworks ships with a suite of audio processors (availability depends on your licence tier):
- Graphic EQ - adjusts the balance of frequencies: reduce boom or rumble at the low end, add clarity or presence to a voice, or tame harshness. The everyday tool for making dialogue sit well.
- Compressor - evens out loud and quiet passages so a voice stays consistent.
- Limiter - stops peaks exceeding a ceiling, protecting against clipping on delivery.
- Noise Gate - silences a track when its level drops below a threshold, cutting background murmur between lines.
- Noise Reducer - reduces steady background noise such as hiss, hum, or air conditioning. Apply it gently - pushing too hard introduces artefacts.
- Reverb - adds space and ambience, from a subtle room to a hall.
Third-party audio plugins
Lightworks also hosts third-party audio plugins - VST, AU, and LADSPA formats, depending on platform - so tools from vendors such as Waves, Melda or FabFilter can sit in your effect stack like any built-in effect. Use Launch plugin editor to open a plugin's own interface for full control. Plugin support depends on your licence tier.
After installing new plugins, use Scan for new audio plugins so Lightworks finds them.
- Plugins with a side-chain input are accepted by the scan on Windows and macOS. Plugins that an earlier version ignored are checked again on your next scan.
- Instruments and Apple's mixer Audio Units are not effects, so they are not listed.
- Plugins with very large internal settings no longer slow Lightworks down when you add them; settings that only the plugin uses internally are not shown.
Copying and pasting audio effects
You can copy effects from one clip and paste them onto others, which is the quick way to apply the same treatment across a scene. When pasting you can choose which effects to copy and how to handle keyframes and existing effects (see Effects overview for the copy and paste options, which work for audio and video).
Removing and bypassing effects
- Bypass an effect to hear the sound with it temporarily switched off - the quickest way to check whether it's helping.
- Remove an effect to take it out of the stack entirely.
Tip: A or B every effect by bypassing it. If the bypassed version sounds just as good, you probably don't need the effect.