Timeline and tracks

Picture the timeline as a few transparent sheets laid one on top of another. Each sheet is a track — one horizontal row on the timeline. The sheet on top covers the one below, and where it's empty the lower one shows through. That's where a layered video comes from.

There are two kinds: video tracks (everything you see — video, images, GIFs, text, stickers) and audio tracks (things you only hear). They don't mix on the timeline: all the video tracks sit above, all the audio tracks below.

Why one track isn't enough

On a single track clips take turns: one ends, the next begins. But some things have to be visible at the same time — a headline over your footage, for instance. You can't put the headline *next to* the video; it has to go *on top* of it. That's exactly what a second track is for.

• Your main shots — on the lower video track.
• Text, a logo, stickers — on the track above it, because they need to stay visible.
• Music on one audio track and your own voice (the mic recording) on another — that way you can set their levels independently.

Which track draws on top

The rule is simple: the higher a track sits on the timeline, the further forward it is in the frame. The topmost video track is drawn over everything, the ones below it stay behind.

So if your text has vanished behind the footage, the problem isn't the font or the color — it's where the text track sits. Move that track up and the text reappears at once.

Adding, removing and reordering tracks

1. 1

   Add a track

   Press the “Track” button above the timeline and choose the kind: “Add video track” or “Add audio track”. The new one is added above the others of its kind.

2. 2

   Rename it

   Choose “Rename” in the menu on the track header. Swapping “Video 1” and “Video 2” for “Shots” and “Text” is a tiny effort that pays off the moment you have more than a few tracks.

3. 3

   Reorder

   Grab the grip on the track header and drag it up or down — or use “Move up” / “Move down” in the menu. A video track can't slip in among the audio tracks, so don't worry about that.

4. 4

   Delete

   “Delete track” in the menu. The clips on it go with it (Ctrl+Z brings them back). At least one track of each kind always remains — otherwise there'd be nowhere to put that kind of media.

Track flags: hide, mute, solo

Each track header carries a few small buttons. They switch a track off temporarily — nothing is deleted, only what you see and hear changes. The export honours them too: a hidden track doesn't make it into the file.

Track volume

Every track header has a volume slider. It affects the whole track — every clip on it at once — which is far more convenient than adjusting clips one by one.

The commonest case by far: the music drowns out your voice. The fix is to pull the music track's volume down (somewhere around 20–40% usually does it) and leave the speech track alone. The music then fills the space without swallowing the words.

Effects across a whole track

If your video has ten shots and you want the same cinematic look on all of them, tuning ten clips by hand is tedious — and it's easy to miss one. So an effect can be applied to a whole track at once.

1. 1

   Click the track header

   Click the track's name on the left, not a clip. The properties panel on the right switches to “Track effects”.

2. 2

   Choose what you need

   Three things are on offer: a video effect (a glitch or a light leak, say), color grading (brightness, contrast, saturation, ready-made presets) and an audio effect (reverb, EQ and so on).

3. 3

   Look at the result

   The effect immediately applies to every clip on that track — the ones there now and the ones you add tomorrow.

Why clips look the way they do

Clips on the timeline aren't blank rectangles — they show you what's inside them, and that's deliberate.