In addition to the zillion audio effects included in most editing packages, many offer the convenience of installing additional effects called plug-ins. These plug-ins are the software equivalent of buying a new piece of specialized audio equipment. Ranging from simple filters and equalizers to more esoteric processing like phasers and vocoders, plug-ins give you recording studio effects on your desktop. The best part is many of these plug-ins are bundled with various audio software you already own. With a little snooping, you can also find a boatload of audio plug-ins for free on the Internet: www.directxfiles.com is a great place to start.

If you edit training or product videos, you'll likely have to record some narration to compliment what's on the screen. Before computers revolutionized the video-editing arena, they quietly conquered the audio scene. What used to take thousands of dollars of equipment in a carefully controlled environment is now easily done on virtually any computer made. First, you'll have to choose an audio editing program - Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge and Syntrillium's Cool Edit are perennial favorites - then you can record and edit your narration as easily as you can edit video. Cleaning up narration audio is much simpler than many video edits and you may even get a few new audio plug-ins to share with your video software.

What's a good video without some background music? Boring. The right music can supply the sonic glue that ties your entire video together. Stylistically, it can change the mood or even appeal to a completely different audience. Music for your video project is available from a variety of sources. Buyout libraries allow you to pay for the music once and use it all you like. Music Bakery, Digital Juice and many other companies offer excellent buyout products. You can also make your own. And don't forget the sound effects. Not just the comical sproings and bangs, but tasteful, appropriate sound effects like traffic noises or birds chirping. Properly placed with the right volume, these additional elements add to the impact of your video.

One of the worst things that can happen in a video is for the audio to fall out of synchronization with the picture, right? So why on earth would you ever unlink the two? Well, actually, there are many times when this is beneficial. In Premiere, simply right-click on your video track and choose the option to Unlink Audio/Video. Now, you have the ability to trim the in and out points of your audio independent of the video. This offers the potential for some powerful overlapping segments. Or maybe the audio portion of a particular clip or series of clips is disposable. If you're not going to use it, why go to all the trouble of volume-adjusting or muting the clips? Just delete the audio portion and you won't have to deal with it.