Simple audio editing and mixing can help make your project sound more professional. Fortunately, iMovie '11 has excellent and easy-to-use audio tools, and makes it simple to drop in high-quality music and sound effects.

Until recently, if you had bad or uncontrollable audio, the software needed to fix it and remix your sound was often expensive and complex. Today, popular non-linear editing software from iMovie '11 to Final Cut Pro X, come with powerful and easy-to-use audio editing, mixing, and sweetening tools. You don't need a degree in sound technology to use it. So let's get started.

Open the Inspector to adjust audio. Select the clip, and a gear icon pops up. Click it and a dropdown menu appears; select Audio Adjustments.

Enhancing the audio can be important if there's a lot of background noise. Think about your baby is saying her first words while the TV is playing in the background.

In iMovie '11, all you have to do is check the Reduce background noise by: box, and then adjust the slider until the background noise is low and the main audio is clear.