The "behavior" of an audio clip depends on how it is brought into the Timeline. Video and Audio are ALWAYS grouped when you bring clips into the Timeline manually -- i.e. you drag them directly from a Rack to the Timeline.

In fact, you won't even be able to change from Grouped to Ungrouped until the first time you bring a clip into the Source Viewer. Once you have a clip in the Source Viewer, all the Track Mapping buttons come alive.

Then you can select Insert Grouped to toggle it on or off, and you can select Stereo Mappings Separate to toggle that on or off.

However, if you then bring the clip from the Source Viewer to the Timeline by manually [CTRL]-dragging the clip to the Timeline, again the audio and video will be GROUPED. You MUST use the INSERT button ARROW between the Source and Master windows to see the effect of your MAPPINGS. You can also choose the context-sensitive Menu command Send To Timeline and this will honor your Track Mapping settings provided you have previously brought at least ONE CLIP into the source viewer. Send To will also work from the Storyboard, again provide that at least one clip was previously introduced into the Source Viewer.

Other factors that dictate AUDIO behavior are:

1) was the clip originally captured in MONO or STEREO
2) are the Timeline Properties set to "Keep Audio Mode when disbanding Stereo audio clips in Timeline"
3) are the audio tracks "armed" as Dennis would say (that is "lit up")
4) how is audio being ROUTED in the Audio Mixer

As you can see, there's a lot to consider when dealing with audio in Liquid Edition. Mastering Liquid Edition is the only training product with a tutorial that covers this topic completely.

Myron Achtman
ADITA Video Inc.