A Complete Guide to Audio Editing

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Master the art of sound editing with this comprehensive walkthrough
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Digital audio editing technology has created many ways to edit audio. While professional studios use specialized equipment such as studio microphones and mixing boards to create sounds of higher quality, basic editing can be done quite easily with just a virtual studio installed on a home computer. The basic features of the sound editing software remain the same.

Things You Should Know

  • You can download several free audio editing softwares such as Audacity, Power Sound Editor, and Mp3DirectCut.
  • Most sound editors support AIFF, OGG VORBIS, WAV, and MP3 files.
  • Sound effects such as Echo, Flanger, and Delay can help repeat or shift the time of notes to make them sound fuller.
Section 1 of 5:

Installing Sound Studio Software

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    You can purchase a CD or download the program from the Internet and just follow the steps in the installation guide for that program. There are many programs available but here are some of the popular ones that you may want to choose from.
    • Audacity: an open source software that can record and edit multiple tracks. It also has a very effective noise removal function to remove hissing, static and humming by simply selecting a sample of the noise and then removing it from the whole track.
    • Power Sound Editor: can record and change tracks that need to be mixed with other parts of a musical composition. You can also alter the audio data by adding time-shifting effects such as Echo, Chorus and Reverb. Power Sound Editor allows you to easily share your edited audios over the Internet or through email. You can also burn finalized files onto a CD.
    • Mp3DirectCut: specializes in recording and editing MP3 files. This file format is ideal for someone who wants to compress files to smaller sizes.
    • Wavosaur: specializes in capturing and processing WAV files. It offers real-time effects so you can hear what the effects sound like while you are recording the audio. Wavosaur also supports MP3 format.
    • Garageband: powerful audio editor with fully equipped music creation studio.
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Section 2 of 5:

Recording Features

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    Record audio by connecting a microphone as the input device on your computer (almost all computers have a microphone in port). You can do advanced recording using the following features.
    • Record on multi-tracks if you have a computer with more than 1 microphone port.
    • Dub over other tracks by recording a new track while the tracks that have already been recorded play in the background.
Section 3 of 5:

Transferring Audio Files

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    Most sound editing programs allow you to import and export in various formats, including AIFF, OGG VORBIS, WAV and most popularly MP3.
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Section 4 of 5:

Editing Features

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    Every software has its own unique set of features to edit audio but here are the most common ones.
    • Copy and paste parts of a track to rearrange the composition.
    • Delete unwanted tracks or parts of a track.
    • Mix tracks together by adjusting volume levels of tracks individually.
Section 5 of 5:

Using Effects

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    Most virtual studio software offers the following effects.
    • Pitch change: to give the track a higher or lower pitch.
    • Noise reduction or removal: this reduces or removes hissing and other unwanted background noise.
    • Echo, Flanger, Delay and other similar effects that repeat or shift the time of notes to make them sound fuller.
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Community Q&A

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  • Question
    How can I fix an audio recording that has too much background noise without affecting vocals?
    Community Answer
    To do that in Audacity specifically, you have to select a part of the video where you don't speak, then go to "Effect." Next choose "Noise reduction," and click "Get noise profile." Then you use CTRL+A to select all of the recording, and go again into "Noise reduction" and click "OK." Be sure you have selected "Reduce."
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  • Question
    How can I choose one section of a voice recording file?
    Community Answer
    If you want to keep the track you're working on unchanged, you select the section you need to extract, then you go to Edit--> Copy and open a new file in File. Then paste that file in.
    Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
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  • Question
    How do I remove the noise that sounds like somebody is walking on plastic, and how do I fix voices that are too close to the microphone?
    Matthew Weil
    Community Answer
    You either have to resize the length of the microphone to reach a point, or you have to record while they are away.
    Thanks! We're glad this was helpful.
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    If wikiHow has helped you, please consider a small contribution to support us in helping more readers like you. We’re committed to providing the world with free how-to resources, and even $1 helps us in our mission. Support wikiHow
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      Expert Interview

      Thanks for reading our article! If you'd like to learn more about audio editing, check out our in-depth interview with Isabelle Garson .

      References

      1. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/25-free-digital-audio-editors/
      2. http://www.music-software-reviews.com/free_music_editing_software.html

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