Free Editing Software

Free Editing Software

If you want to edit your digital audio files, but don't have expensive software like ProTools, I've found a great solution. It's free audio editor called Audacity. They have versions for PC and Mac, and you can download it free.

Audacity is really user friendly and is useful if you want to make individual song clips, or a montage of song clips.

Here's a short tutorial on how to make individual song clips:

    * The first thing you need to do is download a file that lets you encode Mp3s. Click this link and click on the link to Audacity for Windows, or Audacity for Mac OS.

    * When that is finished downloading, you can unzip the file by opening it and clicking "Extract all files" to the default folder.

    * Next, open Audacity, and go to file - open and select the song you want to edit.

    * You can use the selection tool (located directly under the file menu option) to select the part of the song you want to use in your clip (Note: when you press the "play" button it will only play the part you have selected.)

    * While your song is "stopped" go to edit - trim. This will trim the song so only the part you selected will play.

    * If you'd like to add effects to your song, like a fade in/fade out, go to Effect - Fade in or Fade Out

    * The "normalize" effect is also useful if you have tracks that are encoded too low. Normalization will increase volume to the maximum without introducing distortion. In other words, normalization sets the average volume level to be the same as most professionally recorded music.

    * To save your clip, go to File - Export Mp3. The first time you try to export an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you to locate your MP3 encoder. Select the file named lame_enc.dll and click Open (You may have to download it). From then on, Audacity will not need to ask you again and you will be able to export MP3 files easily. Your next option will be to save your new sound clip on your computer.

** Be sure to save it under a new file name to not overwrite your original mp3.

Roger Fortner