The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: The Basics

Ever get the urge to edit some audio but youre not sure where to
start? Settle in with this HTG guide to the free audio editor
Audacity thats written for beginners but caters to geeks of all
levels.
Note: this is the first article in a multi-part series that well be
covering over the next few weeks.

Oh, the Audacity!

In this series, weve chosen to highlight a particular
application, Audacity, because of a few important reasons. Its
free, which is always optimal. Its open source, and thats always
appreciated by geeks like us. Its cross-platform, so even though
our guide is done in Windows, OS X and Linux users can play, too.
Its got great plug-ins and amazing effects right out of the box.
Perhaps most importantly, though, while more advanced apps like
Adobes Soundbooth or Apples GarageBand get the job done,
theyre designed for more experienced users and for more involved
projects. Audacity can help you understand simpler concepts of
audio editing that can be transferred to those more powerful
programs.
Hop on over to the Audacity download page, and be sure to choose
the 1.3 series, as thats the most compatible with the latest OS
releases. If you use Linux, you can just grab it from your
repository. Well leave the extra add-ons for another day.

User Interface
Theres a lot of options in the main window, but it breaks down
pretty simply. Lets take a look.

Audio controls: The standard controls pause, play, stop,

skip backward, skip forward, and record for the project as a
whole.

Toolbar: In order, from top-left to bottom-right: Selection,

Envelope, Draw, Zoom, Time Shift, and Multi-Tool Mode.

Level meters: The left one is for output, and the right is for
input. Clicking on the the input meter will actively monitor
audio levels, and right clicking will give you options to change
the refresh rate.

Level sliders: Change the volume level for both output and
input, and the drop-down menu to the immediate right is to
select an input.

Shortcut bar: Shortcuts to quick actions such as cut, paste,

insert silence, etc and for zooming.

Audio tracks: The top of this area has the timeline, and any
audio tracks will appear here. More on that in a bit.

Selection tools: Here, you can choose where to start selection

by time, and then choose to put in an end time, or a length of
selection.

Theres a lot here, but well go into more depth in future articles in
this series.

Recording a Track
Lets get a track recorded to illustrate some basic editing.
Audacity uses Windows audio defaults for recording and playback

with few exceptions, so go down to your system tray, right-click

your volume control, and go to Recording Devices.

Make sure your microphone is set to be the default device. Then,

in Audacity, just click the Record button up top. Its the one that
has a small red circle in the center.
Youll see something like this appear:

Audio Tracks
Lets take a closer look at the audio track and its associated stuff.

Timeline: Here you can see the lengths of your audio tracks.

Audio Track Properties: The pertinent audio properties can

be found here and changed. Tracks can also be removed by
clicking on the tiny X in the upper-right corner. Volume and
balance can be adjusted by moving the sliders.

Scrubber: This green arrow usually has a line running down

the screen as well. It appears when you hit Play and marks
the location of the waveform that is currently output through
your speakers.

Left Channel Audio Waveform

Right Channel Audio Waveform

As you can see, theres a wealth of information displayed here.

Any added tracks will stack vertically in this portion of the screen
so you can see the information from all of them.

Saving Your Project

When youve made some edits but youre not quite done with your
project, you can save it for later. Go to File > Save Project As

Youll see a warning pop up, reminding you that this just for use
with Audacity itself. Following that, youll get a normal save
prompt. Thats it!

Exporting Audio
If you want to get your audio track, with all of its layers and
effects, into a single finished file, youre going to want to export
it. Go to File > Export

Youll see a different save dialog pop up.

After giving it a name, you can change the type of audio file youd
like to encode it as. There are more than a few options.

After you choose your type, you can click on the Options button
to change things like the bitrate. I left mine as a WAV file for
now. You may need additional codecs to be able to use other
options, but thats something well cover in a future article.

As you can see, were just touching on the basics of using

Audacity, but rest assured, weve got some interesting articles
coming up soon. Well cover the tools youll use, filters, effects,
and even some extra fun stuff, so stay tuned!
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The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Basic Noise

Removal

Laying down some vocals? Starting your own podcast? Heres

how to remove noise from a messy audio track in Audacity quickly
and easily.
This is the second part in our series covering how to edit audio and
create music using your PC. Be sure to check out the first part in
the series, where we covered the basics of using Audacity, and
then check out how to add MP3 format support as well.

Removing Noise in Audacity

Open up your file in Audacity, and find the largest contiguous
silence in the track. What were going to do is find a baseline for
the noise so that Audacity knows what to look for. You can play
through the audio to find some silence, but once you do, hit the
Stop button, and highlight the silence by left-clicking and
dragging. Its just like selecting anything else, really.

Next, go to Effect > Noise Removal.

Youll see a window pop up like so:

Click on the Get Noise Profile button and the window will go
away. Now, select the portion of the track you want to remove
noise from. For me, it was everything, so I hit CTRL+A to select
all.

Again, go to Effect > Noise Removal. By moving the slider for

noise reduction, youre telling Audacity how much to filter out.
Higher values will be more aggressive removal, while lower values
will be more subtle.

You can click the Preview button if you want to listen to a small
snippet of your track. You can leave the other two sliders alone,
and hit OK when youre done.

Give your track a listen, and if you need to tweak, you can always
hit CTRL+Z to undo and start over. If you reduce by too much, the
track will noticeably sound a little off. Its best to be more subtle,
that way the audio still sounds natural.
The changes may not be so obvious on the waveform, so I zoomed
in to illustrate the smoothing of the waveform. Heres what it
looks like before and after the effect is processed:

Enjoy your noise-free audio.

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How To Add MP3 Support to Audacity (to Save in MP3

Format)

You may have noticed that the default installation of Audacity

doesnt have built-in support for MP3s due to licensing issues.
Heres how to add it in yourself for free really easily in few simple
steps.
Photo by bobcat rock

Step 1: Download and Install the LAME MP3 Encoder

On Windows
Head over to the LAME Download page and scroll down to where
you see For Audacity on Windows.

Left click on the link to download the .exe file, and install it as you
would any other piece of software.
On Mac OS X
Head over to the LAME Download page and scroll down to where
you see For Audacity 1.3.3 or later on Mac OS X.

Left click on the link to download the .dmg file, and install it as you
would any other piece of software.
On Linux
Linux users can just download the lame and libmp3lame0
libraries quickly and easily. Ubuntu users can open up a terminal
and just pop in the following command:

sudo apt-get install lame libmp3lame0

Be sure to have multiverse repositories enabled!

Step 2: Point Audacity in the Right Direction

If you followed the instructions above to install LAME then Audacity
should see it without a problem the next time you start it up.
However, if you installed LAME differently for various reasons, then
you can show Audacity where to find it.
Open up Audacitys Preferences and click on the Libraries tab.

Click on the Locate button.

Hit Browse and navigate to wherever your LAME encoder library

happens to be, and click OK. If youre using Ubuntu, youll see
something more like this:

You only need to do this once, and Audacity will remember this
location in the future for all of your mp3-editing goodness!
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The How-To Geek Guide to Audio Editing: Cutting,

Trimming & Arranging

Audacity novices often start with lofty project ideas, but

sometimes they lack the basics. Knowing how to cut and trim
tracks is basic audio editing and is a fundamental starting point for
making more elaborate arrangements.
For this exercise, Ill be making a ringtone from a Castlevania:
Symphony of the Night track. I have the original CD and used that
so I started with better quality audio than an MP3. You can follow
along with any file you like, just so you get a feel for cutting,
trimming, and arranging sound clips for yourself.
I know which parts I want to edit in the track, but a quick playthrough will help me look for those areas visually.

The scrubber in the above screenshot is pointing to a lull in the

music, where the audio drops low or fades out. These areas are
ideal spots to work with.
First, lets make sure the Selection tool is active.

Next, lets make a selection in an area of the track where we want

to make an edit. Click and drag your mouse, and youll see that
the background changes to a darker shade of gray.

I know that the song changes somewhere in here. You can hit
CTRL+1 to Zoom In, or click on the icon thats a magnifying glass
with a plus. This will help us identify more precisely where to end
our selection.

Thats much better, isnt it? You can see that on the right side of
the selection area, theres a spike in amplitude. Thats where I
want my selection to end, but its not properly aligned. If you
move your mouse close to that area, youll see the cursor change
to a hand thats pointing.

Clicking and dragging while this cursor is shown will allow you to
change that particular selection boundary. You can see mine is
much better now.

Repeat the same process with the left boundary. You can see my
selection encompasses a quiet beginning point and a quiet ending
point, which makes it sound clean and natural.
What I want to do is cut this section and move it to another area. I
can just click the Cut button or hit CTRL+X.

You can see that the rest of the track after my selection got
pushed up to where the selection started.

While its possible to paste that clip in the same track at a different
point, its much easier to make arrangements using multiple
tracks. Go to Tracks > Add New > Stereo Track.

Using different tracks can help keep things straight, so you can
think of it like using Layers in an image editor. Sometimes, its
more work to use multiple tracks, and sometimes its a necessity,
but its process you should familiarize yourself with if you plan to
do audio editing.

Two tracks ending up being too tall for good screenshots, so I

clicked on the bottom of each track area and dragged up to resize
them vertically. This has no effect on the audio, it just makes it
easier to see things.

And now, click where you want to paste the clip in the second
track and click on the Paste button or hit CTRL+V.

Note that the bottom track has an active selection. The dark
background is not in the top track at all, despite being visible in
the timeline. Now, I want to change its linear placement, or in

other words, move it in time. To do that, we use the Time Shift

Tool.

Now you can click and drag anywhere in your selection and the
whole thing will slide side-to-side. You can also have it snap to
other locations, like the beginning or end.

Alright, I have it where I want it in relation to another section of

the track. When you hit play, however, Audacity will play both
tracks over each other. This works well for mixing different tracks,
but not here. Lets insert some silence in the first track. Click on
the selection tool and highlight the portion of the first track thats
directly above the second. Youll see that you can snap to that
area.

Next, click on the Insert Silence tool, located next to the Undo
button.

This converts our selection to silence. Instead of cutting and

having the latter part of the track jump forward, this will keep it
as-is because the silence acts as a placeholder. Next, I decided to
cut some of the audio after the pasted clip.

Finally, the portions of the track I wanted to align are properly

done.
But wait, I only want the middle sections of this track! Instead of
cutting out areas of the track before and after, we can use the trim
tool to make this easier. Use the selection tool to highlight what
you want to keep.

Adjust your start and end points, but be sure to drag your mouse
down into the second track while making your selection. Notice

how the dark gray background appears on both tracks in the above
screenshot. When youre ready, click on the Trim Tool, which is
right next to the Paste button.

You can see that the Trim Tool acts just like a Crop Tool does in
image editors. The Trim Tool leaves the audio where it is, but thats
not particularly useful in our case. Use the Time Shift Tool to move
this so it aligns with 0 on the timeline. All done!
Since this is a ringtone for me, I went to File > Export and saved it
as an MP3.

If you chose not to follow along, here are a few important points to
take away from this procedure:

Your audio selections can be changed by dragging from as

close to the original boundary as possible.

The Cut Tool removes sections from the timeline, leaving no

gap.

The Insert Silence Tool removes audio but leaves a gap.

Pasting clips inserts them where ever the scrubber is, i.e.
where you clicked last.

The Trim Tool acts as a Crop Tool, leaving the audio where it
is in the timeline.

You can add multiple tracks and use them like layers to
better arrange your audio piece.

Hopefully this exercise will give you a feel for the really basic edits
you can make to tracks. Theyre the foundation of all of the more
advanced stuff youll be doing, so executing them quickly and
efficiently will save loads of time later on.

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How to Use Crossfade in Audacity for Seamless

Transitions Between Audio Tracks

Switching tracks suddenly in your audio/video projects can be

really jarring for the audience. Crossfades can help make naturalsounding transitions between audio tracks, and you can really take
advantage of them if you know a little about how sound works.

What is a Crossfade?

Odds are you know what a fade is, though maybe not by name.
When an audio track starts with silence and the volume rises up
out of nowhere, thats called a fade-in. When a track slowly
lowers its volume until its nothing but silence, its called a fadeout. How sharp a fade is directly involves how much volume is
lost or gained over what period of time. Sharper fades happen
quickly while duller or steadier fades take a long time. This is what
a fade-out looks like visually:

A fade-in looks similar.

A crossfade is essentially doing both simultaneously to two

separate tracks. The first track slowly fades out and the second
fades in, but instead of there being silence in between, it happens
concurrently. It usually sounds like you opened the door to another
room with different music, then went through it and closed the
door behind you.

Why is it Useful?

Many songs use fading techniques to great effect when starting or

ending, or at particular parts in the song. The same goes for
video; its useful to be able to fade in to a crowds cheer, or fade
out of an original audio source in favor of narration of some kind.
Crossfading is valuable because it allows these changes to happen
quickly without being jarring, without introducing silence, and
while sounding smooth and more natural. DJs often use this
technique while matching beats of two different songs to produce a
continuum of sound, while editors often use crossfades (as well as
fade-ins and fade-outs) to make the introductions of different
sound components sound less sudden and more natural.
You can group crossfades into three vague categories, and each
sounds very different from the others.
Mid: Each track is linearly faded. You can download a short sample
track here: mid crossfade. Visually, it looks like this:

You can see that the volume increase/decrease looks steady.

Depending on the volume of the original tracks, this sounds more
or less even.
High: The faded-out track starts fading slowly, then picks up
speed as time goes on. The faded-in track, on the other hand,
picks up volume fairly quickly and that increase of volume slows
down over a period of time. You can download a short sample
track here:high crossfade. Visually, it looks like this:

The volume changes look like bulges here, with the effect that the
both tracks have a high volume through the duration of the fade,
and there is still some abruptness to it.
Low: The faded-out track drops its volume pretty quickly and the
speed of this drop slows down over a period of time. The fade-in
track starts gaining volume slowly but it picks up speed as time
goes on. You can download a short sample track here: low
crossfade. Visually, it looks like this:

The changes here look like concave cuts. For the duration of the
fade, both tracks have a reduced volume until the original track is
almost completely gone. The effect feels almost like a lull (but
lacking complete silence) and the volume then builds up quickly
again after, almost like a swoop.
When the two tracks crossover, their volume builds. For mid-level
crossfades, at halfway through the transition the volume of each
track is half. Low-level crossfades are below half volume halfway
through the transition, and high-level crossfades are above halfvolume halfway through the transition.

Sound Differences in Crossfades

Sound is measured in Bels, or more commonly, as fraction of that
unit: decibels. Human hearing is very sensitive to acute changes in
sound. Just like how we can hear very low frequencies (like 20 Hz)
and very high frequencies (like 20,000 Hz), we can hear very soft
sound and very loud sounds. In fact, our ears have a sensitivity
from 1 to 130 decibels, which is to say that the loudest sound you
can hear is roughly 10 trillion times loader than the softest sound
you can hear! As such, what appears to be a linear change in
volume is actually logarithmic. In crossfades, if you want to mess
with the rate of change of volume, you need to more aggressively
change it. It helps to see things visually.

Linear Crossfades in Audacity

In Audacity, its easy to add linear crossfades. Align the two tracks
you want to crossfade in the timeline, either by editing or by using
the time shift tool. When youre lined up, select a portion of the
track you want to fade out. Go to Effect > Cross Fade Out.

Then, in the next track, select the portion you want to fade in. Go
to Effect > Cross Fade In.

You can delete the rest of the first track if youre done with it. Be
careful with the track that youre fading in, though, as deleting it
will move it back to the beginning. You can either use the time
shift tool to bring it back to where it needs to be, or better yet,
just convert the first part of the track to silence.

Crossfading High or Low

Making high or low crossfades isnt automated in Audacity. One
way to easily do it requires the use of the Envelope Tool.

The Envelope Tool will allow you to change the volume of any track
without actually changing the amplitude. As the actual sound wave
isnt changed, the source file will remain untouched. You can add
multiple points to further shape the necessary change. After
selecting this tool, click on your track, and drag to change the level
of volume.

Each click will add a new handle in the form of a white dot that you
can move. Just manually shape the curve to about what we
described above. Of course, your track may have different needs.
If your tracks volume itself changes, then you can compensate or
ignore it. As always, do what sounds right.

Crossfading has a variety of uses for both audio and video editing.
Depending on what type of crossfade you do, youll be able to
achieve a variety of effects for different purposes. Now that you
know how crossfades work, you can choose which one works best
in your projects. After all, its all about choice isnt it?
Note: The music used in the sample tracks is by Talvin Singh;
Traveller and Butterfly from the album OK
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