- Editing In Audacity
- Edit Mp3 Files In Audacity
- How To Edit Sound Files In Audacity Download
- How To Edit Sound Files In Audacity
- How To Edit Audacity Files
How to Cut Music in Audacity
- Open the audio clip you want to manipulate in Audacity.
- Click the “Selection Tool” (or press F1 for the keyboard shortcut), and then click anywhere in your audio to place a marker.
- Split the audio clip by navigating to Edit → Clip Boundaries → Split (Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl+I).
- Use either the Time Shift Tool or the Delete Key to manipulate your cut out section. You can choose to delete it or move it to another location in the audio waveform window.
- You’re done! You cut/split the audio clip and either deleted the cut segment completely or just moved it to another location.
Find and open the sound file. If the file is stereo, click above Mute/Solo and choose Tracks Stereo Track to Mono. Set Project Rate (bottom left) to 8000 Hz. Audacity is a known open-source audio editor that works on audio files through features like recording, editing, mixing audio tracks, and others. As Audacity can only work with audio formats, if you have a video file, you need first to extract its audio. The extracted audio can then be imported to Audacity to perform desired functions. Proclaim lets you trim your audio and choose a sound bite, but we recommend Audacity if you need to make additional changes. If you find your recordings are consistently quiet, ensure your audio recording levels are set correctly in Proclaim. Expand Settings and select Audio. Use the slider to change the recording input levels and record a preview if necessary.
If you’re new to Audacity (or just haven’t used it for a while), figuring out how to cut (split) some music can be a challenge.
Maybe you just want to split a song in half or want to delete a section out of the middle. It’s all do-able and straightforward with audacity.
Luckily, it’s not that difficult (it’s pretty easy actually) -- once you know where the button is, and how to move the clips around!
And that’s what I’m going to show you today, how you can take an audio clip, stick it into audacity, split it, and then move it around to wherever you want it in the song.
Once you split an audio clip you can also delete it.
This is incredibly useful if you’re editing some audio you just recorded on your microphone, be it an audio note that you’re taking for yourself, a presentation voice-over, a podcast episode, etc.
Or, if you’re editing or modifying any other audio clip, you need to know the three basic tools in Audacity that let you manipulate it.
Let’s dive in!
How to Open, Cut, and Move an Audio Clip in Audacity
Step 1: Open the audio clip you want to manipulate.
Do this by heading over to the File menu and clicking Open.
This can also be done by dragging the audio file over to the Audacity window. We included some screenshots below that show us opening some music.
Once the song is open and loaded in Audacity, move on to the next step.
Step 2: Click the “Selection Tool” (or press F1 for the keyboard shortcut), and then click anywhere in your audio click to place a marker.
This is how you’re going to split the audio clip.
Application scanner hp. Click a spot on the audio clip near where you want to split the music at. Once you have a spot selected, you’ll see a vertical black line passing through the clip. This is the current position of the cursor.
If you want to play the audio clip at its current location, all you have to do is either press the green play button on the top left menu or hit the spacebar to start playing the audio clip.
To stop the audio from playing, you can either press the red stop button or push spacebar again.
Before moving onto the next step, make sure you have the cursor (Selection Tool - F1) placed at exactly the location you want to split the song at.
Step 3: Split the song by navigating to Edit → Clip Boundaries → Split (Keyboard Shortcut Ctrl+I).
Your audio clip will have been cut in two (split).
If you want to just cut your audio in half, this is all you’ll need to do.
But if you wanted to cut out a bit of audio from the middle of the clip, then you’ll have to do another split to create the section you want to delete.
Look at the screenshot below:
I used the selection tool once again (F1) to select another location in the song where I wanted to split the clip, and then hit Ctrl+I (I as in Indian, not a lowercase L).
The result? You should have two split lines as shown in the screenshot below.
Step 4: Use either the Time Shift Tool or the Delete Key to manipulate your cut out section. You can choose to delete it or move it to another location in the song.
Now you have two options:
- You can delete your cut out section from the middle of the audio clip
- You can move that audio clip to another location in the song (or even make a copy of it and paste it in at the end, etc.)
If you want to delete the middle audio clip, this is what you’ll need to do:
Start by enabling the Selection Tool (F1). After the selection tool is enabled, double-click on the middle section you want to delete.
You’ll see it highlight in a white color slightly -- this means the section is selected.
Once you’ve selected the appropriate section, hit the delete key and it’ll be gone!
Notice in the image above that the audio clip is shorter, and the song “collapsed” to empty space.
If you’d like to move audio clips (either when they’re split into two sides, or if you just want to move one over, etc.), then you’ll have to use the Time Shift Tool (F5).
To use the Time Shift Tool, either click the two arrows pointing away from each other in the menu or hit the F5 key.
Time Shift Before Move (auto-collapsed):
Time Shift After Movement:
Note that you can move audio clips in any direction with the Time Shift Tool (two arrows pointing away from each other, little icon on the main menu).
Also note that you can't move audio clips over each other using the time shift tool, unless you use the trick below:
If you want to move an audio clip over another audio clip, do the following:
1) Use the Time Shift Tool to make some space for the new audio clip.
2) Double click the audio clip you want to move to select it (should highlight white)
3) Click copy to copy the clip (or cut if you don't want the copied version to remain)
4) Place the selection cursor at the exact location you want the copied clip to appear.
5) Click paste and your clip will move over!
And that’s all there is to it!
Editing In Audacity
If you’ve been following along, you’ve successfully taken an audio clip, split it into one (or multiple) sections, and then taken those sections and either deleted or moved them.
Audacity is a great bit of software that lets you do almost anything you’d want with an audio clip.
In case you need to come back to this guide, or forget how to use the cut/split tool in Audacity in the future, feel free to bookmark this page as a reference!
Wishing you all the best in your musical endeavors, good luck!
Several years ago we were commissioned to produce a series of training videos in a foreign language. This involved bringing foreign language voice-over artists into our VO booth here in Southampton and recording their scripts. There were hours and hours of voice-over recordings to go through.
At first we sat down with our interpreters and edited the voice-overs with their help, but we quickly realised it was more effective to train them on the basics of audio editing so that they could cut out any obvious mistakes (like “fluffs” and other errors) before our editors added the voice-overs to the videos.
Hence, I recorded this quick video explaining how to edit audio files in Audacity, a free audio editing application for PC and Mac. You can download it here.
We weren’t originally planning to release this to the public, which is why I recorded it using the built-in microphone on my computer (sorry for the loud cursor clicks), but in hindsight I’m aware that this tutorial could be useful for anybody recording their own voice-overs before sending them to us to edit into a video.
The tutorial is designed to start after a voice-over has been recorded, when you have an audio file with the recording saved on your computer. You can record audio directly with Audacity if you choose to, but that’s not our workflow here at Southpoint Films, so that process isn’t covered in this video.
A quick note..
Please be aware that this tutorial doesn’t cover audio treatment, like boosting volume, EQ, compression or noise reduction.If you’re interesting in making your audio recordings sound better, why not get in touch with our team who are experts in audio production for video? We’re happy to help with any editing requirements. Contact us.
If you can’t watch the video, here’s what you need to know…
Setting up your Audacity project
When you open Audacity you’ll be shown a blank audacity project. You’ll need to start by importing your audio file. You can do this by going to “File” → “Import” → “Audio”. This will let you browse your computer’s file system to find the audio file and import it.
Or, if you know where the file is, and you have it available in a Finder or Windows Explorer window, you can drag and drop the audio file into the dark grey section of the Audacity window.
When you import your file you’ll be asked to confirm how you’d like the file to be imported. You can copy the file into Audacity, or you can use the original file that you imported. Making a copy is safer, and should be selected by default, so we suggest sticking with this.
Press OK to confirm and continue with the editing. The file will import and you’ll now be able to see a blue waveform in the middle of your window.
The Audacity interface can be a bit overwhelming to new users, with lots of buttons that aren’t entirely clear with what they do. Thankfully you won’t need to touch most of these to make simple edits.
You’ll mainly be using the “Selection” tool, pictured below. This tool will let you edit the waveform (the squiggly blue bit).
You can also use the magnifying glass icons with a plus and minus to zoom and in out of the waveform, making it easier to make precise edits.
Playback
To play the audio, use the selection tool and click on the waveform. The playhead (the black line) will appear where you click. How to test app on iphone. This is where your audio will play from. You can use the magnifying glass buttons to zoom in and out to help with making your selection.
To play your audio, press the space bar on your computer’s keyboard. You can press the space bar again to pause playback.
You can also use the buttons at the top left of the window to control playback, and to move the playhead to the start and end of the project.
Troubleshooting
If you can’t hear anything, use the drop-down menu on the righthand side, which in my screenshot says “Built-In Output”. Make sure that the audio is coming out of your speakers or headphones. Some computers may have unusual audio setups that take over this setting.Editing The Audio
To edit your audio, click on the waveform where you want to make your edit. Keep holding down your mouse button and drag to select the section of audio you want to remove. You can drag in either direction; forwards or backwards.
To remove this piece of audio, hit the backspace button your keyboard.
If you make a mistake you can press the “undo” button below the playback buttons. You can use the “redo” button next to it to restore your edit if you press the “undo” button by mistake. You can also find these functions in the “Edit” menu for the application.
Saving and Exporting
Once you’ve edited your audio file to remove any errors and mistakes, it’s time to save the project and export the audio file.
To save the project, which will allow you to come back later and make further edits, go to the “File” menu and choose “Save Project As…”
This process does not save your project as an audio file that we can use in a video.
To save an audio file, return to the “File” menu, choose “Export Audio” and select the location on your computer where you want to save the audio file. Make sure you know where this is so that you can send the file to us later!
At the bottom of your screen you’ll have format options. In our experience the best option is “WAV (Microsoft) signed 16-bit PCM”
Edit Mp3 Files In Audacity
Press save to export your audio file. It might take a few minutes to do this. Then send it over to the producer at Southpoint Films working on your project via Dropbox, WeTransfer or a similar service. (We can always help with this.)
We hope you found this useful and look forward to receiving your voice-over recordings soon!
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