How to Edit Audio Files with WavePad

How to Edit Audio Files with WavePad

You don’t have to be a professional music producer to record and edit your own music. With an easy-to-use music editing software like WavePad, you can take your audio recordings to the next level. Recording and editing your songs yourself is great way to share and preserve your musical masterpieces and anyone can do it. Whether you are recording your voice for a podcast or you are editing tracks of your band playing live music, it has never been easier to create professional quality recordings from home.

Download WavePad for Windows

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Record Audio

If you don’t already have an audio recording to work with, don’t worry. WavePad allows you to record audio directly into the program using an accessory microphone or the internal microphone on your computer or device. To begin recording a new track, simply click the red record button, a new blank track will be created and your recording will begin automatically. You can stop your recording by clicking the square stop button, pushing the Esc key or by clicking anywhere on the track.

Recording Audio in WavePad

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Import Audio

If you already have a pre-recorded track you would like to work with, you can easily import the track into WavePad to edit. Simply press Ctrl + O on Windows or Command + O on Mac to open it. You can also go to the main drop down menu and select File and then Open. Import a file from your computer or external device, or you can choose to open a file directly off of a CD or data disc. You can even import files straight from the Cloud. Make sure to explore the NCH Sound Library for additional audio samples and sounds to add to your music or audio project.

Import Audio Files

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Trim Tracks

Trimming down your audio recordings or music tracks is one of the first tasks you will want to complete when you begin editing audio files. WavePad allows you to easily remove the silences from the beginning and end of your recordings. Simply select your entire track, go to the Edit tab, click Trim, and then choose the Auto-trim silence from the Start and End of the File option from the drop down menu.

Trim Out Silences in Your Tracks 

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Split Tracks

You can split your recordings and files at any point you would like to in WavePad. Simply place your cursor wherever you would like to split your track, select the Split option from under the Edit tab and then choose "Split at cursor" from the drop down menu. This will split your audio at the position of the cursor, generating two separate tracks.

Split Tracks

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Reduce Noise

Removing background noise from your audio tracks is essential if you want to make your recording sound professional. Background sounds such as chair squeaks, footsteps and even your own breathing, are all noises that are easily picked up by your microphone. Luckily, they are just as easily removed from your tracks. Choose the track you want to remove noise from and then select the Cleanup option in the Effects menu. From there you can choose from a variety of noise cleanup options, such as auto click/pop removal or noise reduction.

Reduce Background Noise

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Mix Audio

The Paste-Mix feature in WavePad allows you to overlay tracks to create mash-ups, voice-overs or layer recorded instruments for that full band sound. To combine the audio from two tracks into one, start by selecting one of the tracks and copying it to the clipboard. Next, select your second track and click on the Paste Mix icon in the menu under the Edit tab. When you play it back you will hear that the two pieces of audio have now been combined.

Mixing Audio Tracks 

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Volume Control

Now that your song or voice recording is cut down to the good stuff, you can decide what you want to do with your volume levels. Not all microphones are created equally and so your song may end up being a lot louder or a lot quieter than you expected. Select the Levels tab to view some of the different volume control options available in WavePad. Select Normalize Audio from the effects tab to amplify audio gain across the entire track. This is a great last step to finalize your project before exporting.

WavePad Volume Control Features

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Save and Export

When you are finished editing your audio project, you will need to save it. WavePad has several easy options for saving and exporting your audio files. Under the Home tab you can click on the Save icon and choose to burn your song to an audio or data CD, send the file in an email, upload it to the cloud, or save it as a number of audio file formats. If you plan on making additional edits to your project later, you can save all of your work as a WavePad project file to preserve quality.

Saving Audio Files

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Download WavePad for Windows

Give Your Music a Boost: The WavePad Equalizer

I have noticed a lot of questions on our YouTube channel about enhancing the bass in a song using WavePad audio editor. How is it done? Since the graphical interface of WavePad's equalizer was recently updated, now is the perfect time to review how to use it.

The first thing you want to do is load your music into WavePad. Do this by clicking the Open File icon on the toolbar, browse to your music file, and click Open.

Next, click the Effects menu and select Equalizer. This will open the Equalizer dialog, which might not be what you expect if you were looking for knobs and dials. This equalizer still weakens and strengthens frequencies like knobs on a mixing board, but represents the frequencies in graph form. The graph works logically enough; the low frequencies are represented on the left of the graph, the high frequencies on the right. If there is a point on the graph line that is higher, that frequency will be stronger. If the graph point is lower, the frequency will be weaker.

The easiest way familiarize yourself with this equalizer is to make use of the presets. Don't be afraid to play around with them and to adjust their settings to see how they affect your music--you don't have to commit to any changes until you click Apply.

Let's boost the bass as an example. Click the Play button and then select the Low Pass filter from the list of presets. You'll hear the higher frequencies drop down, giving a boosted effect to the bass. The result probably isn't exactly the sound you imagined, so you can make adjustments based on this starting place to even out the sound how you want. You can do this using the Low Pass Options dialog that opened when you selected this preset, but you'll have more control if you close the dialog and move around the graph points yourself. You can also add graph points by clicking on the graph's line.

For more information about how to use the different equalizer presets, view the Effects topic in the help manual. For more information about frequencies, view the General Audio Concepts topic, also in the help manual. The help manual is accessed by pressing F1 from the program.

To try WavePad and boost your bass, download the program from our website. You'll also want to see the other audio software we have for maximizing your audio production.

Music Editing for Language Lessons

We recently found a series of videos made by a WavePad user as a guide for people just getting started with audio editing, and for using sound editing software to support use of music in language lessons. While many of the basics are covered in our WavePad video tutorials as well, if there is one thing I have learned, it is that sometimes hearing the same thing in a slightly different way can really help you pick it up. If you are looking for another source to help you ease into audio editing, you should check out this series of 7 videos covering some WavePad audio editing basics:

1. Select and cut
   
2. Splitting and trimming
   
3. Saving files in different sound formats
   
4. Changing audio track speed
   
5. Changing audio track pitch
   
6. Using slower speeds and looping to teach sections of a song
   
7. Copying edited clips to a new file
   

So whether you are teaching or learning songs in another language, or you have any other audio projects, be sure that you have WavePad Audio Editor on hand. You never know when it might come in handy.

WavePad the Movie

Here is a quick look at the always popular WavePad audio editor

WavePad is an established leader in professional audio editing software. Its diverse editing, effects, and toolset make it well suited for a wide scope of audio projects. And for those of you new to the wonderful world of audio editing you can find three WavePad video tutorials to help you learn the ropes and get started using this NCH classic.

Software for Musicians

Audio Software is one of our biggest categories, and sound editing is just the beginning; we have lots of tech solutions for musicians too. From music recording software to other handy musician software tools, each program is specifically designed for a particular music related task so musicians can go high tech while tuning, transcribing or even just practicing. Check out a few of our audio software favorites for musicians:

TwelveKeys Music Transcription Software is perfect for any musician trying to learn how to play a piece of recorded music, or for notating compositions. TwelveKeys provides a visual aid for musical transcription using a graphical representation of the music, allowing musicians to notate any orchestration with accuracy and ease.

Crescendo Music Notation Software is a simple way to work with musical notation. Crescendo allows musicians to compose, save and print music from their computer. The wide array of notation symbols, time and key signatures, and text on a free-form layout gives you complete control over musical arrangements.

PitchPerfect is a free guitar tuner that also works great for other string instruments. It automatically detects the note you are playing and lets you know if you are sharp, flat, or perfectly in tune. Performing will be less daunting, having this product to eliminate the need of tuning a guitar conventionally.

TempoPerfect is a free software metronome. Designed to help musicians play in time, this tempo software creates accurate beat patterns for simple or complex rhythms. TempoPerfect provides a clear and precise beat that won't wind down, making it an essential tool for all musicians.

WavePad Sound Editor is designed to be an easy to use audio editing package. Within minutes you will be able to open or record a file and edit it. It has many robust tools including audio effects to amplify, normalize, reverb, a free sound effect/music library, text-to-speech voice synthesis, and a voice changer, just to name a few. Combined with MixPad multitrack mixing software, these two audio applications are perfect for any audio project, from making soundtracks and podcasts to creating high quality demo CDs for your band.

What you need to know about copying or editing someone else’s music

You might find yourself editing music and wondering, am I allowed to do this? Whether you’re making your own music mashup with the MixPad multi-track mixer, adding a soundtrack to your home videos with VideoPad video editor, or making a new ringtone for your phone with WavePad audio editor, there are some rules you need to know about your music, and how you’re allowed to use it.

What’s mine isn’t yours and what’s yours isn’t mine

That is the legal stance as far as copying or editing someone else’s music is concerned. With the increased popularity of the MP3 music format in the late 1990s, the sharing of copy written music without authorization became much more prevalent, causing an increase in concerns about copyright infringement. Today, copyright infringement isn’t something to take lightly. If you’re caught copying or editing someone else’s work you may be forced to pay heavy fines. Just ask former Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum - he had to pay $675,000 in fines for illegally downloading music.

Copying Music

According to The Copyright Act of 1976, you are allowed to copy someone else’s work if it falls under fair use. Fair use is described as using limited portions of a work, including quotes, comments, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports.

Editing Music

Since it is legal to create software to edit music, shouldn’t editing music be legal? There is a lot of talk about reselling and downloading copyrighted music, but not too much about edited music. The most important thing to know is you can edit music as long as you do not intend to use it for commercial use. Also, once you purchase music you inherit the rights to share that music with your friends, and you are also allowed to edit that music as long as you keep a copy of the original.

For more information see the following articles:

• Legal myths in the battle over peer-to-peer
  
• 10 Big Myths about copyright explained

Using Edited Music on YouTube

For quite some time now, posting copyrighted or edited music to original videos on YouTube has been a problem. However, as of June anyone who wishes to put music behind their videos can, you just have to follow these simple rules. First, it is important to know that YouTube has signed a deal with Rumblefish, allowing users access to a library of music. Therefore, if you use music from this library you can edit it any way you like without worrying about YouTube removing your video. All you have to do is purchase the song for $1.99 and you will have a lifetime license to use and edit that song on YouTube.

Basic things to remember

1. Always purchase music legally either at a music store or online
   
2. If it’s not your original music, using it may be violating someone’s copyright
   
3. If you aren't sure something is copy written, check with the US Copyright Office
   
4. Selling or redistributing music without the copyright owners permission is a violation of the owner's rights
   
5. If you edit or mix song you’ve purchased, you have to keep a copy of the original song
   
6. Only the owner of copy written work has the right to prepare or authorize someone else to create a new version of that work
   
7. When using someone else’s work, even just a portion of it for a video or any other project, it is always a good idea to credit the original artist(s)
   

Another Impressive Review for WavePad

TopTenReviews recently updated its top ten list for best audio editing software. We were pleased to see WavePad Master's Edition move up in the rankings from last year, winning a Silver award for 2010's best audio editing software. Here are some of our favorite quotes from the review:

"Whether you are a musician looking to refine and improve tracks, a journalist looking to trim or extract vocal clips or looking to add voice narration to a multimedia presentation, [WavePad] offers a unique range, making it accessible to users with audio editing software needs not related to music production."

"The great thing about this software is it has it all. You can download, edit and burn through one program. Not many other software packages that we tested had these capabilities, not to mention the quality that NCH Software has implemented."

"WavePad strikes an incredible balance between high-end and low-end, advanced and beginner level audio and sound editing software programs, giving users of various professions, skill-sets and program needs an incredible range with which to work. Best of all, it does so without over-simplifying its interface or limiting users to only a handful of tools."

The review correctly points out that whether you are an experienced audiophile, use audio editing in non-music related professions, or are just getting started in audio production, WavePad has something for everyone. You can read the entire review, and make sure you take advantage of WavePad's free trial to see how well it can work for you.