Audio Editing

Fundamentals

Before you start editing sound with Audacity

or any software, you should understand these
very important and common fundamentals
and terminology.
Study the diagrams in the following slides and
learn the terms.

Waveforms

2 channels
= stereo

volume
time

Waveforms are the visual representation of sound on a computer.

Sound would not exist without time passing
so the horizontal axis of the waveform is time.
The vertical axis of the waveform is volume or amplitude.

2 channels = stereo

Waveforms

By looking at the above picture, you can identify this sound as stereo because there
are two channels. You can also identify that each channel is different. These are
called the left and right channels.
A mono sound only has one channel and will play the exact same sound from both
speakers (left and right channels).
A mono sound is half as much information for a computer to process.

1 track = mono

The original unclipped soundwave

Clipping
Doing this to a sound file is destructive editing.

One of the most important things to avoid in audio editing is clipping. Clipping
occurs when the volume is increased beyond the normal waveform range. When
clipping occurs, the sound quality is irreversibly damaged.

before clipping

after clipping

If a sound is clipped you can reduce the volume, but the damage is done.

after clipping and reducing the volume

Attack and Decay

attack

decay
Attack is the time it takes a sound to go from silence to full volume.
Decay is the time it takes a sound to go from full volume to silence.

Attack and Decay

attack

decay
This waveform has a longer attack than decay but both are gradual. Attacks and
decays can be very short or long.

What can you can tell about the attack and

decay by just looking at this waveform, before
you even hear the sound. What about
clipping, and stereo? Anything else?

Normalize
Effect of amplifying the sound to a
maximum level without clipping.

Normalize
Normalizing your sound files is very
important. This is one of the steps
you should use when developing
audio for any audience.
Some sounds are supposed to be
quiet, some loud. Normalize makes
sound volumes relative to each
other in a standard way.

One of the most frequent Presentation mistakes in using multiple sounds is

inconsistent volume; some sounds are too soft, some too loud. Listeners are not
happy, having to adjust their speakers during the show. Maybe theyll just turn
them off.
The normalize standard has not been established.

original waveform

Normalize
normalized waveform
The waveform is normalized but
not clipped.
This is non-destructive editing.
Normalize standards are how
audio CDs and DVD movies have
a volume levels with relative
consistency.
Which sound would be louder?

Fade-in and Fade-out

Sounds can be faded-in and/or fadedout with most audio editing software.
Fade-in is also called the attack. Fade
out is also called the decay.

You can select any part of a waveform

and use the menu command to fade it in
or out.

Pan
To pan sound is to move it between channels.
Have you ever heard sounds pan between channels?

Why cant I pan this sound?

Mix
Mix is having two or more separate sounds and combining them into one sound.
Audio editing often has many separate sound files, maybe just a couple, maybe
hundreds.

mixed

This is similar to having a Photoshop

picture with layers and then flattening the
layers to a single layer jpg. Pixels are all
mixed together.
Once youve mixed sounds, pulling them
apart is very difficult, maybe impossible.
Save your audio editing project.

Pitch, Reverb, Reverse, Echo

These are some other common digital audio editing commands. You can make
your voice sound like a munchkin or a very old troll. You can play your voice
backwards to find out what lies deep in your subconscious. You can mix your
voice with chickens. You can fade beautiful music in and out of it all.
The next assignment is for you to practice working with sound. Try different
things. Become familiar with the software (Audacity).
Have some fun.