How to Edit Music, Audio, and Sounds

This article deals with recorded audio, music, and sounds to be edited. This article assumes it is being done in a sound editing software program.
This can be use to edit audio recordings such as poetry readings or your own audio book.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• recorded sounds, speech, or music
• computer
• sound editing software--music editing is most common

1. If it is not there already, burn or record your creation to the hard drive of the computer, preferably to "My Documents". Use either your editing software, sound recording software, or Windows Media Player to do this.

2. If the file is not opened already, use the music/sound editing software to open the file to be edited.

3. Edit the recording as necessary with the program. It is hard to get it the way desired at times, so plan on spending a lot of time on this step.
   From here, mistakes can be edited out, background music or second instrument recordings can be added, sound effects can be added, the recording be changed sound wise such as warping the sound and such, the piece can be edited sound wise, sometimes extra notes can be added in music pieces, and so forth.
   The editing program used will likely have instructions and ways within the program to do all this.

4. Burn the finished recording to a CD-R, CD-RW, or similar format for listening--or upload to online places for sale or fun. Make sure the sound format is compatible with the site uploaded to. Most sites take MP3s but a few may accept WMA. If the editing software doesn't convert to MP3--MP3 conversion programs may be obtained online for free at sites such as Downloads.com or Tucows. Also, there may be a website online that will do this without downloading.

Tips & Warnings

• Magix Music Maker is a decent priced editor that does a great job. However, one can get a mid-priced version of Cakewalk to add musical note more easily--be aware that it cost more this way as a midi intrument or output device must be purchased to hear the sound. If deciding to use Cakewalk--I recommend a USB MIDI device if there are no MIDI jacks on the computer. Also, be aware that discount department stores such as Walmart, Kmart, Target, and so forth carry lower priced USB and regular MIDI instruments.
• Do not use this to make things to sell other than your own content. It may be allowed to covert music for a personal MP3 player that is not WMA compatible, but only do what is legal and does not violate copyright.

Resources

• Tucows
• Download.com

[luv2blog]

on 8/21/2008 Sounds very intersting!