How to Cut a Song & Splice it

Cutting and splicing audio is as easy as copying and pasting.

Before the days of digital audio editing, music producers would have to literally take a pair of scissors, cut the audio reel in half and then tape it to another reel if they wanted to cut and splice an audio track. Cutting and splicing an audio track is simply cutting it at a certain point and then joining it with another track. Digital audio editing software has made this process much easier. If you don't have an audio editor, you can download Audacity for free. This software is advanced enough to cut and splice music and it's free, but you can use whatever software you're comfortable with.

Things You'll Need

• Audio editor
• Song file(s)

Instructions

Splicing a Single Track

1. Launch your audio editing software.

2. Click on "File" and "Open" your song file to import the song you would like to cut and splice. Once you import the song, it will be displayed along a sound-wave graph that plots the fluctuations in volume throughout the song. This will help you visualize the song.

3. Press the "Play" button to play through your song and find the parts of the song you want to cut. The duration of the song is expressed in seconds and runs across the top of your graph. Note the exact times in the song where you would like to start and stop your cut - these are your cut marks. Press the "Stop" button once you've established your cut marks.

4. Click your mouse cursor on the first cut mark and drag it along your track until you reach your last cut mark to highlight the part of the song you want to cut out. If you want to cut out everything from your starting cut marker, simply drag your cursor to the very end of the song.

5. Press the "Delete" key on your keyboard to cut the highlighted part of the song. The remaining track will automatically splice together and fill the gap. You have just cut and spliced your song.

Splicing two tracks together

1. Upload two songs into your audio editor. Each song will have it's own graph. Some editors will put each song on its own window, while others will simply stack the graphs on top of each other in one window.

2. Make a cut in your first song and note the exact time where the splice occurs. You may have to play through the track to hear it, but most programs will mark the area with a line.

3. Highlight a section of your second song (click and drag your mouse,) right click your mouse and select "Copy." You can also press "Ctrl + C" for a shortcut.

4. Right click on the splice mark in your first song and select "Paste." You can also just click on the mark and press "Ctrl + V" for a shortcut. You will see the change take effect on your graph, and you can play through the song to hear how it sounds.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to elongate a song, simply highlight and copy an area of a song you would like to duplicate, and then paste it wherever you want. You can paste as many times as you want, and the more times you paste, the longer the song will be.

• When your song is on the graph, visualize it just as if it were a sentence in a text document. You can just highlight the middle of that sentence and delete it. The two remaining parts of the sentence will splice together and your mouse cursor will mark the area. If you want to add different text to the middle of the sentence, just highlight some text, copy it and paste it.

References

• Youtube: Audacity - An Introduction to cutting and pasting

Resources

• Download Audacity Free