CC Image courtesy of Leonard John Matthews on Flickr
Have you ever wanted to remove the first or last couple of minutes from your phone recording?
Perhaps you’ve recorded a teleconference or telesummit that includes welcome chimes or attendee introductions, or maybe there’s a bit of confidential information that needs to be removed prior to posting online?
For whatever reasons you may have to eliminate this unwanted chatter, today’s post walks our readers through the process of using our favorite free, open source audio editing software for Mac OS X, aka Audacity to remove any length of audio from the beginning, trailing end or anywhere in the middle of your recording.
How would I use this tutorial? If you are a Mac user who has the need to quickly remove a section of audio from your recording, this is the tutorial for you!
Before starting: Looking for Setup instructions? Our recent Audacity 2.0.0 for Mac OS XInstallation Tutorial should do the trick!
For today’s tutorial, we will be using Audacity 2.0.0 (Unicode) for Mac OS X.
Step 1: MP3 Download
Already have your file ready to go on your desktop? Skip to Step 2!
Before one can edit their AudioAcrobat recording in Audacity, the first step is to make sure that the file resides on the hard drive of the computer on which editing will be performed.
1. Login to your AudioAcrobat account
2. Click Audio (L)
3. Click the Title of the Audio you wish to Download
4. Click Download Audio
Looking for Expanded Steps? Try HERE.
Step 2: Open in Audacity
Now that the file our readers wish to add intro music to is on their computer’s hard drive, they will want to open the file with Audacity. Right-click the file and choose Open With and select Audacity from the list. Don’t see it listed? Open Audacity from the Applications folder in the Dock.
Once Audacity is open, choose File >> Open or use the keyboard shortcut (⌘O), selecting the audio to be edited.
After opening the file with Audacity, our readers will see something like this:
Click to Enlarge
Step 3: Highlight, Delete, Export
The next step is to identify and select (highlight) the area we wish to delete.
Use your mouse to click anywhere along the timeline to place your cursor at the specified time. Audio playback can be easily activated at any time by pressing the space bar on your keyboard. This will play the audio beginning at the cursor’s location on the timeline.
We have found that if removing the beginning of an audio, it is easiest to begin by placing your cursor at the point in the audio in which you wish the edited version to begin. Then, using the keyboard shortcut ⇧J to select the entire area between your cursor and the beginning of the track, pressing the Delete key will remove the selection.
There is a similar method for removing the end of an audio as well.
In this case, the keyboard shortcut ⇧K can be used to select (highlight) the entire area between your cursor and the end of the track. Once selected, pressing the Delete key will remove the selection.
This same principal of selecting (highlighting) a section of audio and using the Delete key to remove it, can also be applied to audio contained within the middle of your audio as well.
Instead of simply placing our cursor at a point within the audio and using a keyboard shortcut to select all the way to the beginning/end of the audio, the click and drag method can be used to select any area of audio anywhere along the timeline. After making (and listening to) your selection, pressing the Delete key will remove the selection.
When satisfied, select File >> Export to save the newly edited version and head over to AudioAcrobat in an internet browser to begin the upload process.
Aside: Using the above steps, you now have the power to not only remove any unwanted chatter from your recordings, but also the knowledge of how to trim the beginning, end and anywhere in the middle of any other audio in your studio.
Well that was quick … we’ve already walked through the process of downloading/opening our file, selecting (highlighting) and deleting our selection using Audacity 2.0.0 for Mac OS X, as well as exporting the file for upload to the Web … and yet it seems as though we had just begun. If you agree, go ahead and click the ‘Previous Post’ link beneath this article to continue the joyride!
Did you get stopped somewhere in the process? Make sure you have LAME correctly setup then shampoo, rinse and repeat the steps listed above. Success will be yours!
Did you find the above process helpful? Were you able to follow-along? Please let us know!
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[…] week we’re taking a break from our regularly scheduled blogcasting to bring you a true delight for Mac OS X (10.4 – 10.6) users in need of a simple “any […]