How Do I Edit In Audacity? And Why Would I Want To?

Editing in Audacity is pretty straightforward and very easy to do. As for why? Well, when you're recording you're going to cough, stumble a word, and face it you're going to screw up. We all do. So why start all the way over, when you can just pause for a minute and restart the sentence? This is why we all love the ability to edit!

First thing you need to do is import the .wav file you've already recorded. File > Open and find where you saved your original file. You'll see that you now have a waveform in your editing window (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Now before you begin editing the file, let's save the original so we don't erase over it! This can be done by going to File > Save Project As. The program will tell you exactly what to do after that. Okay we have a saved project, let's start to edit!

We've come across our first mess up… it seems something got knocked over and you had to start the sentence over. Well let's take that out and make it seem seamless! By using the Selection Tool highlight the area that you want to remove (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Press the Spacebar to make sure that is the selection you want to remove. Okay, let's remove it. Hit Delete. It's gone!

Now if you want to add some "silence" in the file so you don't have run on paragraph's or whatnot, all you need to do is select the area (just click on the .wav with your selection tool) and go to Generate > Silence. A box will pop up and ask you to input how long of a silence you want (in seconds). Choose your amount and hit generate. Boom! It's there!

And there you have it. The basics of editing your story before outputting it as an MP3 to upload to the site! Simple!

There are all kinds of effects and other bells and whistles within the Audacity interface. You can play with these if you like, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you know what you're doing.

Oh yes, save. OFTEN.

Now how about we output this puppy!

Go to File > Export As MP3. It's going to prompt you to name your file and where you want to output it. Select a location and hit Save. Now this box (Figure 3) has popped up. What's this about???

Figure 3

This is where you store the information for you story so it will display in MP3 players. Fill out what you want to fill out, and then hit OK

Now another box will pop up (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Audacity is now turning your .wav into an .mp3 file! Just let it do it's work, when it's done, the box disappears.

Now your .mp3 is in the location where you specified earlier and ready to upload to the site!