You Have Some Audacity!

Audacity is a multi-track sound recording application that is cross platform and available at no cost. It is a wonderful program to learn recording techniques and to experiment with ideas. It includes a number of effects. Audacity has been developed by a number of sound enthusiasts who share the original premise of the Internet that everything was to be open and free to everyone.

Use Audacity to edit a sound file, For example we can edit an aif or wav file by selecting a portion we might want to post for some purpose (analysis, demonstration, or listening). First, we can use Audacity to rip a selection from a source, or we can use an existing soundfile that we might have acquired using a file manager such as iTunes. We open this file in Audacity. This selection is from Stellios the popular Trance and Rave composer who is also in the composition program at NYU:

Next, we select a portion of the soundfile near the end of the work. We do this by selecting the material at the first we want to delete, and then delete that portion. We also select material at the end we want to delete and delete that portion, leaving the selection we want to post. Each step of the way, we take screenshots to document the process.

Now we select the beginning and the end to add effects of fadein and fadeout so that playing the excerpt does not seem so abrupt:

Fade In

Fade Out

Now we have the finished selection with the fadein and fadeout effects. The project is saved as an aup project, but we can export the file as an mp3 file.

Stellios Selection