Editing with Audacity

All new software takes a little time to get comfortable with. After a little practice, you’ll find editing a breeze.

If you haven’t already used to Audacity to record your story, you’ll need to click through some early dialog boxes when you first start it (see the last section of the recording page for more detail).

Basic Editing

If you didn’t record directly into Audacity, you’ll first need to load your recording. It’s safest to download your audio file—.mp3 is easiest work with—from your cloud storage to whatever computer you’re using. Just drag and drop your .mp3 file to the Audacity window or icon in your tool bar.

The main task at hand is to edit out pauses, ums, and other sound glitches. When you’re playing your recording, you can see on the waveform (the visualization of your audio) where the glitch was.

If you hit Control+i then this line will become a division between two clips

Click in the middle of an audio clip and then use Control+i to divide that clip into two parts

This is what it looks like to select a clip before hitting the Delete key to remove it

To remove pauses, drag the cursor over a portion of an audio clip to select it for deletion and then hit the Delete key

If for some reason there is a gap after deleting the clip, go to Audacity -> Preferences -> Track Behaviors and make sure “Editing a clip can move other clips” is checked. Then everything will work.

Adding other tracks (music, effect, etc)

What it looks like when you drag an audio file into Audacity

Find (or make) a sound file you want to integrate into your final audio clip. One great Creative Commons site is Pixabay, but use whatever you like.
Download the file and put it somewhere you can access easily.
Drag and drop audio files into Audacity
The new audio file will display as a second audio track below what you already recorded.

Export Audio as MP3 from Audacity

Once your audio is ready to export, there’s just a few steps to follow. If you don’t see any instructions about it, just keep the default suggestion.

Go to File menu → Select Export → Choose Export Audio…
- Or use keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+E (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+E (Mac)
Then the pop-up appears, click the right button for Export to computer.
Name your file - In the top box (that’s already highlighted), type whatever filename you want. Be sure to use all lower case and hyphens instead of speaces. There’s no need to add a file extention like .mp3.
Choose save location - On the Folder line, click the Browse... button Pick where you want to save the file. Feel free to keep the default location; just take note of where it is so you can find it later (to upload to a repository, move to a thumbdrive, etc)
Select MP3 format – On the Format line, select MP3 Files
- This is the ideal format for simple web audio files
Keep all the default Audio Options
Click Export or Save

Now you have a file you can upload to your repository or whatever.

General Tutorial

Here’s a solid general orientation to and demonstration of editing in Audacity. There’s more than you’ll need for your work, but it also helps you see what else you can do later.