The smart way to clean up your audio!

How much do you know about audio editing? It goes beyond just using the latest audio editing software in town. If your recording is less than perfect, there are ways to mend it and we show you how! Here are a few things to remember the next time you have your headphones on!

First things first!

You’ve made a blooper or mispronounced a word. Clap or use any audio cue to denote that you’ve made a mistake. It will save you truckloads of time in the audio editing process. Before you read out that long sentence in your recording, make sure that you do a test run.

Audio settings and volume levels should be regularly monitored to avoid gaffes. Use a noise cancelling headset to reduce atmospheric noise.

Choose a high quality audio format…

Hard disk space is important. But so is the quality of your recording. Choosing the wrong file type can wreck your recording. Check your compression settings before saving your files. Create a test file and use an authoring tool to publish it. This is to make sure that the authoring tool’s compression logic doesn’t affect your recording quality.

Follow the top and tail technique…

This is a widely used technique used by editors. Removing unwanted silence or noise, prior to and after a recording, will give you a trimmed audio to work on. Top and tail every audio file to know clearly the specific portion of the audio file. Okay so you’ve cut and spliced your files. How do you piece them together and make the file sound like one continuous single file?

Cross fade edits and clean fade edits are the most commonly used editing techniques. If two snapped together files don’t sound pleasant apply a cross fade between them. It fades out and fades in the volume of the file.

Clean fade edits are used to retain the difference and space between the two files but also smooth out the edges. Instead of exposing the edits, use clean fade edits for a more rounded audio.

A little breathing space!

Want to remove breathing sounds? Use a good pop filter. A simple foam filter can remove unwanted pops and crackles. Forgot to bring along one? Use a clean smelling sock over the microphone to edit out breathing noise. Edit out just a fraction of the breath instead of removing the pause altogether, while tightening up breaths. This will result in a more natural sounding audio.