You can split tracks, delete silence and perform fades in Audacity, as well as edit ID3 tags - something none of the other "professional" applications can offer! You can adjust the amount of noise reduction as well, so it is usually best to experiment on a short selection of audio until you find the setting that works best. Audacity will then use the "noise print" to remove the noise from the recording, theoretically leaving you with a clean track. When this is done, select the whole file and choose "Remove Noise" from the same window. Then click the "Get Noise Profile" button from the Noise Reduction option under the Effect menu. To do this, you first select a region of noise - preferably without any music or sounds in the background. You can also perform noise reduction in Audacity. Trimming a file in Audacity is simply a matter of selecting the region you wish to save and choosing Export as MP3 from the file menu. If you don't already have an audio editor, it's worth trying Audacity - an open source and multi-platform editor available from: ( Fig 4). This is freeware plug-in that will work in Wavelab and Audacity, and can be downloaded from As an alternative to using plug-in effects, there are some stand-alone audio repair applications such as Ray Gun, which perform the same function independently of another editor program ( Fig 3). If you don't have a noise reduction plug-in, you might want to try Vellocet Noise Reduction.
You can preview the process and tweak all the parameters until you get the best result - which is always a process of trial and error ( Fig 2). For cleaning up really problematic recordings, you can load a noise reduction or declicking plug-in, such as Virtos Denoiser, in any of the afore-mentioned audio editors. We covered click and pop removal in Part 3 of the audio ripping guide, but only using the basic glitch removal features in EAC. This will prevent your audio files from clicking at the beginning or end. If you prefer to do your own trimming, be sure to turn on "snap at zero crossings" (the Z key in Wavelab). In Wavelab you simply hit -T and you'll be walked through the process in a wizard. Wavelab and SoundForge have handy auto-region tools that create markers between tracks and then allow you to batch export them ( Fig 1). If you are using any of these programs, don't bother encoding your MP3s until after you've edited the WAV files. This is partly because of the nature of MP3 compression, and partly because it is much faster to work this way. Compared to recording each track individually, you will not only save a lot of time this way, but you will be able to perform any necessary processing - such as noise reduction - in a single operation, preventing them from varying too much.Īudio editors such as Wavelab, CoolEdit and SoundForge have excellent editing capabilities, although bear in mind that when you open an MP3 file, they create a temporary WAV file rather than allowing you to edit the MP3 files directly. Trimming and repairing LP and cassette recordingsIf you are converting your LP or cassettes to MP3 then you will probably find that it is more efficient to record an entire side in one go, then cut it up later.