Home Uses of Audio Editing Software

By Pamela S. Stevens

1. Restoration - If you have a collection of old vinyl records or tapes that don't sound great on your modern stereo, you can use audio editing software to convert music to a digital format and filter out pops, plicks or other unwanted sounds. The music can then be burned onto a CD and played through your computer or stereo.

2. Edit Home Movies - Aged home movies notoriously have bad sound. With a good editing program, you can create professional sounding audio copies of your old home films. Additionally, you can add music or narration to your films for family reunions or weddings.

3. Personal Website - Remove noise from personal recordings or create your own mixes to post on your website.

4. Create Ringtones - Some programs can help you create ringtones and transfer them to your cell phone.

5. Record - A good program can help you record-anything. You can record through a mic, a stereo, sound card, rip from a CD, DVD or video file or from streaming audio. After recoding, instantly edit or convert it into a different format to burn onto a CD, save or download to a portable device.

6. Sound Analyzing - If you enjoy listening to animal calls or other natural sounds, an audio editing program can help you analyze the sound waves and frequencies emitted by various animals and edit out noise. You could also use your recording to create your own nature sound mixes, such as crashing waves, a waterfall or wind for personal mediation and relaxation.

7. Convert Files - Most programs can convert a wide variety of file formats, such as from a CD, DVD, CDA, WMA or other into an AIFF or WAV file, to be downloaded to a portable device.

8. Burn CDs - Many programs include the software needed to burn CDs or DVDs. Quite often your CD burner will come with its own software; however, audio editing software makes it easier by letting your burn directly through the audio editing program.

9. Entertainment - Create your own mixes, sound clips, movie quotes or whatever, for fun. During the holidays, you could arrange your own Christmas collection or spooky sounds for Halloween.

10. Create Mixes - Multi track mixing programs can get expensive, however audio editing programs are extremely low priced and provide mixing tools. Most programs enable you to instantly mix selections, cut and paste, loop and add effects to create professional sounding digital arrangements.