Essential Audio Editing Tips for Beginners
Audio editing is the essential process that helps you to clean the audio files and to make them better for the voice-over. Whether you’re an audio editor simply looking for the best sound or a video producer searching for tips on how to avoid the mistakes that can distract from your message, we’ve put together a list of basic audio editing tips for optimizing audio to make each recording as clear and crisp as possible.
What is Audio Editing?
Audio editing is the process of modifying and making changes to audio, whether it be in the form of a song, podcast, or video. Audio editing is a skill that requires patience, understanding, and knowledge of how to use tools such as Audacity and Adobe Audition.
A good audio editor will be able to manipulate sound waves so they are more pleasing to the ears and have better quality than they originally did. This can mean anything from cutting out unwanted sounds like background noise or music that’s too quiet, to adding effects like reverb or distortion to make a song sound more powerful or dramatic.
Why is Audio Editing Necessary?
Audio editing is important for a number of reasons. First, it can be an important communication tool. When you record sound, you’re capturing not only the voice of someone speaking but also background noise and ambiance. For example, if you are recording an interview with a patient at a hospital or doctor’s office, having the ability to adjust the microphone level and add in sounds from around them is important for making sure that what they are saying is heard clearly.
Second, audio editing allows you to create special effects and other types of audio processing. This can include adding music, voiceovers, or sound effects to your video projects. Third, editing audio can help you improve your videos so that they have more impact when they are shared on social media or other channels.
Finally, if you have an idea for an audio project but don’t know how to accomplish it on your own (or even if you do), many businesses will hire freelance audio editors who can help with this type of work as well as any other type of video production project they may be working on.
Suggested Article: Types of Film Cuts.
Top 11 Professional Audio Editing Tips & Tricks
Audio editing is a complicated process, so much so that there are entire classes dedicated to the trade. Here’s our attempt to demystify some of audio editing’s more mysterious aspects by providing helpful tips and advice on basic essentials.
1. Using the most optimum recording devices
Recording devices are crucial when it comes to sound quality. The noise you would see in your audio is often highly correlated with the kind of recording device you are using. However, what matters, even more, is that you are already familiar with making the most out of your device.
If you go on to use instruments that you are still getting used to, no matter how good the device is, you might end up ignoring valuable features that you didn’t know about. Hence, Use one that you find the most optimum.
2. Keeping an eye on the volume
While it may be obvious, one of the most critical audio editing tips that we can give you is to keep an eye on the volume. Volume determines how pleasant your audio will sound to people. Having a really low volume may make the listener annoyed about having to deal with it.
Contrary to that, keeping the volume too loud can immediately make the listener stop listening to it as it’s too much to take in. Studies suggest that the average volume level of your audio should range from -12 to -6 decibels only.
3. Noise reduction with batch fades
When it comes to audio recording, the devices may pick up a ton of background noises, including pops of your device being moved or clicks of a button. This also causes the audio to have a lot of noise that makes it sound staticky and may have a lot of silent parts.
One must use fading techniques to reduce audio noise and trim it to make it shorter. However, for professionals who might have too much work on their hands, batch fading is one of the best tips for audio editing that we can give them.
4. Destructive editing might save your audio
Most people use non-destructive editing when it comes to their audio. The reason behind this is to keep the original audio file as it is and only edit it as a layer that can be removed. In case the edits are not as expected, one can always refer back to the original file.
However, there are situations where destructive editing is a better choice. People are hesitant to use it because it causes permanent changes, but the trick is to simply create a backup manually and then edit the file to get the best of both worlds.
5. Zooming into the waves
Many DAWs offer the option to zoom into the waveforms and make changes. But that feature is often neglected by people as it makes the editing process longer and not suitable for scenarios where time is limited.
In reality, zooming into the waves is highly beneficial for editing. It allows users to notice flaws that they might have otherwise overlooked and correct them, clean up unwanted noises, blend better, and much more.
6. Altering the tempo
Altering the tempo of audio is not crucial and may vary according to the kind of results that one is going for. However, some situations just call for it as it adds a dramatic flair and might set fit the tone just right.
Many believe that since altering the tempo adds a time-stretching effect; it might reduce the pitch and, in turn, reduce audio quality. But that is a myth no matter what others suggest, and changing the tempo might prove to be useful instead.
7. Reducing breaths manually
It is common for recording devices to catch breathing noises when recording audios. In most cases, such noises are considered unnecessary, and the automatic response is to remove them completely from the audio.
There are many tools on the market that offer to remove breaths completely and automatically from audios. However, this might cause the audio to sound unnatural. There has to be some breathing involved. Just not too much. So, reducing them manually is the way to go.
8. Blending and splitting the silence
If there’s one thing that editing images and audio has in common, it’s their need for blending. The more you blend it, the better your results are. It reduces background noise and imperfection and makes your audio sound better overall.
But among the best audio editing tips that we have given you, blending, combined with splitting silences, is a must. Zooming in also plays a role here as it makes it easier to detect where the audio is active and where it goes completely silent.
9. Batch processing multiple files
We all know how much of a hassle it is to go through audio processing one by one and create the perfect results. It’s even more of a tiring job if you have a deadline to do so and find yourself losing interest in the work as it is sometimes monotonous.
For this reason, batch processing multiple files by adding the same effects and changes to them in bulk can boost your workflow and save your energy. There are tons of tools in the market that can be used and many of them are completely free.
10. Track comping
Comping or track comping is a method used by audio editors to edit multiple audios into a single file. The final track which has all these audios edited and combined is called track composites and can easily be done with built-in features of many audio editing software.
The usual approach to track comping is looping between right and left locators, muting it, and doing a new take with tools that can readily do it. This helps users save a ton of time when editing and may keep the sound quality consistent.
11. Making use of event slips
Lastly, our tips for audio editing are incomplete without mentioning audio event slips. It is a much-needed feature like splitting silences as these event slips can help reduce any lagging in rhythms and tons due to uncertainties in record timing.
The benefit of doing so is to create time slips without adding in silence. Even if you may hear silence, it is actually part of the active audio. One can even add event slips when batch processing to save even more time and effort.
Professional Audio Editing Tips- To Conclude
Most audio editing tips are about making your edits smooth and natural. Take away any clicks, pops, silence, or other sonic artifacts that will make your voices sound unnatural in the finished product. Also, be mindful of the waveforms as you cut things out, so as to not change the paces of anything around it.
Hopefully, these tips will help get you started on the right track and make your work as an audio editor more professional and precise. Armed with these tricks of the trade, you should have no trouble editing audio on an efficient basis.
