Audio editor

The audio editor changes the sound of an audio card, or of an audio item in a table cell:

• Cut and arrange: cut, copy, paste, delete, trim, or silence passages, add or remove gaps, and move passages around.
• Record: record your microphone into the sound.
• Add effects: change loudness, clean up speech, change speed, make loops, and shape the tone.
• Mark moments: add colored markers that stay with the card.
• Split into new cards: turn a passage into a new audio card.

Opening the editor

Opens one sound in a panel you can move and resize.

• Operation:
  1. Select an audio card, or open a table and select its audio item.
  2. Choose Edit audio in the Actions panel or the table's cell commands.
• Needs: a sound file in a format the editor can open. See Limits.
• Result: the Audio Editor panel opens with the sound, and the audio card shows as processing:
  • See the whole file: the waveform shows all of it, including sound outside the card's clip.
  • Keep working on the board: the panel stays open beside it.
  • Move or resize the panel: drag its title bar or its edges.
• Tip:
  • Only one sound opens at a time. Apply or cancel your edits before opening another.
  • Edits you haven't applied are lost if you leave the board.
  • Switching to Player mode or hiding the interface hides the editor and keeps its edits. Playback stops, and a recording in progress finishes.

Leaving the editor

Two buttons close the editor, and two keep it open:

• Apply: saves your changes.
• Cancel: discards them.
• Download: saves a copy to your device.
• Create shape: makes a new audio card.

Applying changes

Saves the edited sound and markers into the original card.

• Operation: choose Apply.
• Needs: a change to the sound or its markers.
• Result: the panel closes and the card plays the edited sound:
  • Makes a new sound file: sound edits save a new M4A file, or WAV when the browser can't make M4A. If you only changed markers, the file stays the same.
  • Keeps the card as it was: its size, styles, volume, and name stay. A name taken from the file changes to the new file's name.
  • Fits the clip to the new sound: a clip that ran to the end still runs to the new end, and a clip start at or beyond the new end goes back to 0.
  • Keeps the audio blocks' times: audio blocks that play this card keep their times. Check them when the length changes, as a message reminds you, and after rearranging the sound.
  • Leaves other cards alone: cards that use the same original file keep the old sound.
• Tip: if saving fails, your edits stay in the editor so you can try again, or keep a copy with Download.

Canceling

Closes the editor without saving.

• Operation: choose Cancel.
• Result: your edits are discarded, and the card keeps its sound.

Downloading

Saves the edited sound to your device, without changing the card.

• Operation:
  1. Select a passage, or clear the selection to download the whole sound.
  2. Choose Download.
• Result: an M4A file, or WAV when the browser can't make M4A, named after the original file with (edited) added. The editor stays open.

Creating a shape

Turns a passage, or the whole sound, into a new audio card.

• Operation:
  1. Select a passage, or clear the selection to use the whole sound.
  2. Choose Create shape.
• Result: a new audio card with the edited sound appears, selected:
  • Starts with the default style: and no markers.
  • Appears below the original: under the original card or table, lined up on its left edge. Each new card goes in the next free spot below.
  • Takes a numbered name: the original file name with a number, starting at 2 each time you open the editor.
• Tip: the editor stays open with your edits, so you can create more cards.

Playing and moving around

The playback buttons sit in the row under the overview strip.

Play plays the selection, or the playing range.

• Operation:
  1. Choose Play.
  2. Choose Stop to end.
• Result: the selection plays. Without one, the playing range plays from the cursor, or from its start when the cursor is outside it.
• Tip: playing in the editor stops audio cards and audio animation blocks playing on the board, and the other way round.

More controls in that row and beside the waveform:

• Go to start: clears the selection and jumps to the start of the playing range. While playing, playback restarts there.
• Repeat: plays again and again until you stop. It starts off.
• Total: the sound's length in minutes, seconds, and hundredths.

Level scale

The scale beside the waveform makes the waveform taller or shorter, without changing the sound:

• Drag up to see quiet sounds better.
• Drag down to see peaks above 0 dB, the full scale of the waveform. Dashed lines then mark 0 dB.
• Double-click to reset it.

Spectrum

Spectrum: while playing, shows how strong the low, middle, and high sounds are, from low on the left to high on the right. It starts off.

Choosing the playing range

The waveform shows part of the sound, and the overview strip under it shows the whole sound. The highlighted part of the strip is the playing range: what the waveform shows, and what plays when nothing is selected.

• Operation: change it in one of these ways:
  • Move or resize the highlighted part of the strip.
  • Draw a new one across the strip.
  • Scroll the waveform.
  • Select the strip outside the highlighted part to show the whole sound.
• Result: the waveform shows the new range. While playing without a selection, playback follows it.

Selecting

The selection is the passage most edits and effects work on.

• Operation: select in one of these ways:
  • Cursor: select a point on the waveform. Pasted and recorded sound goes in there.
  • Passage: drag across the waveform.
  • Everything in view: double-click the waveform.
• Result: the selection's fields show it in seconds, and you can type in them:
  • Rs (Range start): where it starts.
  • Re (Range end): where it ends.
  • Rl (Range length): how long it is.
• Tip: type values such as 1.5, or sums such as 2+0.5. Use a point for decimals, and seconds instead of times like 1:30.

Snap to zero crossing

Snap to zero crossing moves the cursor and the selection's edges to the nearest point where the wave passes through silence, so cuts are less likely to click, though a silent cut isn't guaranteed.

• Operation: turn on Snap to zero crossing. It starts off.
• Result: the cursor and edges move to the nearest silent point:
  • Looks only 10 ms away: a hundredth of a second. If no point is that close, they stay where you put them.
  • Checks every channel: in stereo sound, the point must be silent in every channel.
  • Counts the sound's ends: the start and end of the sound also count.

Editing

The editing buttons come first in the toolbar at the top of the panel.

Changes or copies the selected passage.

• Operation: choose one:
  • Cut: removes the passage and copies it.
  • Copy: copies the passage.
  • Paste: puts copied sound in place of the selection, or at the cursor. The pasted sound ends up selected.
  • Delete: removes the passage and closes the gap.
  • Trim: keeps only the passage.
  • Silence: replaces the passage with silence of the same length.
• Needs: a selection, except for Paste, which needs sound copied in this editor. Removing can't leave the sound empty.
• Tip: copied sound stays available until you close the editor. Markers aren't copied.

Spacer

Spacer, next to Record in the row under the overview strip, adds silence between passages, or removes time.

• Operation:
  1. Turn on Spacer. It starts off.
  2. Drag right on the waveform to add silence, or left to remove the sound you drag over.
• Result: everything after that point moves by the seconds shown while you drag.
• Tip: turn it off to select passages and use their handles again.

Moving a passage

Moving a passage places the selected sound at another time.

• Operation: drag the handle in the middle of the selection sideways.
• Needs: a selection.
• Result: the gap closes where the passage was and opens where you drop it. The passage keeps its markers and stays selected.

Markers

Markers are colored flags that mark moments in the sound, saved on the card when you apply. See Markers.

• Operation: use these controls:
  • Add marker: adds a flag at the cursor or at the start of the selection, and selects it.
  • At: the selected flag's time, in seconds. You can also drag the flag.
  • Marker color: the selected flag's color.
  • Remove marker: deletes the selected flag.
• Result: selecting a flag puts the cursor there. Markers also show as colored lines in the overview strip.
• Tip: markers inside a passage you delete move to where the cut is.

Recording

Records your microphone into the sound. Record sits in the row under the overview strip.

• Operation:
  1. Place the cursor, or select the passage to replace.
  2. Choose Record, and allow the microphone if the browser asks.
  3. Choose Record again to stop.
• Needs: a microphone, and permission to use it.
• Result: the recording goes in at the cursor, or replaces the selection, and ends up selected.
• Tip:
  • While you record, the panel shows the input level and the time.
  • Recording stops by itself when the sound would get too long or too big to save.

Effects

Effects change the sound's loudness, timing, and tone. You open them from two places:

• The toolbar: most effects have a button at the top of the panel, after the editing buttons.

• The selection's handles: Gain opens from the top and bottom handles, and Speed from the side handles.

• Operation:

  1. Choose an effect. Effects with settings open a bar with their fields.
  2. Adjust the fields, and use Preview to hear the result. Choose Preview again to stop.
  3. Choose the effect's apply button, or Cancel to close the bar without applying.

• Result:

  • Changes the selection: or the whole sound without one. Fade in and Fade out use the first or last second instead.
  • Shows the result first: while the bar is open, the waveform shows the result over the current sound.
  • Apply it before leaving: apply the effect before you save, download, or create a card.

• Tip:

  • Effects without settings, such as Normalize, apply right away.
  • Settings are kept until you close the editor.

Loudness is measured in dB (decibels): 0 dB marks the full scale of the waveform, and lower values are quieter.

Levels

Effects that change how loud the sound is:

• Gain: makes the selection louder or quieter, in one of two ways:

  • Drag the selection's top or bottom handle outward for louder, or inward for quieter.
  • Select one of those handles, type Gain from -24 to +24 dB (+3 dB to start), and choose Apply gain.

  With its settings open and nothing selected, it applies to the whole sound.

Normalize and fades

Voice cleanup

Effects for recorded speech:

Noise reduction

Remove silence

Compressor

Limiter

Time

Effects that change timing:

• Speed: makes the selection faster and shorter, or slower and longer, and its start stays in place. Use it in one of two ways:

  • Drag a side handle of the selection inward to speed it up, or outward to slow it down.
  • Select a side handle, type Speed from 25 to 400% (110% to start), and choose Change speed.

  With its settings open and nothing selected, it applies to the whole sound.

• Keep pitch: keeps voices and notes at their pitch when the speed changes. It starts on:

  • It can't change passages shorter than about 60 ms.
  • With it off, faster also sounds higher, and slower lower.
  • Hold Alt while dragging a side handle to switch it for that drag.

Flipping the sound

Loop

Tone

Effects that shape the sound:

Equalizer

Reverb

Echo

Distortion

Limits

• Files: MP3, PCM WAV, and AAC audio in M4A or MP4 files, when the browser can decode them.
• Length: the whole file must be 15 minutes or shorter, even when the card plays only part of it.
• Saving as WAV: in a browser that saves WAV instead of M4A, the sound must stay under 50 MB, both when you open it and after your edits. That's about 4½ to 5 minutes of stereo sound at common sample rates, and longer for mono sound.
• Edits: edits that would make the sound too long to save, or remove all of it, are refused.
• Processing: effects run in your browser, so longer sounds take more time.