Conducting an
Interview
Editing and Mixing Audio
In-Class Activity: Using Goldwave to Edit & Mix Audio
Assignments for Next
Class:
* Reading Assignments *
Blog Assignment * Hands-On
Assignment 9
Review Assignments from
Last Class
Hands-On Assignment:
Create a storyboard on the popular culture topic you will be
using for your final semester digital story project. If you
create your storyboard on the computer, you should email your
storyboard to Dr. Robin at: brobin@uh.edu or post a comment on
your personal blog in which you provide a link to an online
location where the storyboard file can be viewed and downloaded.
If you choose to create a paper-based storyboard, you should
bring a copy of the storyboard with you to class next week.
Personal Blog Assignment
Post a comment on the course discussion blog related to the
storyboard you are creating for next week. In your posting, you
may also discuss any other aspect related to your digital story,
such as describing the progress of your work, discussing
challenges you faced as well as comment or ask questions about
your work on this week's storyboard assignment.
We will discuss the
procedure for recording an interview to include
in your digital story. One of the options is to
check out and use a Digital Voice Recorder, such
as the Olympus WS-100, shown below. These are
available from the CITE Lab.
Editing and Mixing Audio
with Goldwave Digital Audio Editor
For this week's exploration of editing and mixing audio, we will
be using the Goldwave Digital Audio Editor for Windows. You may
download a free trial version of the program from:
http://www.goldwave.com/release.php#download
One of the most useful features
of Goldwave is its left and right mouse button
support. Using both mouse buttons makes editing
very easy, but it does take a little practice to
get familiar with the interface.
To select a portion of an audio file, click
the left mouse button on the left border of the
portion. Likewise, click the right mouse button
on the right border. The result will be a screen
similar to that at left. The blackened portions
are not selected, but the blue portion is. Any
action performed will be performed to the blue
portion only.
Two common actions are deleting
and trimming. Clicking the delete button will
delete the blue-highlighted portion while
retaining the black-highlighted portions.
Trimming does just the opposite.
The Most Important
Things to
Remember:
Let's say you have recorded a short segment and
there is a second or two of no sound at the
beginning and end of the clip. You want to
remove the blank material at the beginning and
end so that only the desired sound is heard when
the file is played. First, select the portion of
the file you want to save by using the left and
right mouse buttons. Be sure to select a small
amount of the file in front of and at the end of
the desired sound. Click the Trim button and
this will remove all the unwanted portion of the
file.
Standard cutting and pasting operations can
also be performed in Goldwave. Explore all the
buttons on the toolbar to see what they do.
Mixing Multiple Audio Tracks with Goldwave
Mixing two
different audio tracks, such as narration and music,
into a single one is a fairly easy process using
Goldwave.
To mix two tracks into one, follow these steps:
Let's start with the audio clip of a
person speaking: the narration. Open this audio file
in Goldwave.
Open the music clip in Goldwave. It
should open in a separate window.
Select the entire clip (of the music) and copy it to
the clipboard. Close the music clip window. This
will leave just the narration track open.
Set the start marker in the
narration track by clicking with your right mouse
button at the approximate place where you want the
music to begin playing.
From the Edit menu, choose Mix.
The Mix window
will open and volume should be set to 0 (0 dB is
full volume). Move the Volume slider to the left if
you want the music to be softer so that it does not
overpower the sound of the narration. You can click
on the green arrow button to listen to how the mixed
audio will sound. When you are satisfied with the
volume, click the OK button.
Note that the Mix
window also allows you to adjust the start time but you
will need to press the play button again before the new
settings are previewed.
Save the new file with a different
file name so that it doesn't overwrite the original
file.
Using Effects in Goldwave
Effects provide a means to
enhance an audio file or to add special effects and are
accessed under the Effects menu in Goldwave. Some of the
most commonly used effects are Volume, which is used to
adjust the volume of an audio file and Filter > Noise
Reduction, which is used to reduce hiss or electronic
hum from a file.
Reminder:
If you have not yet completed and
submitted your script or storyboard, please email your completed
assignments to Dr. Robin at:
brobin@uh.edu
In this week's class, we explored the use of the
Goldwave Digital Audio Editor to edit and mix audio files. The
hands-on assignment for this week is to download and use
Goldwave, Audacity or any other digital audio editing program of
your choice, to try to create an edited audio file that has one person talking with music mixed in at the proper
volume level so that music does not drown out the narration.
Remember, that if you need to, you can check out a microphone or
portable digital voice recorder from the CITE Lab with which you
can record audio for this assignment.
When you have completed the audio editing, you should save the
file as a .WMA or .MP3 file (you will need to download and
install the LAME encoder first if you're using Goldwave in order
to save files in MP3 format.)
Then go to the Sound Upload website at:
http://www.soundupload.com/ and upload your edited audio
file and then retrieve the link to the file (it will be emailed
to you) and post the link on your personal blog (see Blog
Assignment 9a below). If you prefer, you may use another method
to put your audio file online as long as you can add a link or
an embedded audio player (such as adding MP3s with BoomP3,
located at: http://boomp3.com/) to your blog posting.
Blog Assignment 9a:
Post the link to your edited audio file from this week's
hands-on assignment (or an embedded audio player) on your
personal blog.
Blog Assignment 9b:
Post a comment on the course discussion blog related the
Class 9 hands-on assignment about editing and mixing audio files
and/or uploading the audio file to an online site that provides
a hyperlink or an embedded audio player for your blog.
