I want to edit (crop) a sound file or two (for free on a PC running Windows 10)

[Epona]

I am sure I used to do such things back in the heady days of Win98 using sound recorder or a similar bit of incorporated windows software, but I can't obviously find how to do it on my Win 10 PC!

I don't want to do anything fancy, just crop a bit of extraneous/not relevant noise/chat from the start and finish of an audio recording so I just have the bit I need.

It is nothing dodgy, it is just me following my cat around with my phone recording audio and me talking to him until he had a Siam/Ori conversation back and forth with me and I could record that, so there is excess stuff at the beginning and the end of that and I just want to trim that off without having to pay for software or endure a ton of adverts for a 2 minute job

Please advise on how to do it in Win 10 incorporated software, or using a free download of something suitable - thanks

 

[Lurdan]

I use mp3DirectCut. Freeware, tiny, no hidden unwanted 'features'.

mp3DirectCut - Cut MP3 and AAC in Windows - Download

mp3DirectCut Home - Free and fast multi tool for Windows and Linux/Wine with lossless editing: Cut, crop, split MP3, AAC, MP4, fade, normalize and record MP3.

mpesch3.de

Simple controls - just highlight the section you want to cut using the 'set start' and 'set end' of selection buttons

And click the Cut (Scissors) button.

(My version isn't the latest I see but I think the colour scheme is still the same).

Where some sound editors re-encode the output when you save, which can lose a little quality (awful for 'audiophiles' lol), mp3DirectCut saves losslessly.

One of those essential tools I use regularly fwtw.

 

[Epona]

Thank you Lurdan I will give this a go soon - it's not something I require in studio quality, just a stupid back and forth "conversation" thing with my cat that I recorded on my phone and I just want to crop it so I have the important bit and save it. He is a very chatty Ori and has spent the last 15 years wailing at me or having what seem to be little conversations, and I was finding it very upsetting that he is dying and I didn't have an example of this recorded so when he was in chatty mood earlier I found a way to record it but there were a few minutes of nonsense before the bit where he is heard and the bit where he is waahing is the bit I want.

 

[kalmatthew]

If that software doesn't work then audicity is the go to for this sort of thing, massively over powered for your needs but when I tried it for simple things before I've always been able to work it out.

 

[two sheds]

yes I thought about audacity. First time I used it was really difficult to set up but tried again recently and it recorded "what you hear" through the speakers automatically. I think you'd just have to play the sound file and press the red record button at the relevant point.

 

[killer b]

yes I thought about audacity. First time I used it was really difficult to set up but tried again recently and it recorded "what you hear" through the speakers automatically. I think you'd just have to play the sound file and press the red record button at the relevant point.

much easier than that - you can just open the sound file directly in audacity and delete the bits you don't need.

 

[keybored]

I've used Audacity in my job for cropping and conversion of recordings for 20 odd years now. I love it, it's simple and works with most formats but be warned that you'll have to manually install an encoder to work with .mp3 files because of a niggling licencing issue. Which is easy enough and there are plenty of guides out there, just don't expect it to handle .mp3s out-of-the-box.

 

[two sheds]

didn't audacity change the user agreement a while ago? I remember a thread on here saying don't update it. I had to reinstall so had no choice.

 

[keybored]

didn't audacity change the user agreement a while ago? I remember a thread on here saying don't update it. I had to reinstall so had no choice.

Not that I'd noticed but the amount of "We have updated your user agreement, please read this wall of text" pop-ups I see, I probably scrolled down and mindlessly accepted

Do you remember what the problem was? I just did a search and notice they got acquired last year.

 

[two sheds]

Audacity is no longer spyware :)

I have some disappointing news for all audiophiles and other similar long-time users: The long time and much respected open-source audio editing program, Audacity, has more or less turned itself into spyware. To elaborate, a while back the development team were bought out by some company called...

www.urban75.net

this is it, but not sure how it turned out.

 

[two sheds]

There were a couple of articles where the new owners denied everything, but more believable is this from arstechnica, who didn't think there's a problem:

No, open source Audacity audio editor is not “spyware”

The community's telemetry concerns were received and addressed two months ago.

arstechnica.com

 

[keybored]

There were a couple of articles where the new owners denied everything, but more believable is this from arstechnica, who didn't think there's a problem:

No, open source Audacity audio editor is not “spyware”

The community's telemetry concerns were received and addressed two months ago.

arstechnica.com

Thanks. Just checked and both my Macs are running older versions. I have 3.1.2 on a W10 laptop but it looks like it was a strom in a teacup anyway.