Editing and Saving Soundfiles with Audacity

  1. Download Audacity from https://www.audacityteam.org/
  2. Open the .wav file in Audacity
  3. Use the Edit menu to trim the recording down to a one- to two-minute segment. The recording should be continuous; don’t delete segments from the middle of the recording. If you need to represent the soundscape using two different segments of sound, introduce a second of silence between them (Generate > silence), or create and upload two separate recordings.
    1. As you edit, it can be helpful to click on Audio Track and select Spectrogram or Multi-View.
  4. Go to Effect > Amplify from the toolbar
  5. Set the New Peak Amplitude to something between -6dB and – 2dB                                          Don’t decide this based on how loud the loudest sound is, but based on what it takes for the quietest sounds to be heard. (So if the recording has some very quiet sounds, set the peak to -2dB, but if the sounds throughout are rather loud, set the peak to -6dB.) For a balloon pop, set the peak to -4dB.
  6. Under the File menu, export the audio as high-quality mp3 with a descriptive title that will be easy to find later, using the format YEAR-MONTH-CAMPUS-LOCATION-INFO.mp3.
    •  Examples:
      • 2026-Feb-HMC-Hoch.mp3
      • 2026-Mar-POM-Walker-Mockingbird.mp3
        • Pomona = POM, Scripps = SCR, etc. Off campus in Claremont = CMT;
          outside Claremont = ELS or OUT.

 

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