The Music Chopping Block

Carving up a music piece can give it new life. You can add bits to other bits to form an entirely new creation. You can define sections to create never-ending loops. Or maybe you just need a different length or feel in the piece. Music editing can do all this and much more.

Grab Your Knife

I've mentioned this before, but back in ancient times, we actually edited audio with razor blades and sticky tape. It took a good eye, a good ear and mountains of patience. Today, digital recording and editing make the process seem like child's play. Back in the day, if you made a mistake, you had to start all over. Today, fixing an error is just an Undo click away. You can even fix something from 30 minutes ago, so no whining about the level of difficulty.

You can do some amazing things in your NLE, but music editing is best left to dedicated audio editing software. If you use Adobe products, Audition is your tool of choice. Sony users will probably want Sound Forge. The Avid crowd will naturally gravitate toward ProTools. Those with Macs might look at Bias Peak. If you don't have a dedicated audio editing program, there are some free alternatives. Audacity is excellent freeware that offers all the basic editing tools and runs on Windows, Mac and even Linux. Those using Nero to burn discs will find Nero Wave Edit in their toolkits. It takes a slightly different approach to some tasks, but it is more than enough for most music editing. With some practice, you can create perfect edits with any of these products, so find some music, load up the editor and let's get started.