Free MP3 Editor Platinum Guide

Transcription

1 Free MP3 Editor Platinum Guide Follow these free tutorials to get an easy start with Free MP3 Editor Platinum. Work in Detail Ribbon Workspace Open & Save Audio Files Input Audio CD Track Record Sounds Editing Clipboard Digital Audio Effects Play & Select Regions Bookmark Tools YouTube Downloader/Converter Audio Converter Audio Extractor Audio CD Burner Audio CD Ripper Disc Eraser View Mode Select Channels Zooming

2 ID3 Editor and WMA Frequency Analysis Text to Speech Keyboard Shortcut Resample Output Formats General Audio Concepts How Does It Work in Detail? Free MP3 Editor Platinum is a multi-award winning audio editing software tool as well as a sound recorder. The software is a visual music file editor that has many different options and a multiple functionality to edit your music files like editing text files. With a given audio data it can perform many different operations such as displaying a waveform image of an audio file, filtering, applying various audio effects, format conversion and more. If your computer is equipped with a camera and microphone, you can use it to record your sounds. With our professional tool, you can edit the audio files digitally as well as perform other audio processing as below. Edit Visually Edit audio files visually and nondestructively! With its streamlined audio editing, you can edit a specific selection of waveform and jump to a specific slide by clicking on the desired slide's thumbnail and title in the left-hand navigation. Record Sounds Our powerful editor can record audio data from a microphone or another sound device and save it directly to WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, etc. Just open the task window and press new record. That is how easy it is to start recording a podcast, a song or a concert. It is truly a good tool for voice over artists.

3 Apply Audio Effects With our professional editing application, you can add many more audio effects to the selected region, such as amplify volume, compressor, fade in & fade out, flanger, normalization, phaser, reverb, silence, etc. You can directly find these buttons with concise and simple interface. Audio CD Ripper The all-in-one editor tool provides an Audio CD Ripper for you to rip audio tracks. Using this nifty little application, you can rip digital audio tracks directly from audio CDs into MP3, OGG, WMA and WAV, etc., at the same time creating top quality CD. Enjoy your music everywhere! Audio Converter & Extractor The Free MP3 Editor Platinum software provides an Audio Converter & Extractor, an efficient and simple tool to convert various audio formats to OGG, WAV, WMA, MP3, etc. and extract audio tracks from almost all kinds of video files to save them into MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG format. The user-friendly interface makes the operation easily. YouTube Downloader & Converter Are you eager to download videos you like from YouTube to your local disc? or you tired of watching video off and on on YouTube? Now it's even easier! With our YouTube Downloader & Converter, you can download videos of your choice from YouTube, Facebook, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. Now work, relax and enjoy living with YouTube downloader & converter. Audio CD Burner The Free MP3 Editor Platinum software provides an Audio CD Burner to help you burn audio CD with high speed and quality lossless. Easy and understandable interface of Audio CD Burner makes working with the program simple and convenient. Following detailed step-by-step instructions of the program you will be able to burn audio CDs. Disc Eraser The Free MP3 Editor Platinum software provides a Disc Eraser tool for you to permanently erase data from hard disks, removable media, partitions, files and folders. It is specifically designed to eliminate data that is no longer needed and should not be recovered by anyone else. Ribbon

4 When you first open Free MP3 Editor Platinum, you can see the ribbon, the area that spans the top of the program. To make your work easier and faster, the ribbon brings the most popular commands to the forefront, so you don't have to hunt in various parts of the program for things you do all the time. The ribbon was thoroughly researched and designed from users' experiences so that commands are in the optimal position. After playing around with the Ribbon a little, you'll get used to where things are and will like how easy it makes getting your work done. This lesson will tell you more about the ribbon and how to work with it. The Three Parts of the Ribbon are Tabs, Groups and Commands There are three basic components to the Ribbon. It's good to know what each one is called so that you understand how to use it. Tabs There are seven basic ones across the top. Each represents an activity area. Groups Each tab has several groups that show related items together. Commands

5 A command is a button, a box to enter information, or a menu. Everything on a tab has been carefully selected according to user activities. For example, the Home tab contains all the things you use most often, such as the commands in the File group for open and save a file: New File, Open, Load CD, Save and so on. The Quick Access Toolbar The Quick Access Toolbar is the small area to the upper left of the Ribbon. It contains the things that you use over and over every day: Create New, Open, Save, Undo, Redo and Burn. You can add your favorite commands to it so that they are available no matter which tab you are on. Temporarily Hide the Ribbon The Ribbon makes everything in Free MP3 Editor Platinum nicely centralized and easy to find. Sometimes, however, you don't need to find things. You just want to work on your sound file and you'd like more space to do that. So it's just as easy to hide the Ribbon temporarily as it is to use it.

6 Here's how: Double-click the active tab. The groups disappear, so that you have more room. Whenever you want to see all of the commands again, double-click the active tab to bring back the groups. From Shortcuts to Key Tips (and Key Tip Badges) Shortcuts that start with the CTRL key (for example, CTRL+C for copy, or CTRL+ALT+1 for Heading 1), remain the same as in previous versions of Free MP3 Editor Platinum. But the Ribbon design comes with new shortcuts & this change brings two big advantages over previous versions: Shortcuts for every single button on the Ribbon. Shortcuts that often require fewer keys.

7 The new shortcuts also have a new name: Key Tips. Press ALT to make the Key Tip badges appear for all Ribbon tabs, the Quick Access Toolbar commands and the Free MP3 Editor Platinum Button. Then you can press the Key Tip for the tab you want to display; for example, press H for the Home tab. This makes all the Key Tips for that tab's commands appear. Then you can press the Key Tip for the command you want. Workspace The Free MP3 Editor Platinum provides you an easy to use and simple interface from which you can find what you want quickly. The figure above shows the Free MP3 Editor Platinum workspace with an audio editing window. The elements indicated with the red arrows are explained below: 1. The main toolbar with shortcut icons for commonly used commands. 2. The audio editing window containing an audio file. The audio is visualized with a curve corresponding to the recorded audio (see Time Domain). 3. The quick command bar. You can perform various operations with audio data. 4. A selected section indicated with white curve on a blue background (colors depend on your system settings). The current cursor position is indicated by a blinking line.

8 5. The marked region. 6. The bar indicating the selected region, the viewed region and the cursor position. During processing, the progress is displayed in the status bar. 7. The navigation toolbar for recording, playback and cursor positioning. 8. Time Domain: The normal wave plot shown when making a recording in Free Audio Editor is a time domain representation of the signal. When recording, Free Audio Editor has taken samples of the signal at certain intervals, quantized them, and stored them as series of digitized values. The wave plot is the result of drawing these samples on the screen with the time evolving along the horizontal axis. 9. The output level meters show the current output level during audio playback. Open and Save Audio Files You can open an audio file from the computer and save the edited audio file in several ways.

9 Open an Existing Audio File To open an existing file click "Open" to locate the file you want to open. You can also load audio tracks from inserted audio CD by selecting "Load CD" and elect a track by click on it. You can also load a new recorded audio file to the waveform window by clicking "New Record". Save an Audio File To save an edited audio file with its original name click "Save"; to save the current audio file with a new file or format click "Save" and choose "Save File As..."; to save the select region as a new file click "Save" and choose "Save Selection As..."; The editor will auto-rename the output file if there are already files of that name. Note: When working with audio files, you should not save the file in a compressed format until you have finished all editing because every time you save and reload in a compressed format you lose some quality. Save as a PCM wav file to preserve quality. Input an Audio Track from Audio CD

10 It is possible to digitally import audio data from audio CDs with most CD-ROM readers. To import one audio track: 1. Click "Load CD" & the "Load Audio CD Track" window appears. 2. Choose the device that contains your source audio CD from the CD-ROM Drive drop-down list. 3. Select the track you wish to import from the track list (Use "freecddb" for online CD information searching if needed). 4. Click the button labelled "Load". The imported audio tracks appear as waveform in the Free MP3 Editor Platinum workspace. Record Sounds

11 Our powerful editor can record audio data from a microphone or another sound device and save it directly to WAV, MP3, WMA, OGG, etc. Just open the task window and press new record. That is how easy it is to start recording a podcast, a song or a concert. It is truly a good tool for voice over artists. To record audio sound, there are several ways: Record Music on LP's, Cassettes, Tapes, CD/DVD Player, AM/FM/Satellite Radio, etc. Step 1. To make a digital recording of analogue sound on music cassettes, LP's, or AM/FM/Satellite radio for example, you must connect the video recorder, cassette player or record player to the sound card in your computer. You should be able to hear the sound through your computer's speakers. Step 2. Open Free MP3 Editor Platinum and choose "New Record", select the desired recording quality, click "OK". Step 3. Choose the recording device and activate "Auxiliary" or "Line In" by clicking "Line In". You should see the signal on the LEDs. Change the recording volume so the LEDs show a medium level. Then, click "Record" button. Wait until some music has been recorded. Step 4. Save your recording to disk: Click "Pause" and "Keep" button. Free MP3 Editor Platinum will open recorded music in the waveform window, click "Save File As..." to save the recorded file. Recording from the Internet Radio/Internet-telephony/Web Radio Step 1. Open your favorite internet radio / internet-telephony / web radio. Step 2. Open Free MP3 Editor Platinum and choose "New Record", select the desired recording quality, click "OK". Step 3. Choose the recording device and activate "Stereo Mix" by clicking "Line In". You should see the signal on the LEDs. Change the recording volume so the LEDs show a medium level. Then, click "Record" button. Wait until some music has been recorded. Step 4. Save your recording to disk: Click "Pause" and "Keep" button. Free MP3 Editor Platinum will open recorded music in the waveform window, click "Save File As..." to save the recorded file. Recording from Microphone

12 Step 1. Make sure that your microphone is connected to the mic jack of your soundcard. Microphones are available from most electronics stores. If you have a portable computer, you can use the built-in microphone. However, you will get a better-quality recording if you connect an external microphone. Step 2. Open Free MP3 Editor Platinum and choose "New Record", select the desired recording quality, click "OK". Step 3. Choose the recording device and activate "Microphone" by clicking "Line In" (Note that the name of the line may differ depending on your sound board). You should see the signal on the LEDs. Change the recording volume so the LEDs show a medium level. Then, click "Record" button. Wait until some music has been recorded. Step 4. Save your recording to disk: Click "Pause" and "Keep" button. Free MP3 Editor Platinum will open recorded music in the waveform window, click "Save File As..." to save the recorded file. Recording from Programs like WinAMP/Windows Media Player/Real Player Step 1. Open your programs like WinAMP / Windows Media Player / Real Player and click Play. Step 2. Open Free MP3 Editor Platinum and choose "New Record", select the desired recording quality, click "OK". Step 3. Choose the recording device and activate "Stereo Mix" by clicking "Line In". You should see the signal on the LEDs. Change the recording volume so the LEDs show a medium level. Then, click "Record" button. Wait until some music has been recorded. Step 4. Save your recording to disk: Click "Pause" and "Keep" button. Free MP3 Editor Platinum will open recorded music in the waveform window, click "Save File As..." to save the recorded file.

13 Editing Edit audio files visually and nondestructively! With its streamlined audio editing, you can edit a specific selection of waveform and jump to a specific slide by clicking on the desired slide's thumbnail and title in the left-hand navigation. Selected Region Many of the edit functions below apply to the selected region. To mark the selected region you can either click and hold down on the wave window and drag the mouse. Select To Start (Shift+Home) To select from the beginning position to the current position, press Shift+Home. Select To End (Shift+End) To select from the current position to the end, press Shift+End. Select Specified Time (Ctrl+G) To select the audio with the exact start and end position, press Ctrl+G.

14 Select All (Ctrl+A) To select the whole file press Ctrl+A. Undo To Undo is to restore the file to its state before the previous edit function. This is useful if you want to try an edit or just make a mistake. To undo your last action press Ctrl+Z. Cut (Ctrl+X) To "cut" is to delete the selected region but to keep a copy on the clipboard so it can be "pasted" somewhere else. This is useful when moving parts of the audio around in the file. To cut select the region and then press Ctrl+X. Copy (Ctrl+C) To "copy" is to make a copy of the selected region to the clipboard so you can paste it in another location. This is useful if you want to duplicate a part of the audio and insert (or mix it) in another file. To copy select the region and then press Ctrl+C. Paste (Ctrl+V) Paste can only be used after you have used the "Cut" or "Copy" functions (above) to take a selected region to the clipboard. The paste function replaces the current selected region (or inserts if there is no selection). To replace a selection press Ctrl+V. To insert click on the position and press Ctrl+V. Delete (Del) To delete the selected region press the Delete key. This is similar to the cut function but a copy is not taken to the clipboard. Mix File You specify a file to mix instead of having to copy the audio to the clipboard first.

15 Clipboard The clipboard concept provides a common way of editing documents for all Windows applications. Use "Copy" button to copy the selected region to the Free MP3 Editor Platinum clipboard. Use "Paste" button to paste the region into another location. Use "Cut" to copy the selected region to the clipboard before deleting it from the source audio file. For the purpose of deleting parts of the recording, use one of the following two commands: Delete, which deletes the selected region. Crop, which deletes everything but the selected region.

16 Digital Audio Effects With our professional editing application, you can add many more audio effects to the selected region, such as amplify volume, compressor, fade in & fade out, flanger, normalization, phaser, reverb, silence, etc. You can directly find these buttons with concise and simple interface. Presets Some effects come with a series of options known as "Presets". The idea behind presets is to save you having to fiddle around with the numbers, which is great if the numbers don't mean a lot to you. Instead, you can just browse the preset list and select the option which best describes the effect you are trying to achieve. Amplify To amplify is to increase the loudness or volume of the selected region. To make a part of the recording softer or louder, select it and then use the menu Effects -> Amplify. The volume is entered in percent (100 being no change, 50 being -6dB softer or 200 being +6dB louder). Normalize

17 To normalize is to adjust the volume so that the loudest peak is equal to (or a percentage of) the maximum signal that can be used in digital audio. Usually you normalize files to 100% as the last stage in production to make it the loudest possible without distortion. Echo You can use this function to create single echoes, as well as a number of other effects. Delays of 35 milliseconds (ms) or more will be perceived as discrete echoes, while those falling within the ms range can be used to create a simple chorus or flanging effect. (These effects will not be as effective as the actual chorus or flanging effects, as the delay settings will be fixed and will not change over time). Fade In/Fade Out In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase or decrease in the level of an audio signal. A recorded sound may be gradually reduced to silence at its end (fade-out), or may gradually increase from silence at the beginning (fade-in). Equalizer An equalizer changes the frequency response of a signal so it has different tonal qualities. To assist you with shaping the Equalizer graph in the way you want, there is a preset list that displays the most common sorts of filters used in the Equalizer graph. You can choose any preset filter from the list and then manipulate the filter to achieve the effect you desire. Reverb Reverb is many small reflections of the sound that come after a set time. It usually occurs when someone is speaking in a room, hall etc. More reverb is called wet, no reverb is called dry. Reverse This effect reverses the selection in the same way playing a record or tape backwards would. Envelope The envelope is the change in volume of the select region over time. This can be used to make fine adjustments to the volume over time or even more crude changes like fade in or fade out. Speed Change Normal speed changes the pitch in proportion to the speed. If you want to change the speed but keep the pitch the same use this function.

18 Pitch Change This changes the pitch of the recording without changing the speed (i.e. the converse of the above). Compressor A Compressor limits the volume levels of a sound recording so that it stays within a certain loudness range. It also has a use for recording audio from one medium to another, where the two mediums are not capable of handling the same range of volume levels (e.g. A CD can handle a much greater range than a cassette tape). Flanger Flanging is created by mixing a signal with a slightly delayed copy of itself, where the length of the delay is constantly changing. It is actually one specific type of phasing (Phaser). Chorus The Chorus differs from the Flanger in only a couple of ways. One difference is the amount of delay that is used. The delay times in a Chorus are larger than in a Flanger, usually somewhere between 20 ms. and 30 ms. (the Flanger's delay usually ranges from 1 ms. to 10 ms.) This longer delay doesn't produce the characteristic sweeping sound of the Flanger. The Chorus also differs from the Flanger in that there is generally no feedback used.

19 Play, Move and Select Regions To play or stop playback from the current position press Space bar. You can also use the buttons (Play, Pause & Stop) below the waveform. Move Around the File You can move the position by clicking on the waveform. Select Regions Before you can apply some effects or edit functions you need to select the region to edit or apply the effect to. Seven Ways to Select a Region: 1. Click anywhere of the waveform as a starting point and choose everything before & after the current position to choose the region of the file; 2. Click the left button and drag along with the waveform to the place wanted to be selected; 3. Specify the beginner & end of the session by moving the sliders below the waveform window; 4. Set the start & end time in the "selection" area; 5. Specify a starting point on the waveform and enter the length of time; 6. Click "Select Specified Time" in the "Select" area to input the start, end and length of time to choose specified region; 7. Click "Select All" button in the "Clipboard" & "Select" area to select the entire file.

20 Bookmark Tools Free MP3 Editor Platinum provides bookmark tools to mark the workspace. In order to remember the current position of the file, you can move the cursor position to the place where you want to set a label and click "Set Bookmark" or directly press Ctrl+B to add a marker and name it. In order to remember the current selection of the file, you can select the part of the file where you want to add a region marker and click "Add Region" or directly press Ctrl+R to add a region marker and name it. You can add many more bookmarks and regions as you want. You can edit and keep track of your anchors by opening the bookmark list and region list windows. To show the bookmark list window or the region list window, select "Open Bookmark List" or "Open Region List" from the "Bookmark" menu. What's more, regions which have been made can be saved as separate files.

21 YouTube Downloader & Converter Are you eager to download videos you like from YouTube to your local disc? Or you tired of watching video off and on YouTube? Now it's even easier! With our YouTube Downloader & Converter, you can download videos of your choice from YouTube, Facebook, Google Video, Yahoo Video, and many others and convert them to other video formats. Now work, relax and enjoy living with YouTube downloader & converter. YouTube Downloader Step 1. Click "Get from YouTube" button and browse to add the files you want to process by choosing "Download video from YouTube" mode.

22 Step 2. Copy some available YouTube video page URLs and paste them to the "Input URLs" section. Then, set preferred quality and choose download folder to download. Step 3. Click "Download" to download YouTube videos. YouTube Converter Step 1. After downloading videos, if you want to continue conversion, please click the "Convert the downloaded file(s) now!" button and the downloaded YouTube video will be added to the conversion list. Step 2. You can change the sequence of the listed videos or delete the unwanted videos from the task window. Step 3. Select output folder and specify output format Select output folder and specify output format (there are *.mp3, *.wma, *.wav, *.ogg, *.aac, *.m4a & *.flac output formats). You can use well-defined presets for adjustment.

23 Step 4. Click "Convert" to convert downloaded videos. Audio Converter With Free MP3 Editor Platinum, the possibilities are endless. The powerful editing software provides you an audio converter to convert various audio formats to OGG, WAV, WMA, MP3, etc. with ease and speed. It is easy to use as all properties for both beginners and veterans. Follow the Tutorial Below: Step 1. Click on the "Import from Video" button and browse to add audio files you want to process.

24 Step 2. You can change the sequence of the listed audio files or delete the unwanted audio files from the task window. Step 3. Select output folder and specify output format (there are *.mp3, *.wma, *.wav, *.ogg, *.aac, *.m4a & *.flac output formats). You can use well-defined presets for adjustment.

25 Step 4. Click "Convert" to convert audio files. Audio Extractor It helps with audio extraction from almost all kinds of video files, including AVI, MPEG, MPG, FLV, YouTube, DAT, WMV, MOV, MP4, 3GP, etc. to save them into MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG and many more popular audio formats. The program's intuitive interface and versatility make it a great choice for pulling audio tracks from video recordings. Follow the Tutorial Below: Step 1. Click on the "Import from Video" button and browse to add video files you want to process.

26 Step 2. You can change the sequence of the listed videos or delete the unwanted videos from the task window. Step 3. Select output folder and specify output format (there are *.mp3, *.wma, *.wav, *.ogg, *.aac, *.m4a & *.flac output formats). You can use well-defined presets for adjustment.

27 Step 4. Click "Convert" to extract audio tracks from videos. Audio CD Burner Build-in Audio CD Burner is a wizard-styled application, which allows you to burn audio CDs from audio files of the most common formats. Follow the Tutorial Below: Step 1. Insert a blank CD to the CD drive. Click on the "File" button and choose "Burn CD" to launch the program.

28 Step 2. Choose one of the usable burning drives from the list (the system will select it by default if there is only one). Step 3. Add music files you want to burn and you can remove one or all unwanted music files. It enables you to use CD-Text to edit title & artist text.

29 Step 4. Select the burning mode and the appropriate burning speed. Click "Next" to start burning. Audio CD Ripper Build-in Audio CD ripper with ultrafast rip mode is a wizard-styled application, which allows you to rip audio CD.

30 Follow the Tutorial Below: Step 1. Insert an audio CD to the CD driver. Click "CD Ripper" to launch the program. Step 2. Choose one of the usable burning drives from the list (the system will select it by default if there is only one). Step 3. Choose an output folder to save grabbed audio files and choose audio tracks you want to grab.

31 Step 4. Select a compression type to meet your requirement. Click "Next" to start ripping. Disc Eraser The build-in Disc Eraser with understandable interface is an efficient erasing tool to wipe out unwanted data of CDs and DVDs completely.

32 Follow the Tutorial Below: Step 1. Insert a used CD to the CD drive. Click "Burn CD" to choose "Disc Eraser". Step 2. Choose one of the usable drives from the list to erase disc (the system will select it by default if there is only one). Step 3. Select a suitable erasing type from fast erase and full erase.

33 Step 4. Choose the suitable erasing speed and start erasing. View Mode The brand-new editor tool provides different view mode for you to view audio data. Below are the Modes: Waveform Mode - Use it to choose a Waveform View mode for viewing data. It displays audio data in the familiar sound wave format, where y-axis (vertical) represents amplitude and x-axis (horizontal) represents time. Spectral Mode - Use it to choose a Spectral View mode for viewing data. It displays a waveform by its frequency components, where x-axis (horizontal) is time, and y-axis (vertical) is frequency. This allows you to analyze your audio data to see which frequencies are most prevalent. L & R Channel - Use it to choose an L or R channel for the sound file. You can also edit left and right channel for the sound file at one time.

34 Select Channels Free MP3 Editor Platinum does all processing on the selected region and the selected channels. To change the selected channel or channels (only possible with stereo recordings): 1. Click the channel you wish to activate or deactivate when the pointer changes to R or L. 2. Click "Both Channels" in "Options" area to select both channels.

35 Zooming You can zoom in to get a more detailed view in an editing window. You can zoom horizontally to view a smaller part of the recording. You can also scroll the mouse wheel to zoom in/out. Ways to zoom the waveform:

36 ID3 Editor and WMA Information ID3 is a metadata container most often used in conjunction with the MP3 audio file format. It allows information such as the title, artist, album, track number, and other information about the file to be stored in the file itself. Well ID3 tags are the information in an MP3 file that is displayed in itunes or on your listeners' ipod or MP3 player. ID3 Tag Free MP3 Editor Platinum provides a number of ID3 editing functions to help you organize your music. You can edit your audio track by filling in ID3 Tags information for Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Year and Comment so that you know what it is and who it is by when you start playing the song.

37 WMA Information Free MP3 Editor Platinum also provides a WMA Information function to help you edit your WMA music. You can find it in the "File" area. Select the file name from the computer or give a name for it is allowed. There are 3 big parts in the "WMA Information" window: WMA Info, Maker List and Script List. You can edit the Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Year, Comment, Frequency, Bitrate, Duration, etc. for the WMA music in the "WMA Info" area; You can edit the Number, Time and Name in "Maker List" & "Script List" areas by clicking "Add", "Change" and "Delete" buttons.

38 Frequency Analysis The Frequency Analysis Window contains a graph of the frequencies at the insertion point (yellow arrow cursor) or at the center of a selection. This window "floats", meaning that you can click in the waveform on the main Free MP3 Editor Platinum window to update the analysis while the Frequency Analysis window is on top. The most prominent frequency is interpolated and displayed. You can move the mouse over the graph area to display the frequency and amplitude components of that frequency. The Frequency Analysis window is updated in real time while you play your file. You can select the properties of the Frequency Analysis using the appropriate options: FFT Size - the size of the FFT filter. You can select between the following values: 64, 256, 1024 and View Type - the appearance of the graph. You can select between Analog, Normal, Fire, Glass and Kryptonite depending on your needs and preferences.

39 Text to Speech Free MP3 Editor Platinum provides a Text-to-Speech tool to help you convert any written text into spoken words. You can change speakers by clicking the Speaker menu. So you can listen to your documents on regular stereo, car CD players and PocketPC, or integrate spoken audio into your product presentations. To convert text to speech: Step 1. Click "File" to choose "Text To Speech" and the "Synthesis Speech" tool is activated, in which you can enter the text you wish spoken and specify the voice as needed (Voice engine could be added through adding different voice packages) Step 2. Click "Synthesis Speech" and the text you entered will be loaded in the Wave View. Click "Save - Save File As" and an output window will pop up. You can specify the output folder, output format and output name. Click "Save" and the format settings window is activated. You can use the presets provided or specify the detailed parameters as needed. When all settings is done, click "OK" and wait for a few seconds. The edited file will be output to the output location.

40 Keyboard Shortcuts In the "Keyboard Shortcuts" window, you can find many keyboard shortcuts easily. You can define a new shortcut key for a command which has not been defined in the task window. You can also reset a shortcut key to replace a defined command. There is another function in the task window to display the conflicting keys. Keyboard shortcuts will save your time by helping you quickly operate without moving your hand back and forth between your keyboard and mouse.

41 Resample Free MP3 Editor Platinum can convert an audio file's sample rate or number of channels. This change applies to the whole file (you cannot change just parts of the file). To convert the sample rate of the current file you should select an output format from MP3, WMA, WAV & OGG. Then, use "Resample" to select the new sample rate and channel. Typical sample rates are displayed in the pull down list. If you are not familiar with the parameter setting, you can apply the presets provided.

42 Output Formats In Free MP3 Editor Platinum, all output formats supported have quality settings where you can configure the parameters. This setting window is viewable after you click "Save" button.

43 WAV Settings There are basically 2 ways that the software will create WAVE files. (These settings indicate how the WAVE files are created.) CD Quality This is the most popular setting. If you are creating WAV files so that you can burn them on custom CD compilations, choose this option. It will ensure that any non-cd quality format WAV and MP3 files are converted to CD quality compatible WAV files. CD quality format WAV files are 44,100 Hz, 16 bits, stereo. Specific Settings Choose this if you want the WAV files in a specific format.

44 The last alternative can be used for special situations where you need all your resultant WAV files to be in a specific format. For example, you can use this if you need all your WAV files to be mono. Sample Rate The sample rate is the number of sound points per second. For example, 22,050 Hz means that there will be 22,050 samples of sound data every second. Mode Stereo means that the resultant files will have a left and right channel. Mono means that there is only one channel. Bits per Sample Each sample is stored in a finite number of bits. The more bits you use, the less noise is introduced to the sound. However, the file size will also get bigger as higher bits per sample are used. The default is 16 bit. 8 bit sounds may sound noisy especially for subtle dynamic sounds.

45 MP3 Settings

46 Preset Quality The easiest way of choosing a level of compression for your MP3 files is to use the Preset Quality slider. The Preset Quality slider allows you to choose from several levels of quality and resultant file sizes. As you choose higher quality, the file size goes up as well. On the other hand, lower quality presets will be smaller and easier to send over the Internet Preset Bit rate Mode LAME Phone 16 kbps Mono X Shortwave 24 kbps Mono X AM Radio 32 kbps Mono X FM Radio 96 kbps Stereo X (J-stereo) Voice 64 kbps Mono X Radio 112 kbps Stereo Tape 128 kbps Stereo Hi-Fi 160 kbps Stereo CD 192 kbps Stereo Studio 256 kbps Stereo The default is CD quality (192 kbps, Stereo). * Note that the FM Radio bit rate is higher than the next preset quality, which is Voice. Voice 64 kbps and FM Radio 96 kbps. The reason that there is a discrepancy is because Voice is mono and FM Radio is stereo. If you were to divide the FM Radio bit rate in half, you would have 48 kbps per channel, which is lower than the Voice preset.

47 OGG Settings These options allow you to set the Bit Rate and quality of OGG files. Preset Quality This convenient slider allows you to quickly choose from a list of various configurations. Preset Bitrate Channels Voice Quality 64 kbps Mono FM Quality 96 kbps Mono Tape Quality 128 kbps Mono Hi-Fi Quality 160 kbps Mono CD Quality 192 kbps Mono

48 Studio Quality 256 kbps Mono Best Quality 250 kbps Mono Specify Settings This allows you to set the specific bit rate, channels and either Average or Variable bit rate. Average Bit Rate Choose this to set the average bit rate. Variable Bit Rate Choose this to set the variable bit rate. Change the slider to set the quality from 1% to 100%. Mode Choose mono or stereo in either Average or Variable Bit Rate mode. WMA Settings If you do not see a WMA tab, you may not have WMA support properly installed. WMA is a second generation compressed audio format. The main option on this screen is the quality format, which is chosen by moving the slider. The possible settings are: Preset Bit rate Mode Frequency 1 16 kbps Mono 8,000 Hz 2 32 kbps Stereo 22,050 Hz 3 48 kbps Mono 44,100 Hz 4 64 kbps Stereo 44,100 Hz

49 5 96 kbps Stereo 44,100 Hz kbps Stereo 44,100 Hz (default) General Audio Concepts This is a general introduction to key audio concepts for those who have not worked with sound before. If you class yourself as an "audiophile", or if you have some other past experience learning about sound, you can skip this page. Sound The starting point for everything Free MP3 Editor Platinum does is sound. Sound is vibrating air traveling very fast like a wave. It is created by a vibrating object (e.g. our vocal cords, a guitar string or a speaker) and can be detected by an ear or a microphone. A microphone converts these vibrations into alternating electronic voltage which the computer's sound card can turn into the data used by Free MP3 Editor Platinum. Frequency One way to analyze sound is by looking at the speed it vibrates as it travels through the air. The number of times this vibration happens per second is called the "frequency" of the sound, and is measured in Hertz (Hz) or kilohertz (khz). It is quite often the case that sounds will not consist of a single wave vibrating at a certain frequency through the air, often they will contain multiple waves vibrating at different speeds and different volume levels. The human ear is said to be able to hear sounds ranging from about 50Hz (50 vibrations per second) up to 20,000Hz (20,000 vibrations per second). In reality, most of us only hear to about 15,000Hz, but audio enthusiasts often claim they can hear sounds up to the 20,000Hz mark. The frequencies of a person's voice can range between 300Hz and 3000Hz. Loudness, Volume, Amplitude, Level and Gain The terms loudness, volume, amplitude and level mean roughly the same thing. The more volume a sound is given the more power has been used to create it and the louder it sounds. When adjusting the volume level of a sound (for example when using the Amplify Effect of Free MP3 Editor Platinum), the "Gain" value signifies the amount of increase or decrease in

50 the level. This value can be represented in percent or in a scale called the "decibel" or "db" scale (read on!). The human ear can hear a remarkable broad range of sounds from very low to very high power. The ear does not perceive differences in power in direct proportion to power but in a logarithmic way. To more closely match the way we hear loudness sound engineers use the decibel scale (db). To give you a feel for how this works, reducing the volume level of a sound by 6dB means you are dropping the amplitude by 1/2 or the power by 1/4. Conversely, a 6db increase in the level corresponds to doubling the amplitude. A 20dB drop means 1/10 of the amplitude (or 1/100 of the power). The smallest unit of loudness change a person will notice is around + / - 3dB. Sample Rate The sample rate is the number of times that the amplitude is converted to a number per second. For example, at CD quality recording, your computer stores numbers per second each representing the amplitude at the specific point in time. It can be shown that the maximum possible frequency that can be carried in a sampled sound is exactly half of the sample rate. In reality it is a little less. So for example, a recording made with a sampling rate will carry frequencies up to 20000Hz. A quick guide to sample rates follows Very low quality voice Telephone quality voice Reasonable quality voice e.g. dictation Good quality voice, Reasonable quality music e.g. multimedia CD CD Quality Higher sample rates including 48000, 88200, and even are sometimes used but many sound engineers point out that they do not offer any real audible quality improvement (aside from adding a bit more redundancy to the system). Tip: always record and work with audio in the Sample Rate that you will use in the end, because every time you convert you lose a little quality. For example - if you are making a CD use If it is for telephone, use 8000.

51 Channels Stereo / Mono Multiple "channels" of audio can be recorded at the same time. Most commonly, "Stereo" recording is two channels (left and right) with which our two ears give us a sense of audio direction and space. Recording with just one channel is referred to as "Mono" recording. Tip: If you are recording voice, be sure to record in Mono mode. If you are recording music with multiple instruments then use Stereo mode. 8/16/24/32 Bits You might have seen terms like "8 bits" or "16 bits" when looking at sound files but are not sure what they mean. The number of bits, like in the sample rate, is an indicator of the quality or resolution of the sound inside the file. The more bits the better resolution. Free MP3 Editor Platinum uses 32 bits internally for optimal audio quality. However 16 bits is usually more than adequate for saving. Audio File Compression and Codecs One of the problems with high quality audio is that you can end up with very large-sized audio files. In order to avoid this, you can use what is known as "compression" to reduce the size of your files. The systems used to implement compression in audio files are called "codecs". There are a number of different codecs around, including MPEG Layer-3/MP3, Ogg Vorbis (both good for music) and GSM (good for telephone or voice). Most codecs are designed for a specific function, usually to store either music or voice. You should note that almost all compression codecs are lossy, however - this means you lose audio quality every time you save the file. For this reason it is important that you do not save audio in a compressed form until it is really needed. For example, if you need to save a file when you want to do further work on it, save it in an uncompressed form like Hz, 16 bit PCM format Wave. Audio File Compression must not be confused with Audio Dynamic Range Compression. File Compression is all about reducing file size whereas Dynamic Range Compression is about volume control. Editing and Effects Editing means deleting or inserting audio. Effects are processes that change the audio in some way (e.g. add echo or make it softer).