Third-Party Editing Tools
As mentioned earlier, I use an excellent sound-editing package called WavePad from NCH Swift Sound (see Figure 2). WavePad provides a wide range of options, one of which is opening an existing audio file. If you like, you can use the captureFile.wav file that you recorded with the program discussed earlier.
![Figure 2](/content/images/art_morris_javasoundsteps/elementLinks/thfig02.jpg)
Figure 2 WavePad from NCH Swift Sound.
I want to use WavePad to slim the bulkiness of raw sound recordings. This is one problem that WavePad is designed to solve easily. You can take your original sound-recording file, open it in WavePad, and save it in MPEG3 format. This technique dramatically reduces the size of the recording. In my captureFile.wav example, a very brief five-second voice recording went from a bulky 455KB to a positively minute 83.7KB, a massive savings of about 82%.
WavePad also provides facilities for editing out pauses and extraneous noise. The package can be downloaded for free; if you like it, you can purchase a more sophisticated companion product. (Before you ask: I’m not on commission!)