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 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!)