Editing Overview

Selecting Part of a Sound

Almost all commands in GoldWave operate on the currently selected part of a sound. The selected part, or selection, is the highlighted part of the sound graph between two vertical markers (see Main Window figure). The vertical markers are cyan lines located to the left side (start marker) and right side (finish marker) of the view.

GoldWave provides several ways of setting the selection. You can:

• Use the standard click-and-drag method used in most other Windows programs.
• Swipe across the upper third of the waveform to select a range.
• Click the right mouse button to display a menu, then choose Set Start Marker or Set Finish Marker.
• Drag-and-drop one of the cyan selection markers (useful for precise adjustments of the end points).
• Start playing the sound and use Move Start or Move Finish. Click on the time axis to start playback anywhere in the sound. Click on the lower third of the waveform to move the playback marker
• Click-and-drag using the right mouse button, then choose Select from the menu that appears.
• Use Set.
• Use Edit | Channel to select certain channels.
• Use the keyboard. See Accessibility Overview for details.

If you just click the left mouse button without dragging, the start marker is moved. The function of the left mouse button can be set using Window options. If you just click the right mouse button, a context menu appears, which can be used to start playback at any position. If you click-and-drag with the right mouse button, you can play or zoom in on that area without altering the current selection.

Additional notes and techniques:

• To use the old style of selecting part of a sound (in v4 and earlier), enable the setting under the Options | Window command. Note that none of the new selection features work if you enable that setting.
• You cannot place the finish marker before the start marker. The same is true for setting the start marker after the finish marker.
• Mouse selection methods work in both the main waveform area and in the small Overview area.
• The Edit | Selection | Snap to zero-crossing feature helps to minimize pops and clicks between edit points by finding a point where the waveform is close to zero amplitude.
• In most cases, editing and effects are performed only on the selection. Some effects, such as the Resample, and Playback Rate alter the entire sound.

Redrawing the Waveform

You can redraw the waveform with the mouse to remove pops/clicks or other small defects. To do this, you must first zoom in so that individual samples are visible (see Zoom 1:1 or Zoom 10:1). To directly redraw the waveform:

1. Zoom in 1:1 or closer.
2. Place the mouse arrow directly over the waveform. The arrow will change into a target crosshair.
3. Click and hold the left mouse button.
4. Move the mouse to redraw the waveform.
5. Release the mouse button to finish the changes.

Cut & Paste, Mixing, and Crossfading

Cutting and pasting audio in GoldWave works much the same way as cutting and pasting text in a word processor. Mixing and cross-fading involves combining two or more sound together so that they play at the same time.

Cut & Paste

The Edit | Cut command removes sections of audio. The Edit | Paste command inserts sections of audio from the clipboard. Before you can paste, you need to use Edit | Cut or Edit | Copy to place some audio into the clipboard. To join several files together:

1. Open the first song.
2. Open the second song.
3. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
4. Close the second song.
5. Choose End from the Edit | Paste At submenu.
6. Open the third song.
7. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
8. Close the third song.
9. Choose End from the Edit | Paste At submenu.
10. Repeat steps 6 to 9 for each song you want to join.

Use File Merger to join many files together.

Use Split File to divide a large file into smaller section.

Mixing

The Edit | Mix command mixes one sound with another so they both play at the same time. To add vocals to music:

1. Open the sound containing the vocals.
2. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
3. Open the sound containing the music.
4. Choose Mix from the Edit menu.
5. Enter a volume to mix the vocals (0dB = full volume).
6. Adjust the mix time to align the vocals with the music, using the Preview button as needed.
7. Choose OK to process the mix.

When mixing more than a couple of sounds, you should reduce the mixing volume and the destination volume to prevent clipping distortion. The volume of the destination sound can be reduced before mixing by using the Effect | Volume | Change Volume command.

Crossfading

A crossfade occurs when one sound fades out while another sound fades in. Radio stations often use crossfades to fade out the end of one song while fading in the next song so there is no break in the music. GoldWave's Edit | Crossfade command does the same thing by using the clipboard audio. One of the songs must be copied to the clipboard before using the command.

1. Open the first song (the one that will fade out).
2. Open the second song (the one that will fade in).
3. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
4. Close the second song (or activate the first song window).
5. Choose Crossfade from the Edit menu.
6. Set Duration to 5.00 second (or whatever you prefer).
7. Select the End of selection, and Linear fade curves settings.
8. Choose OK to process the mix.

In some cases more control is needed. To do a crossfade manually:

1. Open the first song.
2. Move the start marker to select the last 3 seconds of the song.
3. Choose Fade out from the Effects | Volume sub menu and use a −160dB final volume. Choose OK.
4. Open the second song.
5. Move the finish marker to select the first 3 seconds of the song.
6. Choose Fade in from the Effects | Volume sub menu and use an initial volume of −160dB. Choose OK.
7. Choose Select all from the Edit menu.
8. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.
9. Click on the first song to activate that Sound window.
10. Choose Mix from the Edit menu and use a volume of 0dB.
11. Choose OK to process the mix.

For extra control, use the Shape Volume to create custom fades before mixing.