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.