# Suggestion on an easy to use audio editor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 3, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983 "2011-12-03T21:48:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983/21 "2011-12-05T00:41:02Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > I love Audacity for the simple projects, such as mentioned in the OP, but I have tried to download the LAME encoder of wonder, and I’ll be hanged if I even know if it’s on my computer, let alone being able to make it function. I have allegedly downloaded it at least twice, and did whatever I could find to do, but, in the end, I have had to use, uh, well, I forget the name right now, but it was free from [Download.com](http://Download.com), and has a lightning bolt for its icon, to convert to mp3. > > hh The LAME encoder doesn’t need any installation and doesn’t have a program shortcut of its own. To get it to work in Audacity, you just need to download it, save it to a folder on your hard drive (possibly extracting/unpacking it from a zip file archive or similar in the process), then open Audacity and tell it the location of the folder where you put LAME. If this didn’t work for you, maybe you omitted the extraction from the compressed archive - and you’re pointing Audacity at the zip file? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983/22 "2011-12-05T01:48:58Z")
I downloaded Audacity. It seems good enough for the very amateurish stuff I’m doing. Fade in and out is just a highlight and click, and I can delete with a button. Thanks, I think I’m going to stick with this one ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983/23 "2011-12-05T22:21:28Z")
LAME can, at last check, be a little tricky to find, for some kind of copyright thing, but +2 to the above – really, you just install the .exe or .dll file to whatever directory and then you can use it with whatever program you want. It’s really the standard for mp3 encoding, at last check. If you don’t want to deal with that, I use FooBar for all my converting – I believe (but am not sure) that LAME is included in its installation package. I just like the ease of use for converting lots and lots of files, so since you can always export as WAV from Audacity, it’ll just take a few seconds to put that into mp3 if you want to, even though it’s an extra step – maybe that’ll be easier for you. Glad you like the program – I use Adacity for recording anything quick from blurbs off the radio or movies, to little extracting exercpts from solos I like out of the whole tune to just a little recording scratch pad. Way easier than firing up CuBase SX (old version, I know, but it does the trick the few times I want to mix something). ---
**Author:** ![ExcitedIdiot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ea5d25/32.png) [@ExcitedIdiot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExcitedIdiot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983/24 "2011-12-06T18:48:39Z")
There’s a link to LAME on the Audacity download page, along with detailed install instructions. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-on-an-easy-to-use-audio-editor/604983.md?page=1)