# Very basic audio editing on a Mac

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 22, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667 "2005-04-22T20:33:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ender\_Will](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ender\_Will](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ender_Will)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667/1 "2005-04-22T20:33:26Z")

</div>

A friend of mine has a show on the local college radio station and has invited me to come guest DJ, including making my own playlist. However, a couple of the songs have language which isn’t broadcast-appropriate and I’d like to do something a little better than dropping the volume at the appropriate time. Ideally, I could layer some other sound over it, but I’d settle for cutting out a quarter of a second since at least that way I don’t have to worry about precisely timing things on-air.

I’m running OSX. Can any of the included software do this? I was hoping GarageBand would work, but it doesn’t seem that I can import songs from iTunes to GB, so that’s out.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667/2 "2005-04-22T21:29:37Z")

</div>

What you want is [Audacity](http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). It’s a free audio editor available on many platforms.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667/3 "2005-04-22T21:30:25Z")

</div>

Quicktime, Pro version. $30, I think.

SoundStudio – free demo, I think.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wheelie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b4bc9f/32.png) [@wheelie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wheelie)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667/4 "2005-04-22T22:18:44Z")

</div>

Audacity works well for me too.  
I think iMovie can be used as an audio editor.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2005, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/very-basic-audio-editing-on-a-mac/300667/5 "2005-04-22T23:53:55Z")

</div>

I’ve used iMovie as a quick-and-dirty audio editor. Import sound file, snip and edit as desired, export to Quicktime as WAV/MP3/whatever. No need for Quicktime Pro, IIRC.

Did a couple’a ringtones this way just last night, actually.