Basic Audio and Video Editing

[Chips]

I've got an MP3 music track and a few videos (AVI and MP4) that I wish to simply chop the beginnings or ends off. Are there any free programs that I can use to do this basic editing?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I've got an MP3 music track and a few videos (AVI and MP4) that I wish to simply chop the beginnings or ends off. Are there any free programs that I can use to do this basic editing?

Yep.

MP3: for nothing more than chopping, you can use mp3directcut. This has the advantage of NOT re-encoding the mp3, so you don't lose any sound quality. The disadvantage is that you can't do much else but cut. You might be able to fade--I haven't looked at it lately.

mpesch3.de - Homepage of mp3DirectCut and 1by1 - free MP3 editor and directory player

MP3: for more advanced editing, including cutting and pretty much anything else, you can use Audacity. It's a great program, but you'd have to re-encode when you are finished with the editing. That's not a big problem---I've never been able to detect the loss in sound quality when you only do a single re-encode. If you did 4 or 5 re-encodes, I'd expect you could detect the loss.

AVI: Machete Lite will do simple cuts on AVIs without re-encoding. It also will work on WMV files. But just those two file types. It is very simple to use.

There are a lot of programs that will do simple cuts on video, but many of them involve a re-encode and you are likely to notice it on video files.

Avidemux is free and I think it can operate on several file types, but it isn't simple for the uninitiated. I think it will NOT re-encode if you know how to operate it properly. I haven't played with it in years.

There may be others.

I'd like to find a simple to use video editor that does not re-encode and that works on many different file types. I haven't had any luck. Avidemux may be the simplest.

 

[Chips]

I've tried the first one for MP3s and there doesn't seem to be any controls for editing, only for playing.

 

[wasnotwas]

I've tried the first one for MP3s and there doesn't seem to be any controls for editing, only for playing.

If you mean mp3 DirectCut, you have to set in and out points then go Edit - cut, copy, paste, or File - save selection etc - see snip

 

[Chips]

I've tried the first one for MP3s and there doesn't seem to be any controls for editing, only for playing.

If you mean mp3 DirectCut, you have to set in and out points then go Edit - cut, copy, paste, or File - save selection etc - see snip

Thanks for the diagram. It seems my problem was that I had the wrong program installed. It looked similar, but only played tracks. All fixed now though. And yep, it worked a treat!