Audio trimming — Settings and quality

Worked example

Trimming has no format menu: you set clip edges or split at the playhead, then export WAV, so the choices are where to cut and how much room to leave.

Dragging a clip edge keeps one continuous clip and is the simplest way to take 0:10 to 0:40 out of a 60-second source. Splitting at the playhead divides the clip into separate pieces, which is better when you want to rearrange sections or take more than one excerpt. Zoom in on the waveform until the boundary is easy to place, then zoom out and listen.

Leave room for the sound to breathe. For speech, 100 to 300 ms of natural pause before the first word and after the last word usually sounds right; cutting tighter than about 50 ms often clips a breath or a consonant. For music, cut at a beat or a quiet gap between phrases, not mid-note.

A frequent mistake is cutting the end at the exact peak of a sound and hearing a click. The waveform jumps from loud to silent in one sample, which the ear reads as a pop. Move the boundary a little into a quieter moment, or add a very short fade.

Export is always WAV at 16 bits, and a 30-second stereo clip is about 5.3 MB at 44.1 kHz. Leave master volume at full unless you want the level changed, listen through once, and only then press Export WAV.

60 s source; select 10–40 s

30 s intended selection

For a smaller delivery file, run the exported WAV through the MP3 or M4A converter afterwards.