Open Source Audio Editing for Sermons

Podcasting is the semi-new buzzword on the web, but there’s one thing you need before you can start podcasting: a recording that people want to listen to. Although you have little to no control over how engaging your pastor’s sermons are, you do have immense control over the way your pastor will sound for posterity. By posterity, I mean any recordings you might put on CDs or on the internet.

Here are a few simple steps to follow if you don’t have the capabilities to professionally edit your sermon audio, yet want to post high-quality, small file size sermon MP3s on your website.

Before editing, you will need an audio file to edit. Obtaining these files can be tricky, and depends on your sound system configuration. At my church, our services are recorded directly to CD, so all I have to do is rip the WAV file to my computer and edit from there. At other churches, services are recorded to a hard disk, whether on a laptop or desktop PC, or on a smaller piece of hardware designed specifically for that purpose.

Sometimes, though rarely, the CDs I use fail to record and I must rely on our cassette backup, then I have to dub the tape on to my hard drive in real time. Unfortunatley, there is a significant hiss when dealing with cassettes (analog) versus CDs (digital). In a later article, I’ll share how to get rid of that cassette hiss by using the program you’re about to fall in love with.

1. Download Audacity, a free, open-source audio editor. It’s easy enough to learn, robust enough for your needs, and, best of all, free.

2. Once installed, select “File->Open” and open your source file. WAVs work faster than MP3s, although you can open either file type. Don’t worry about your output format yet. After you have edited your file, you will be able to export to either WAV or MP3.

3. To edit, think of the waveforms as words in a document. You can click and drag on different parts of the waveform to select it. You can also copy, cut, and paste your selected parts. To zoom in, use the magnifying glass in the top left corner (or press CTRL+1). To zoom out, use the magnifying glass and click your right mouse button (or press CTRL+3). To return to a normal view, press CTRL+2. This is especially useful for deleting long instances of silence or someone that constantly says “Um.”

Use the playback toolbar at the top to play and pause and replay your waveform. By zooming in, you can become highly selective in the bits of audio you can edit. Play around with it until you are comfortable with it. And always remember your good friend CTRL+Z. That undoes what you last did, and works for multiple mistakes.

4. Since we’re dealing with spoken word only and also focusing on preparing it for the web, we want the best quality possible with the smallest file size as well. I recommend using a 40kbps MP3. To change your default settings to this, select “File->Preferences,” then under the tab “File Formats,” and under the heading “MP3 Export Setup, choose “40″ in the drop down menu next to “Bit Rate.”

4a. If you do not see anything beneath “MP3 Export Setup,” you will need to download the LAME MP3 library. Once you have extracted the files to a folder on your computer, return to Audacity, repeat step 4, but click the “Find Library” button under “MP3 Export Setup” and point it to “lame_enc.dll,” which should be wherever you extracted the LAME files to.

5. Finally, choose “File->Export as MP3,” entitle your file, and click “Save.” You should have a good quality, spoken word file that should be about 1 MB per 10 minutes, perfect for residing on your website. (One side note: This file can be converted and burned to a CD, although most converters and burning software refuse to do so because of the low bitrate of the MP3 file. On the other hand, I have found that iTunes converts and burns the files onto CDs just fine).

Next week we’ll upload this MP3 and show you how to allow your members to stream it or download it.