To complete the audio editing final artifact I chose to use Audacity. I chose to use Audacity because it is easy to use and there are many tutorials to help you learn how to use the tool efficiently. Many of my classmates also recommended this tool to me because this is the first time I have ever used an audio converter and they believe that Audacity is one of the simplest audio editors available. I was also pleased to find that Audacity has won many awards including SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards 2009 from 2007 to 2009, and PC Magazine's “Hall of Fame” of Best Free Software.

                To begin my project, I first wrote a script to record and use in my artifact. I opened Audacity and recorded my script by using Audacity’s recording feature. I watched a tutorial that recommended that I make my voice recorded audio as loud as possible so it can be heard above the background music, so I selected all of the voice recorded audio and used the amplify effect to make it louder.  After I finished recording and editing the recorded audio, I selected three songs that would go along with the script that I was going to use. The music files I was using were from iTunes, so I needed to convert the files from the iTunes format to an mp3 format so they could be imported to Audacity. This was the hardest part because I had to convert the files on my home computer using an audio file converter and then load them onto my school computer with a flash drive. It would have been much easier if Audacity had an audio converter built into it.

                After saving the mp3 files to my laptop, I imported the audio files onto Audacity.  I cut each of the songs down to thirty seconds or less so I was not infringing on copyrights. I did this by selecting the parts of the song I did not want and deleting those selections. Then I cut and pasted each of the pieces of music together to make one song.  I used the fade in effects every time a new song clip began and the fade out effects every time a song clip ended. This made the music flow together nicely.

                After I had all of the voice audio and music audio lined up, I worked to balance the two recordings. I selected the entire music strip and lowered the volume by using the amplify effect. I set the music portion to be amplified to -3.5 and this lowered the volume. I also changed the gain of the music audio to -18 dB and the gain of the voice audio to +3 dB. This made what I was saying louder than the music making it much easier to understand what I was saying.

                The biggest problem I had with Audacity was that it couldn’t read music files from iTunes. With the help of Google and a few tutorials, I was able to easily convert the files so Audacity could read them. Other than that small problem, I had few issues with the tool. I would definitely use this tool again. It is a very useful tool and easy to use. I am pleased with my finished project.  I look forward to using Audacity in the future.