Blog · Editing · 26 October 2026

Clean up a recording: trim, fade and normalize

A rough recording can sound much better with four small edits. You can do all of them in the Audio Editor without installing anything.

1. Trim the ends

Select the silence or noise at the start and end, then cut it away. Keep a fraction of a second of quiet so the sound does not feel chopped.

2. Add short fades

A fade in at the start and a fade out at the end stop the clicks you hear when a sound starts or stops abruptly. A fade of a quarter of a second is usually enough for a clip, and several seconds suits a full song.

3. Remove unwanted parts

Select a cough, a long pause or a mistake and cut it, or use silence to blank it. Zoom in so you cut on a quiet moment. Undo is always there if you cut too much.

4. Normalize the volume

Normalizing raises the whole recording to a safe, loud level without clipping. Do it last, after the cuts and fades. Then export a WAV, which keeps full quality.

Keep the original

Always keep your original file. Edits happen in your browser and are not saved until you export.

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