There isn’t much to talk about in topic of sound editing ( <- that last statement is meant to show you how ignorant I am… ) except a few things. Let’s go over them quickly…

Audacity

That’s what I used to do the editing. It’s a pretty good piece of software which supports unlimited number of tracks. Also, the interface is pretty easy to understand. It took be about 5 minutes to get up to speed and start editing the audio. It also has a pretty good list of effects to apply to the audio.. which is nice. However, because the quality of the recorded audio wasn’t very good, I avoided most of them. However, I did play around with it and it has some great potential.

Do not clip the recorded audio

That’s what I did. Since the recording was done by your favorite rookie(that’s me!) in sound editing, it had it’s highs and lows. Meaning, in some places the volume was very high, in others very low. So, I had to normalize it. The way I did it was to amplify the audio signal. In which on more than one occasion, I clipped the audio. Meaning… um.. I don’t know the jargon to describe it… so I’m not gonna…

So, by doing it, I further reduced the quality of the sound! The lesson is, DON’T DO IT AGAIN!

Keep the dialogues for each person separated

Well, I actually did this. However, it was so useful that I don’t want to forget it. So, I’m going to write it down here: Keep the dialogues for each person separated.

The bell rings again!

And it rings again afterwards! What does it mean? All this bell ringing? Ah well, the period has changed… Ah! Do you hear the long bell? It’s recess time! Who told you it’s recess? The bell. It speaks! It’s got its own language!

So does every sound editing project has it’s own language. For example, a doorbell rings. When it rings you know that someone has come. If the doorbell rings as background music, you wouldn’t think suddenly that the volcano has erupted. Nor would you think that the aliens of the bell planet has contacted us. You’ll think that someone has come in the skit. So, understand that sound is it’s own language and use it intelligently.

If you are doing something repeatedly in the skit, use the same sounds for these things every time, this way, the audience will learn the language of your skit as well and when they hear the same sound again, they will know what is going on.

The continual rhythm

The lesson is not about sound editing, rather of psychology. It is about the mind of the audience. If you use music in the skit and the music stops, the audience thinks that the skit is over before it is actually over. So, don’t let it stop. Let it play continuously.

So, those are the general lessons that I learned which can be used again. Other stuff was plainly incidental and related to the software that I used.