Basic audio editing – Review Audacity

Audacity is an open source audio editor that is available for several platforms (including Windows, Mac, and Linux/Unix). It is one of the most popular free audio editors in use today mainly due to its excellent set of tools.

As well being compatible with MP3, WAV, AIFF, and OGG file formats you can use Audacity to record live audio, and convert analog audio such as tapes.

What’s Audacity for?

If you’ve got a collection of digital audio files (MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, etc.), then there’s a good chance that you’ll want to edit some of them. An audio editor can be used to cut, copy, and paste sections of audio to enable you to manipulate your audio file anyway you like.

Audacity has that big red Record button, and the recording process is the same if you just want to use it like your other sound recorder. Load it up, plug in, hit Record, and immediately get stage fright. But after that, Audacity lets you do so much more. If you want to, say, layer guitar tracks for a harmonized melody, you can just record another track.

What’s Audacity not for?

I wouldn’t use Audacity for using loops or multi-tracking if I had a choice. One big reason why is because the different tracks in the work pane are not truly synced together. Each time you overdub a previous track with another recording, the track you record will be slightly out of time and behind the preexisting track. There are no indicators of record levels, track levels or final mix levels.

This is one of the most requested feature enhancements, so there’s some hope that this will be added in a future release, but for now, it will take some extra vigilance to ensure proper level strength and to avoid distortion.

When you’re producing audio professionally (or trying to make people think you do), you’re expected to use a DAW (digital audio workstation), like Reaper, Pro Tools or Cubase

In Conclusion

Although it is not the end-all be-all of audio editors, it has a simple tool set that works well, and many people decide to stay with it because it works for them. Audacity is a feature packed piece of software and should allow for some fancy audio editing for those so inclined. Overall this appears to be an outstanding piece of freeware.

In photojournalism, is editing pictures ever OK?

With technology and digital media evolving at an incredible rate, it is not surprising that journalistic ethics have struggled to keep pace. How can we believe anything we see anymore? 

I chose to focus on the ethical dilemmas of photo editing involving  Photoshop and other similar technology and how this technology can be a misrepresentation of reality can, however, give you a good idea of why people edit photographs.

While print journalism can trace its roots almost to the origins of written language itself, newspaper and magazine photojournalism have yet to celebrate their one hundred and fiftieth anniversary.

(How a McDonald’s burger looks in reality compared to how the burgers are portrayed on the menu. Photo: photoeditingethics)

All of you who read this post already know that computers are wondrous machines. When it comes to photography it seems even more magical. I can redecorate my whole house, loose ten pounds or even ten years, and leap tall building at a single bound all while sitting at my Mac. 

However, the ethics of editing images in the field of entertainment are also grey in some areas. Some of the sensationalist press have taken to extremes the manipulation of images of celebrities and their environment. So called ‘airbrushing’ or ‘photo-shopping’ to change body shape and promote youthfulness and vitality is extensive.

On the other hand, an user does not even have to be intentionally malicious to alter an image in an unethical manner. Unfortunately, many users are unaware of the issues or the effects of their actions. Journalists have grappled with the credibility problems created by altered images since the early days of photography.

I think the best way to avoid an ethics violation is to uphold truth in photojournalism. If you want to manipulate image colors or a subject’s look, make sure the caption indicates that the image is a “photo illustration” or “artistic interpretation.”

Taking a photojournalism ethics class is another excellent way to avoid breaching ethics. If you ever have a question regarding a photo you want to use, bring it to the attention of your editor, supervisor or boss.

References:

Becka Cremer ( 2009), Photo ethics – a blurry line, Available at: http://www.walsworthyearbooks.com/idea-file/3690/photo-ethics-a-blurry-line/

Daniel R. Bersak ( 2006), Ethics in Photojournalism: Past, Present, and Future, Available at:  http://web.mit.edu/drb/Public/PhotoThesis/

Mark M. Hancock ( 2009), Ethics in the age of digital manipulation, Global Journalist, Available at: http://www.globaljournalist.org/stories/2009/07/01/ethics-in-the-age-of-digital-manipulation/