Audacity is a free, open-source sound editor with a range of powerful features. When using Audacity, you can improve the quality of sounds that you record or edit by taking a few simple steps. Since sound quality is partly a matter of perception, you may need to do a little experimenting to get the best sound, but there are some general rules that apply to almost everyone.
Instructions
1. Realize that digital audio is characterized by its sampling rate (how often the device takes a "sound measurement") and its sample format (how many bits the device uses to represent the particular sample). Generally, higher sampling rates and bit depths do a better job of representing sound, but they also require more disk space for storage.
2. Use Audacity's "Quality" tab in the "Preferences" dialog box (located in the "Edit" menu) to adjust the sound quality. Choose the highest available sample rates and sample formats that also keep the sound file sizes within acceptable limits.
3. Avoid clipping of your sounds. Whether you record a sound or edit an existing sound, make sure that the waveform stays within the sound limits, or Audacity will clip it, resulting in distortion. You can use the microphone "Input Volume" slider in the main Audacity window to scale sounds that you record.
4. Choose an appropriate compression scheme (or lack thereof) when saving your sounds. If disk space is at a premium, you may want to use a compression format such as MP3. If you are a true audiophile, however, you can choose to save the sound using an uncompressed format such as WAV.
5. Maintain the quality levels of sounds that you record or import. When editing or recording a sound, if you reduce the sampling rate or format, for example, then you'll lose information and the sound will have lower quality. Also, if you try to increase the sample rate or format, you just increase the file size without adding any new information.
6. Adjust the frequency distribution of the sound using the "Equalization" dialog box, located in the "Effects" menu. It may take you some experimenting to find the type of sound that you like the best.
7. Experiment with the other features and effects of Audacity to optimize the sounds to fit your preferences. Make sure you have an unaltered copy of your sound file saved, then just try as many different effects and options as you can.
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