How to trim MP3s front and back

[Laverne]

Hi -- I am a complete newbie with Audacity. Can someone tell me how to trim a number of seconds off the front and end of MP3s? I'd appreciate it.

Thank you,
Laverne

[kozikowski]

Click on the end of the beginning piece and drag toward the beginning. Press delete and everything you have selected will vanish. Then click on the beginning of the end piece you want to trash and drag toward the end. Press delete and that clip will vanish.

Use the magnifier tool to go really far into the performance and you can select very accurately where your edit points are. Also, Edit > Undo is your friend.

Before you do any work on your performance, Export As WAV to get a good, high quality, stand-alone sound file. That way, if you terminally mess something up or your machine crashes, you still have the original show. Audacity Projects are notorious for editing a show right into the toilet.

We compulsives also copy that protection WAV file to a thumb drive or external hard drive.

Koz

[Laverne]

Hi Koz,
Thank you so much for leading me by the hand. I haven't tried the "trim" yet but appreciate your advice about not losing the original. I am one of those compulsives, too.

From the little I've looked at Audacity, I think it is a great program. Why didn't I download it before this!!

Laverne

[Laverne]

I did try the "trim" and it was O So Easy using your instructions. Again, thank you.

One problem: I started with an MP3 file and Saved as MP3 file. No problem there. However, the original is a radio broadcast and my original file was recorded at 32 Kbps. Audacity gave me 128 Kbps file. I don't see where to change this quality parameter. I would like the 32 Kbps because of the smaller size. Where is the setting for this?

Laverne

[Laverne]

I posted too soon. I did find out how to use Audacity to get 32 Kbps on the resulting MP3 instead of 128 Kbps.

It is done via Edit > Preferences > tab File Formats > Bit Rate.

Thanks again.
Laverne