A Great Testimonial from a customer about NCH Products

I am a performing musician and a guitar instructor.  I discovered NCH Software products quite by accident a number of years ago.  I liked the way the products worked and have now used about 6 different titles.  In both my teaching and performance lives I’ve found many uses for NCH software.  One of my favorite programs is WavePad Sound Editor which I use so much it’s like I can’t function without it.  I have it licensed on 3 computers now.

One of the activities I did in my guitar lessons was to record my student’s performance of some song or piece of music they had learned.  Once they had the piece to “performance quality” we‘d record it for their “history” file.  I also would put out compilation CD’s of several students’ performances and would distribute them to all the students in my studio so they could hear what others were doing and how well they played and so on.

Our recording set up consisted of a drum machine for constant tempos, my student’s guitar (and sometimes voice [Taylor Swift lovers]) and my guitar for support/accompaniment or embellishments.  We would record “live” to a Tascam digital field recorder, so we got what we got.

I would take these recordings to WavePad where I could trim any dead air, manipulate overall levels, and add effects and EQ if needed.  Those were the usual operations.

One episode stands out in my mind for a number of reasons and turned out to be a great demonstration of what you can do with WavePad.  My student, a 13 year old girl and dedicated Taylor Swift fan (as well as a good little guitar player and vocalist) had learned to play and sing one of Taylor’s songs.  When we recorded it, she nailed it but I had too soft a vocal mix so we opted to do it again.  After a second take, which she nailed again, I realized I had overcorrected and now the vocal was too loud.  We were also out of time that day. So I wound up with 2 non usable tracks.  That’s when inspiration struck and I turned to WavePad.

Because we had used a drum backing beat at the same tempo and because my student had nailed her performance both times, I realized I had 2 identical length tracks, one with too little vocal, one with too much.  I went to WavePad and was able to stack the two tracks on top of one another and magically came out with a perfect track!  Because it was really 2 performances, it had that “double  tracked” effect, and it sounded amazing.  Also amazing was that my student had not missed a single syllable in her retake and her guitar playing was flawless so her 2 takes were like carbon copies and they fit together perfectly.  Try doing that sometime!

- Tom B. of Las Vegas, NV

WavePad Audio Editing Tips & Tricks

Below you will find a compilation of some of the audio effects and sound editing basics for the WavePad audio editor that you will want to know and test out for yourself as you delve into the world of audio editing. Another great way for those new to audio editing to get started is by watching the WavePad sound editor intro video tutorials so you can see the audio editor in action.

Split and Cut Audio Files

You can split a file at any point you choose by simply clicking the Split button on the Edit tab. This will create two audio files split at the point you had the cursor. Be careful when you use this function, the action cannot be undone. Additional audio splitting options include splitting at bookmarks, splitting at silences and similar Trim options that delete sections instead of creating new audio files.

Amplify Audio Volume

To make the audio sound louder, instead of simply turning the volume control up you want to amplify the file. You will find Amplify on the Effects tab, which will open a window where you can either adjust the amplification using the slider or by selecting a preset level from the drop-down menu. Selecting 200% will double the volume, 50% will cut the volume in half.

Equalize Audio

Amplifying affects the full spectrum of the audio in a file, but if you want to increase or decrease certain frequencies, for example, boosting all of the lower bass frequencies, then you want to use the Equalizer. The Equalizer is also on the Effects tab and opens a graph of the frequencies going from low to high frequencies as you move left to right. This gives you very finite control of the frequency ranges you want to control. Moving a point up will make the frequency stronger and moving a point down will make it weaker.

Normalize Audio

Normalizing an audio file is similar to amplifying, except that normalizing increases the sound of the loudest peak to the maximum level without causing clipping in digital audio. This is frequently used as the last step before saving a final version of an edited song or recording. To normalize an audio file, you will find Normalize on the Effects tab.

Fade In and Out of Audio

Fading in and out of an audio file will help acclimate the ear to the background noise of a file. To fade in, select a region at the beginning of your file, then select "Fade in" under Fade on the Effects tab. Similarly, you can select "Fade out" with a region at the end of your file selected. A good tip is to fade in quicker than you fade out because the ear expects to hear the initial audio quickly, but abrupt transitions to silence at the end can be jilting.

Remove Background Noise

Since not every audio recording is made in a sound studio environment, you often get unwanted background noise in recordings. To remove background noise you want to take advantage of the Cleanup options on the Effects tab. Specifically, under Noise Reduction try using Audio Spectral Subtraction and then Multi-band noise gating. If the presets don't give the results you want, try using lower levels on these reductions until you find a combination that leaves only audio you want to keep.

Remove Vocals

You will find an option to Reduce Vocals under the Voice button on the Effects tab. This will open a dialog box that allows you to change the pan position and width, the vocal level, and preserve the bass. Generally, the default settings will work the best, but different songs may require different settings to effectively reduce or eliminate the vocal frequencies, so if you don't get the results you want, try adjust these settings until you are satisfied with the result.

Layer Audio & Voiceovers

WavePad won't allow you to record directly over another file; highlighting a file and clicking record will replace the selection. Depending on how much mixing you want to do, you may want to consider moving to MixPad audio mixing software, but for some basic audio mixing within WavePad, you want to use the Paste Mix feature. Copy the audio you want to add to your file to the clipboard, then select all in the file you want to add it to, then select Paste Mix on the Edit tab. This will open a window with options on what to do if your files are not the same length. When you click OK the two pieces of audio will be combined.

Sound Effect Library

Find audio clips and sound effects to add to your audio projects in the NCH Sound Effect Library. Open the Sound Library from the Tools tab. This opens a new window where you can preview and download sound effects and royalty-free music clips.

Audio Effect Plugins

In the Windows version of WavePad, you can add DirectX and VST plugin effects to further expand your audio editing capabilities. Find the options to add and use VST and DirectX plugins on the Effects Tab. VST Plugins will open their own interface where you can adjust the settings, while you will need to go into the settings when selecting a DirectX plugin for the effect to be applied when you click OK. Get started with this list of free VST plugins you can download and use with WavePad.

FFT Sound Analysis

All of the audio editing features outlined above are all easy to put into action, but don't let that fool you into thinking that WavePad doesn't have a lot of power under the hood. One of the more advanced areas you can explore is the powerful audio analysis tools for examining the spectral content of the audio. Learn about the FFT and TFFT audio analysis graphs and what they represent to start to get your feet wet. These tools can be used in many fields, including linguistics and mathematics, in addition to sound engineering.


If you have any other tips, favorite features, or advice of your own, please comment and share them below.

How to Remove Vocals in a Song with WavePad

One of the most popular features of WavePad audio editing software, is the ability to reduce or remove vocals in a song or a piece of audio. You can use the audio with the vocals removed for karaoke, sampling instruments, remixing music tracks, or simply save as an instrumental version of the song.

To remove vocals, once you have your song loaded into WavePad go to the Effects tab and click the Voice button. Select Reduce vocals from the drop-down menu. This will open a dialog box that will allow you to change the pan position and width, the vocal level, and preserve the bass. Generally the default settings will work the best, but different songs may require different settings to effectively reduce or eliminate the vocal frequencies. If the default settings don't do enough you can adjust these settings until you are satisfied with the result.

If you only want to reduce the vocals on the portion of the audio be sure to select the region first. By default if nothing is selected WavePad will apply the effect to the entire file, so you can skip the selection before choosing reduce vocals to edit the entire song.

Download WavePad music editing software today to try removing vocals from a song to make better background music, your own karaoke songs, or use the new version with a recording of your own singing rendition to mix in.