MyScoreStore.com

Not everybody can gain a good impression of the sound of a piece of music simply by reading a preview score. An audio clip can help. Ideally a clip would be a (live) recording using real instruments. Alternatively you can use mp3s generated by your music-notation software.

MyScoreStore maintains a 4Mb file-size limit for the audio clip you can include with every upload. You can reduce the file size either by lowering the bitrate (128 kbit/s offers sufficient audio quality) or by recording only a portion of the score. MyScoreStore recommends two (free) software packages that can help you create top-notch audio clips: WavePad Sound Editor and Audacity.

NCH WavePad Sound Editor

WavePad is a full-featured professional audio editor for Windows or Mac. It enables you to make and edit music, voice and other audio recordings. You can cut, copy, and paste parts of audio files and, if required, add effects like echo, amplification and apply noise reduction. WavePad works as a wav or mp3 editor but it also supports a number of other file formats including vox, gsm, real audio, au, aif, flac, ogg and more. WavePad is easy and intuitive to use.

NCH offers a free version that contains all the basic editing features you will need for creating audio clips for MyScoreStore. The WavePad Master's Edition has additional effects and features (for example, advanced noise reduction and spectrum-analysis tools) and is a comprehensive audio editing software application for serious sound engineers.

Visit NCH's website to learn more or to download the demo or Master Edition.

Audacity

Audacity is free, open-source software for recording and editing audio and is distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

With Audacity you can record live audio and digitize recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records, or minidiscs. Audacity supports most common file formats, for example, wav, mp2, mp3, aiff, au, and ogg.

Audacity enables you to change the pitch without altering the tempo (or vice-versa), remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises, alter frequencies with equalization, and apply FFT-filter and bass-boost effects. You can adjust volumes with a compressor, amplifier, and normalisation. Other built-in features include echo, phaser, wahwah, reverse, spectrogram mode for visualizing frequencies, and a plot spectrum command for detailed frequency analysis. More features can be added by using (free) plug-ins from various resources.

Visit the Audacity website to learn more and to download the latest version.