Cloud-Based AUDIO TOOLS

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--> Do you need narration for an online course or presentation?

--> Need to edit a podcast or interview for your next project?

--> Want to include a personalized message to your students on your website?

If you need to a program to create quick audio files or to edit an audio file that you already have, then don't worry. Luckily, there are plenty free and easy programs available online for your use. 




First, here's some essential facts about AUDIO that you need to know followed by a short list of some sites for creating and editing audio files:

All you need to know about AUDIO:

types of audio files - voice, sound effects, music

ways of creating audio files - microphone, music, computer program
file compression - making large audio files smaller to transmit them over the Internet.

raw audio file - uncompressed audio file used by audio editing programs.

codec - the program that encodes and decodes raw audio files.

streaming audio - playing large audio files while still transmitting them.

TTS technology - "text-to-speech" technology; you type in text to create audio files

*types of audio file formats:

--> lossy - this type of compression permanently eliminates information from a file so that when it is uncompressed, the original information is gone.

--> lossless - this type of compression preserves all original information from a file so that when the file is uncompressed, these parts still remain. (*Lossless audio files are larger than lossy ones but they require less space without losing sound quality.)

--> uncompressed - no compression scheme is applied to the file.

*audio file types: (*MP3, MP4 are most common for presentations and podcasts)

-->MP4/AAC or Advanced Audio Coding (plays on iPods and iPhones; lossy)

-->MP3 (used for music downloads; lossy)

-->WMA (stands for Windows Media Audio; proprietary for Windows; lossy and lossless)
-->AIFF (stands for Audio Interchange File Format; uncompressed; proprietary for Apple)
-->WAV (stands for Waveform Audio; uncompressed)

Here are 4 places to go for CREATING and/or EDITING AUDIO files: 

http://www.audioexpert.com	(+) includes a sound editor, audio editor and file converter (+) converts multiple files to different file formats (i.e. batch processing)(-) need to register to use
www.fromtexttospeech.com	(+) extremely easy to use. Type text into a box; click "create audio file" (+) can select voice gender and speed (-) some voices are not as clear (-) only produces .MP3 format
www.audiopal.com	(+) can record audio via phone, microphone, or from uploading MP3 files. (+) TTS (text-to-speech) in different accents (i.e. US, UK, India, Australian) and different languages (+) allows you to preview files (+) a link to the audio file is sent to your email address. (+) easy to embed file into a website.
www.twistedwave.com	(+) no install needed (+) available for MAC computers only, iPhone, iPods and online (+) free online version allows for editing of files up to 5 minutes. (-) need to register in order to save files