Chrome Can: Audio Editing and Creation

Chromebooks are a great computer to have if you want to create audio files.  There are several applications available for owners of Chromebooks.  My favorite is Soundtrap as it is the most comprehensive web-based application for audio mixing. It is also as stated on their website, “the world’s first web-based, cross-platform, collaborative music recording studio. ”  Need to make a podcast? No problem! Need to loop mix? No problem!  Maybe you want to create a beat using their pattern beat maker or maybe you just want to play the synth.  Musicians can also upload their own music.  Soundtrap is an amazing tool for music making but what makes Soundtrap even better is that music can now be made collaboratively with musicians from all over the globe.  It is easy to add a friend to a project and begin creating a masterpiece together!  Soundtrap has various plans including a free plan.  The free plan enables you to create 5 projects with up to 890 loops and 210 instruments and sounds.  They also offer paid plans. These include Pro, Premium, and Supreme plans have various monthly costs but allow you to do more. These plans when charged yearly run $3.99, $7.99 and $11.99 per month.

To check out Soundtrap visit their website.

https://www.soundtrap.com/

Another great tool for creating audio projects on a Chromebook is a web application called TwistedWave. While not as robust as Soundtrap it is possible to record audio and edit it using TwistedWave.   According to their website, “TwistedWave is a browser-based audio editor. You only need a web browser to access it, and you can use it to record or edit any audio file.”

As with other online audio editors all the audio you record is stored and processed on the server, so you don’t need to download and install anything.  You also don’t have to save your work when you are done as this happens automatically. Since TwistedWave is web-based when you open TwistedWave somewhere else, all your audio files, with the complete undo history, are still available.

A free account with TwistedWave allows you to edit mono files up to 5 minutes in length.  They also offer paid subscriptions as well.

You can get TwistedWave can be added to your Chromebook from the Chrome Web Store or by going to their website at https://twistedwave.com/online.

Sometimes, a full-blown audio editor is too much.  Sometimes you want to just record some quick audio.  The app I like the most for this is also available at the Chrome Webstore.  According to the creators of the applications, “Cloud Audio Recorder is a fun, simple and easy to use audio & voice recorder. This audio recorder is a free recorder that can capture any sound made by your PC, or those that come via a microphone.”  The recorded sound can then be saved in wav and mp3 formats.  What is really cool is the ability for the recorded audio to be saved directly to a Google Drive account.  This makes using this tool great in schools that already use Google Suite for Education!

So as you can hopefully tell by now the Chromebook is a capable device when you want to create and edit audio files.

Thanks for reading

Dr. Shannon H. Doak