How to Use an Online Audio Studio: A Beginner’s Guide
Edit, clean up, convert and master audio for free in your browser. A friendly tour of every tool, with easy workflows for podcasts, videos, music and DJ sets.
Read Article
Free Audio Lab: Blog & Guides
Plain-language guides to recording, editing, mixing and mastering audio, written to go with our free audio tools. New here? Start with How to Use an Online Audio Studio.
Start Here
Guides to the tools on this site and how to combine them.
How to Use the Sound Optimizer Tool
Reduce noise, make a voice clearer and raise quiet audio without clipping. A step-by-step guide with starting settings and loudness targets.
Read Article
How to Convert Video to Podcast Audio (MP4 to WAV)
Extract the audio track from MP4, MOV and WebM videos as a WAV file and get it ready for a podcast.
Read Article
Recording & Voice
Cleaner recordings and clearer voices, from the room to the finished file.
How to Remove Background Noise from Audio
Where hum, hiss and rumble come from, what a noise gate does, and how to clean up a voice recording step by step.
Read Article
How to Make Your Voice Sound Professional
Microphone distance, EQ, de-essing and editing: the steps that make a spoken voice clear and pleasant to listen to.
Read Article
What Is Audio Clipping and How to Prevent It
What happens when a recording goes above 0 dBFS, how to set your levels, and how to avoid distortion while recording and mixing.
Read Article
What Is Phase Cancellation? (And How to Fix It)
Why two microphones can make a recording sound thin and hollow, how to check for it and how to fix it.
Read Article
Audio Pitch Explained: How to Change Vocal Tone
How pitch and formants shape a voice, and how to change the pitch of a recording with or without changing its speed.
Read Article
Stereo vs. Mono Audio: What Is the Difference?
How stereo and mono differ, when to record or export each one, and how to convert between them.
Read Article
Mixing & Mastering
Balance, tone and loudness for podcasts, videos and music.
How to Mix Vocals and Background Music
Why music drowns out a voice, what audio ducking is, and the settings that keep speech clear in podcasts and videos.
Read Article
How to Normalize Audio Without Clipping (LUFS Guide)
Make audio louder without distortion: peak vs. LUFS normalization, true peak limits and the right targets for Spotify, YouTube and podcasts.
Read Article
How to Master Audio for Spotify
How Spotify’s loudness normalization works, what LUFS and true peak mean, and how to prepare a track for streaming.
Read Article
Audio Frequencies & 3-Band EQ Guide
What bass, mid and treble really change, with a frequency chart and simple EQ settings for voice and music.
Read Article
How to Calculate Delay and Reverb Times
Use the 60,000 ÷ BPM formula to match delay and reverb times to the tempo of your song.
Read Article
Linear vs. Logarithmic Fades: Which Is Best?
How the shape of a fade changes what you hear, and which curve to choose for fade-ins, fade-outs and crossfades.
Read Article
Audio Basics
The ideas behind formats, sample rates and trained ears.
WAV vs. FLAC vs. MP3: Lossless Audio Formats
The difference between uncompressed, lossless and lossy audio, and which format to use for editing, podcasts and streaming.
Read Article
What Is Sample Rate? 44.1 kHz vs. 48 kHz
What sample rate means, why music uses 44.1 kHz and video uses 48 kHz, and how to fix audio that drifts out of sync.
Read Article
Audio Ear Training: How to Hear Frequencies
A practical routine for learning to recognize frequency ranges by ear, so EQ decisions become faster and more confident.
Read Article
Creative, DJ & Music
Effects, synths, tempo, keys and DJ sets.
How to Make Slowed + Reverb Songs Online (Free)
The best speed, reverb and EQ settings for dreamy slowed edits, the story behind the sound, and how to share your versions without copyright trouble.
Read Article
How to Make 8D Audio Online
What 8D audio really is, why it only works on headphones, and how to create the effect from your own tracks.
Read Article
Sine, Square, Sawtooth: Synthesizer Waveforms Explained
How the four basic waveforms differ in sound, and how synthesizers combine them into patches.
Read Article
How to Find the Key and BPM of a Song
Find the tempo and musical key of any track, and use them to match songs for mixes and mashups.
Read Article
How to Pick Songs Like a DJ
How DJs choose the next track: tempo, harmonic mixing with the Camelot wheel, and managing energy across a set.
Read Article
Hz to Note: How to Find the Pitch of a Voice
How frequencies in hertz map to musical notes, with a chart of common vocal ranges.
Read Article
About Free Audio Lab
Free Audio Lab is built and written by Yunus S., a musician and music producer. The tools run in your browser, so your files are never uploaded to a server, and each guide explains one topic in plain language. More about the site and its author.