So, you’ve held an overseas conference call and made an MP3 recording of it, now what?
You could simply upload it to your intranet and share it with participants and employees. If your overseas conference call was relatively short, that may be the way to go.
[dropshadowbox align=”none” effect=”lifted-both” width=”400px” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]Audio recording
If it went on for several hours, you may want to edit the audio recording. After all, few people will be willing to sit through several hours of audio content no matter how compelling the content may be.[/dropshadowbox]
Here’s what you need to know about editing an MP3 recording.
Plan Your Edits
Start by planning your edits. If you used an agenda to conduct your overseas conference call, use it to help you decide which agenda item discussions are worth sharing and which ones need to be held in the strictest confidence.
With the agenda in front of you, listen to the recording of your overseas conference call and jot down the start and stop times of each agenda item in hours, minutes, and seconds.
What you are doing right now is called a “paper edit.” Getting organized on paper will save you a great deal of time and frustration once you being editing the audio.
While you’re at it, decide if you will make one long edited audio file or break it up into individual audio files. Let’s say you conducted a two hour overseas conference call with the following components:
- A motivational component
- An analysis of consumer behaviors in Brazil
- An analysis of consumer behaviors in Canada
- An analysis of consumer behaviors in Switzerland
- Guidelines for using social media
- Questions and answers about the company’s upcoming expansion into South America
In this example, it may make sense to create individual recordings for each topic and allow your team to choose the most relevant ones to their job roles and regional interests. By splitting the contents of your overseas conference call into individual recordings, the information will be much easier to digest and potentially repurpose.
For example, once split up, you could later send a link to your social media guidelines recording to new hires or team members who will be responsible for using social media. Instead of having to listen to a motivational speech and several analyses of consumer behaviors, your team members can quickly hear what you need them to hear.
Determine How to Distribute the Edited Recordings
Next, figure out how you will be distributing the edited recordings of your overseas conference call as this may dictate the final format (and thus, the editing tool you may need to use). Options include:
- Uploading your recordings to your intranet, website, a file sharing service such as Dropbox, a podcasting service, or your corporate repository
- Sending recordings via email
- Burning the recording to CD
Choose an Audio Editing Tool
Finally, you’ve completed the paper edit, decided on creating either a single edited recording or a series of shorter ones, and know exactly how you will distribute the finished recordings.
Now it’s time to start editing, but first, you’ll need an audio editing tool. A number of audio editing tools are readily available, many of which are free. Below are a few recommendations:
- Audacity – Free, open source, and wildly popular, Audacity can import and export many audio formats including MP3, WAV, OGG, and AIFF. It’s loaded with features and is compatible with most operating systems.
- TuneKitten Audio Editor – This Javascript-based app is very basic and designed primarily for cutting audio.
- MP3 Cutter – With minimal features, creating short audio files from larger files is a simple matter of importing your MP3 recording, choosing the start and end positions, and clicking the “save” button.
Editing an overseas conference call can help ensure that the rest of your team actually hears your message. With a little planning and an audio cutter, you can create and distribute short snippets of your overseas conference calls.
