To edit audio on your computer, you're going need to need two things — an audio file and an audio editor. Typically if you see a file with a .mp3, .wav, .aiff or .aif extension on your computer, you're looking at an audio file. There are also many programs available that edit audio, but, regardless of what tools you choose, the principles and techniques discussed in this guide should still apply.

To get started:

1. Download an audio editor. You could try Audacity, which is both free and reliable to download. Alternatively, if you think you might want to work with MIDI data later, download a digital audio workstation (or DAW) like GarageBand, Pro Tools, or Reaper.
2. Download the audio file of the track you selected from the library.
3. Finally, open your audio editor and import the track file.

Splitting and Fading

The first techniques we'll be going over are splitting and fading. This allows us to both remove a chunk of audio from the middle of a file and play it back without any ugly clicks. We'll walk through this step-by-step, showing what this looks like in Audacity. If you're not using Audacity, you should still be able to follow along, but you might have to look up how to translate each step to your software.

1. Select the chunk of audio that you want to delete, and split it at the boundaries. In Audacity, you can do this with a keyboard shortcut or by finding the "Clip Boundaries/Split" options in the Edit menu. GarageBand has a similar option called "Split Regions at Playhead."

1. Once you have split a section of audio from your track, try deleting it.

1. If you've deleted a big chunk of audio from the middle of your track, you'll probably hear an ugly digital click at the beginning and end of the remaining audio clips. This can be fixed by using fades. To create a fade in using Audacity, select the audio at the start of the clip and choose the "Fade In" option in the Effect menu.

1. To Create a fade out, select some audio at the end of an audio clip, and click the "Fade Out" option in the Effect menu.

Note: Some software, like GarageBand, creates these fades automatically any time a cut is made. For others, creating fades might involve a few steps that look different from the ones shown here. If you're having trouble removing clicks from your track caused by splitting regions, try looking up how to create fades in your particular software online.

Doubling the Chorus

Now we can apply these techniques in order to manipulate our track in a way that makes musical sense. For instance, you might want to double or repeat your chorus because you want more time to express your lyrics or you just like the way it sounds.

1. Identify your chorus in the track, select, and copy it.

1. Split the audio at the end of the chorus. In Audacity, you can do this by selecting the "Clip Boundaries/Split" option in the Edit menu.

1. Then drag the end of the audio far away so we can make space to paste the copied chorus. To do this in Audacity, you need to select the "Time Shift Tool" (near the record button) to enable dragging.