Making a sound clip with Audacity

Want to submit a quote but don't have an MP3 yet? With Audacity, a free program for Windows, macOS and Linux, you can record a clip, trim it and save it as an MP3 in a few minutes. This guide assumes Audacity 3; in older versions some menus may be named slightly differently.

1. Install Audacity

Download Audacity from its official website, audacityteam.org, and install it. MP3 export is built in; there's nothing extra to install.

2. Get the sound in

There are two ways, depending on where the clip comes from.

You already have the clip as a file

Choose File → Open (or drag the file into the Audacity window). Audio files such as wav or m4a work straight away. To open the sound from a video file, Audacity needs the free FFmpeg library; Audacity tells you where to get it if it's missing.

You record what your computer is playing

Windows: in the toolbar at the top, set Audio Host to Windows WASAPI and pick your speakers or headphones with (loopback) after the name as the recording device.
macOS: macOS can't record its own sound directly. Install a free virtual audio device such as BlackHole, or record with your microphone in a quiet room.
Linux: pick your sound card's monitor as the recording device (via PulseAudio or PipeWire).

Then click the red Record button (or press R), play the clip, and click Stop (or press Space). Record a few extra seconds; you'll trim it next.

Schematic view of Audacity's toolbar (Windows).

3. Trim the clip

Click and drag in the waveform to select the part you want to keep. Press Space to play just the selection.
Zoom in with Ctrl + 1 (⌘ + 1 on a Mac) to cut precisely, and zoom out with Ctrl + 3.
When the selection is right, choose Edit → Remove Special → Trim Audio (Ctrl + T). Everything outside your selection is removed.

Select just the quote and trim away the rest.

Keep it short: just the quote itself, and at most 30 seconds.

4. Optional: clean up the sound

As loud as other clips: select everything (Ctrl + A) and choose Effect → Volume and Compression → Normalize.
No hard click at the start or end: select the first or last split second and choose Effect → Fading → Fade In or Fade Out.
Smaller file: a quote doesn't need to be stereo. Choose Tracks → Mix → Mix Stereo Down to Mono.

5. Export as MP3

Choose File → Export Audio (in older versions: File → Export → Export as MP3).
Pick MP3 Files as the format and give the file a name, for example the quote itself.
A quality of 128 to 192 kbps is plenty. The file can be at most 5 MB; a clip of a few seconds is usually only a few hundred kB.
Click Export. If Audacity asks for metadata (title, artist …), you can leave it empty and click OK.

Schematic view of the export dialog: choose MP3 and a quality of 128 to 192 kbps.

6. Submit your clip

Find the show and open its page. If the clip isn't from a show, use Other sound fragments.
Click + Upload fragment at the bottom.
Type the quote as literally as you can in the description: that's how others find it through search.
Fill in the character, choose your MP3 file and click Upload fragment.

Every clip is reviewed before it appears on the site. Only submit short quotes, no full scenes or music, and nothing hateful or offensive. See also how clips get onto the site.