Without going into the merits of commercial applications to manipulate audio and video files on the computer, in this blog we have seen several free programs, even professional level, to carry out a wide range of modification and improvement operations. The Filelab.com software house has released two separate web applications : a video editor and an audio editor, very easy to use and also very powerful and full of options and special effects.
The peculiarity of these applications is that they work directly via a web browser .
Therefore, they are not programs to be installed and started from Windows but normal websites.
Their operation is linked to a small Filelab plugin that must be installed to run the Audio editor and video editor web apps.
UPDATE: As FileLab no longer exists, you need to find alternatives and there are 10 web applications to edit videos with remixes and special effects
In other articles we have also seen the best free video editor programs and programs to mix photos and create video slideshows.
The Audio Editor
Usually programs to add effects to audio tracks, music and mp3 files are limited in their functions or rather complex.
In another article, the best free audio editor programs to edit music and recordings are listed, among which, the number one, is always the open source software Audacity.
For quick changes, Filelab's web application could be really useful, allowing you to add, with two clicks, different types of special effects and audio filters to tracks and mp3 files .
After installing the plugin, once the upload is complete, you can immediately upload the file to be edited using the Open button.
The audio track is broken down with sound waves allowing you to precisely select a piece to edit and cut the track.
The audio effects are all listed on the left side and, to apply them, just click on them.
The effect is applied to the whole track or only to a previously selected piece.
Effects with a small arrow can be configured with different options.
They are:
- Amplify to turn up the volume;
- Fade in / Fade Out to lower the volume only in certain points;
- Normalize to set the same volume level;
- Limiter is a compressor to lower the highest wave peaks;
Then there are the Eco, the Chorus effect, the Reverberation, the change of the tone of the voice, the modification of the tempo, the equalizer, the reduction of the noise and then also the possibility to make an automatic correction and to invert the listening by hearing the audio track in reverse.
Once one of the effects has been added, you can save the new audio file in Mp3, Wav, Flac format by pressing the button at the top right.
To save the edited track on your computer, registration to the service via Facebook, Google or Yahoo account is required.
Video Editor
The evolution of programs and web applications have led video editing to no longer be an exclusive job for those with technical skills but a game for everyone.
The application is a lot of fun and looks like a Picnik or Instagram for videos: at the bottom there is the timeline where you can add different movies and video files from your computer.
At the top are the three categories of effects: Transitions, video effects and titles.
Transitions can be applied when moving from one movie to another.
The video effects are, for example, the rotation, the addition of a coloring, the correction of the contrast, the shading of the image, the brightness and many others.
The titles instead are nice backgrounds and adhesive writings to be applied over the videos.
You can add two effects simultaneously and any number of effects one after the other.
To add two effects simultaneously, you need to drag both from the effects tab on the bottom control panel.
For each effect, you can specify which part of the video it is applied to by dragging the effect bar.
The bottom panel allows you to change the length of the video and combine the various parts of the clip.
You can preview the video at any time.
You can also add an overlay to the creation of the video, that is, another video overlay or an image.
Once the video mix has been created, click on the button at the top right, log in via a Facebook or Yahoo account, choose which format you want to save the video in, enter a name for the video and save it on the PC.
Filelab's web applications are free and work very well and, despite being via browser, they integrate with the computer without having to wait for downloads and uploads since all the changes take place locally and nothing is uploaded online.
