How to Use Audio Editor in PowerDirector
Even out a clip's volume, add echo or a radio filter, or make a karaoke track from a song.
Updated Oct. 29, 2026 · 5 min read
In a hurry? Use the Audio Editor quick guide instead.
PowerDirector's Audio Editor applies sound effects to a clip's audio and writes the change back to the clip on your timeline. Its 11 effects include compression, EQ, echo, reverb, radio, phone, noise reduction, and vocal removal. Use it to tame loud peaks, add echo or room reverb, or take the vocal out of a song for a karaoke track.
- Select a clip on the timeline, click Edit, then Audio > Tools > Audio Editor.
- Click an effect in the list on the left and set its options.
- Click Preview to hear it, then click Apply.
- Click OK to write the change back to the clip.
Steps to Use Audio Editor
Step 1: Open Audio Editor
Select a clip with sound on the timeline and click Edit in the toolbar above the timeline. On the Audio tab, under Tools, click Audio Editor.
Step 2: Pick an Effect
Audio Editor opens in its own window, with the clip's left and right channels drawn as two waveforms. The effects are listed on the left in five groups: Volume, Distortion, Adjustments, Generate, and Special. Click an effect to open its settings.
Step 3: Set the Effect and Preview It
Each effect opens a small window with its own settings. This example uses Echo with the Heavy preset.
Select Applied result and click Preview to hear the change. To compare, select Original audio and preview again. When it sounds right, click Apply.
Step 4: Click OK
The effect window closes, and the waveform shows the change. Click OK at the bottom right of Audio Editor. It closes and writes the new sound back to the clip on your timeline, without creating a separate file.
What Each Audio Editor Effect Does
Every effect follows the steps above, and all but Generate Noise can be previewed before you apply them. Pick one by what the clip needs:
| Effect | What it does | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Dynamic Range Compression | Narrows the gap between loud and soft passages. | Peaks distort, or quiet words get lost. |
| Pitch Shift | Raises or lowers the pitch without changing the length. | A song needs a new key, or a voice should sound a little higher or lower. |
| Vocal Transformer | Turns a voice into a preset character. | You want a quick preset voice, such as Man or Child. |
| Equalizer | Boosts or cuts 10 frequency bands. | A voice or song needs more bass or treble, or a genre preset. |
| Echo | Adds delayed, fading repeats of the sound. | You want each word to repeat after it is spoken. |
| Reverb | Makes the sound play as if in a room. | A voice should sound farther away or in a bigger space. |
| Generate Noise | Adds Normal, Pink, or Brown noise. | You want static or hiss on purpose. |
| Noise Reduction | Lowers steady noise, wind, or clicks. | A recording has light hiss, wind, or clicks. |
| Radio | Filters the sound to mimic a radio. | A voice should sound like a broadcast or an old recording. |
| Phone | Filters the sound to mimic a phone. | A voice should sound like it's on a call or a speakerphone. |
| Vocal Removal | Removes vocals panned to the center of stereo music. | You need an instrumental or karaoke version of a song. |
Volume: Dynamic Range Compression
Output gain raises or lowers the level after processing, to make up for volume the effect takes away. Below it, Limiter, Compressor, and Gate/Expander each have Threshold, Ratio, Attack, and Release sliders.
Use the limiter to stop loud peaks from clipping and the compressor for gentler control of medium levels. The gate/expander changes how soft sounds below its threshold are handled.
Distortion: Pitch Shift and Vocal Transformer
Pitch Shift has a single Semitones slider, from -6 to +6. One semitone moves the pitch one note on a 12-tone scale, and the clip keeps its length. The example below raises the vlogger's voice by 4 semitones. Play the original first, then the shifted version.
Vocal Transformer offers six presets: Man, Woman, Child, Robot, Duck, and Custom.
To change a voice, use AI Voice Changer. It offers human voices you can filter by language, gender, and age, plus character effects like Astronaut. It sits in the same Tools list as Audio Editor. The AI Voice Changer tutorial walks through it.
Adjustments: Equalizer and Echo
Equalizer has 10 band sliders, from below 31 Hz to above 16 kHz, and each moves up or down by as much as 20 dB. Choose a Preset to start from a sound such as Classical, Dance, or Bass. Or drag the bands yourself.
Echo also starts from a Preset: Default, Soft, Heavy, Whispers, Delay, or Custom. Initial delay time sets how long after the original sound the echo starts, up to 2000 ms, and Feedback sets how long the echo lasts. The echo's own Equalizer makes it sound brighter or darker.
Step 3 uses Heavy, which sets a 385 ms delay and 64% feedback. Hear it under The Result below.
Generate: Reverb and Generate Noise
Reverb places the sound in a room. Use Room size for how big the room sounds, Stereo width to spread the sound left and right, and High frequency to brighten the reflections. Raise Dry-Wet mix to push the voice farther away, since it balances the original sound against the reflections.
The example raises Room size and Dry-Wet mix to about 80%. Press play to hear it.
Generate Noise adds static to the clip. Pick a Noise type and click Apply. Normal is common white noise and the loudest, Pink sounds softer, and Brown is lower and quieter still. This window has no Preview button.
Special: Noise Reduction, Radio, and Phone
Noise Reduction asks what you're removing. Choose a Noise type: Stationary for steady noise, Wind, or Declick. Then set Sensitivity, from 0 to 100, for how much it takes out. The example uses Stationary at 90 on a beach recording with steady wave noise.
For noise that keeps changing, use the Enhance tools. On this beach clip, Noise Reduction made the waves between words about 13 dB quieter and left the voices as they were. Steady noise like this is what it handles best. For traffic, crowds, or other changing noise, use Speech Enhancement or AI Audio Denoise on the Enhance tab, next to Tools on the Audio tab. The audio editing tutorial covers the Enhance tools.
Radio and Phone filter a voice so it sounds like it's coming through a speaker. Each has two types: AM Radio or Old-Time Radio, and On The Phone or On a Speaker Phone. The examples use Old-Time Radio and On The Phone.
Special: Vocal Removal
Vocal Removal, the last effect under Special, makes an instrumental or karaoke version of a song. It removes vocals panned to the center of stereo music, so check that the bottom left of Audio Editor reads Stereo first. Its window has no settings: preview it, then click Apply.
In the example song, the backing track plays on and the voice is gone.
The Result
After you click OK, the clip on the timeline plays with its new sound. Here is the street vlog with the Heavy echo from Step 3.
We tested these steps in PowerDirector 365 version 25.0.10 on Windows.
Don't have PowerDirector yet? Even out a clip's volume, add echo or a phone filter, or make a karaoke version of a song, right on the timeline.
Download PowerDirector Free →FAQ About Audio Editor
No. When you click OK, the change is written back to the clip on your timeline. To get a file with the new sound, export the project.
It removes vocals that are panned to the center of a stereo mix, as its own description says. Before you start, check that the bottom left of Audio Editor reads Stereo.
Yes. Select a video clip with sound on the timeline, and Audio Editor edits its audio. Every example in this article is a video clip.
