Once the basic sound effects have been acquired, they often need to be edited to suit the particular production. For example, some effects may be too long and need to be shortened, while others may need to be processed to have different tonal qualities than the original. Computer-based digital audio editing software and sound cards provide a set of extremely powerful tools for the audio designer. Commonly available digital audio editing tools are only now becoming mainstream, and are still not being used to their full potential in many settings.
Most sound cards have audio inputs, and can sample sound at CD-quality or better.
Once the sounds are sampled, they are usually saved on the computer's hard disk. The most common format for saving digital audio on computers is the Microsoft .WAV format. Most sound cards come with simple software for editing audio files. Third-party companies such as Sonic Foundry, Inc. produce comprehensive packages that provide many more features than the software shipped with cards. Packages such as Sound Forge provide features such as equalization, fading, panning, reversing, slowing down or speeding up, pitch changing, delay, reverb, flanging, etc.