Using the envelope tool an example Back to the main page Back to the Tutorial Page
Tutorial III.Common Editing Tasks Part 3 Cutting up long Tracks Part 3
Long Recordings You have: You want to split it up in to parts that you wish to be separate audio tracks on a CD. You can cut it up, so all the parts can be selected easily for export.

a large audio file

(a mix, a live recording, loads of voice overs recorded at once,.) Splitting tracks for CD burning
Important: The selection format for the track that contains the audio clip to be split has to be : cdda min:sec:frames 75fps (from ruler) Also, "Set SnapTo Mode" to "On (for ruler based formats)" The result is that all the tracks you split away will lie within the grid that not only CD players can access, but that CD burning programs can actually burn without pauses. That grid consists of 1/75th of a second, and beginnings and ends of any tracks on an audio CD cannot lie outside that grid.

Chop By The Numbers:

The goal is to split the long audio track in to several smaller tracks, so that for each track we want to have on the audio CD, there is one track in Audacity, which is easy to export. 1. Check and make sure that the right ruler format and SnapTo On is selected(see above) for
track you're working on. 2. Place the cursor where you'd like the current track to end and the new one to start. 3. Go to the Edit menu and pick Select Cursor To End. 4. Go to the Edit menu and pick Split. 5. Repeat steps 1 to 4 as necessary. You can also select from Start to Cursor instead. The track with the split away material will retain the ruler and SnapTO setting of its source track.
Get Them Ready for Deep Fry:
Once all the tracks are created you need to Export each Audacity track that you wish to be on your CD. Check the preferences under "File Formats". The "Uncompressed Export Format" needs to be set to "WAV (Microsoft 16 bit PCM) (PC or Linux users) or "AIFF (Apple/SGI 16 bit PCM)" (Mac users). 1. Click on an empty part of the track panel(left of the wave display with the mute and solo buttons) of the track you wish to export. The contents of that track will be selected. 2. Go to the File menu and pick "Export Selection as WAV" (or AIFF if you're on a Mac). Pick your filename carefully. Number them accordingly, so it'll be easy to select them for burning the audio CD later on. 3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each track you wish to be on your audio CD
Roast, Toast or Burn Them
Open your CD burning application to burn your audio CD with the exported audio files. Make sure that no pauses are between those tracks. The only exception is the standard pause before the first track. That's required by the Red Book standard, so don't be alarmed. Burn and enjoy. Conclusion That was easy, wasn't it. Think you know how this could work a lot easier ? Do you need additional help or have suggestions on how to improve Audacity ? Drop us a line at audacityhelp@lists.sourceforge.net.

Back to the Tutorial Page Selecting
V.Selecting and aligning Part 1 Selecting Part 1
Basic rules Selecting can be done with the keyboard, the mouse or by combining the keyboard and mouse. You need to have the Selection Tool activated for making a selection.
The exception is selecting the entire track by clicking on the track panel. The align functions all still work the same way no matter which tool is activated. However, making selections and placing the cursor still requires the Selection Tool. The selection modifier key is SHIFT. In a word processor or text editor, the SHIFT key is the modifier to turn any character that you enter via the keyboard in to an UPPERCASE character. In Audacity and most audio editing applications, holding down the SHIFT key means that any cursor movement or placement will result in a selection. What follows are ways of making selections. How do I. select audio on one track ? select all the audio of a track ?
Place the cursor on the waveform of a track, hold Click on the track panel. The resulting selection down the mouse button, drag the mouse and will be confined to the contents of that track. release the mouse button. You can select audio with the keyboard as well, select all the audio of two or more tracks ?
but may need to place the cursor with the mouse first. You need to hold down the SHIFT key and use the left/right cursor keys to expand the selection. Combine the former with the CTRL key (STRG on the German keyboard) to shrink the selection. expand/shrink my selection ? Hold the SHIFT key, then click and hold the mouse button. If you clicked to the left of the center of the current selection, you will now be able to move the left selection boundary with your mouse. The same goes for the right hand side of the selection center. Release the mouse button when you are satisfied. You can use the cursor keys as well. It works the same way as described in the previous item. select from the cursor to the start of the track ? Use the Start to Cursor function in the Edit menu. select from the cursor to the end of the track ? Use the Cursor to End function in the Edit menu. select from the cursor to the start of the project ? Hold the SHIFT key and click on the Skip to Start button. select from the cursor to the end of the project ?

Just like that guitar sound so popular in the 1970's. This effect uses a moving bandpass filter to create its sound. A low frequency oscillator (LFO) is used to control the movement of the filter throughout the frequency spectrum. The WahWah effect automatically adjusts the phase of the left and right channels when given a stereo recording, so that the effect seems to travel across the speakers.

VST Plugins

To use a VST plugin effect, put the effect in the directory (folder) called "PlugIns", which should be in the same directory where Audacity resides. If there is no directory, create one. You will also need to download and unzip the VST Enabler to the same directory. The next time you launch Audacity, any plugins you added will appear in the Effect menu.
Freeverb2. Audacity for Mac OS and Windows comes with a VST plugin called Freeverb, which is in version 2 (hence "Freeverb2"). This effect implements a versatile and highquality reverb effect. If you set the dry level to 0 and the wet level to infinity, it's like standing right in front of the singer in a tiny room all you can hear is the singer, and no reverb. A good place to start is to set both the dry level and wet level to 0 dB. Getting a good reverb sound depends a lot on the However, you may want to experiment with source audio and can take a lot of lowering the dry level while you are experimentation. One good strategy is to select a experimenting with the sound of the reverb.
small portion of audio (a few seconds) and try to add reverb. Listen to it, then Undo and try it again with different settings. Keep doing this until you've found the settings you like the sound of best, and then Undo one last time, Select All, then apply the effect to your entire recording.
The room size parameter is selfexplanatory. The smallest room size setting creates a quick, bright reverb, while the largest setting creates a long, drawnout, and dark reverb. The damping parameter controls how the sound bounces off the walls i.e. if it is mostly reflected or absorbed.
There are a lot of parameters to Freeverb2: Room The predelay controls the delay between the dry signal (unreverberated) and the wet signal size, Damping, Predelay, Lowpass, Highpass, (reverberated) usually there is some predelay Wet level, and Dry level. because of the time it takes sound waves to travel Let's start with the wet and dry levels. Freeverb from the sound source to the nearest wall, and to works by taking your audio signal and modifying the microphone. Larger predelays are suitable for it to create the reverberated sound, i.e. the sound creating an effect of a larger room. you hear echoing off the walls of the room. This Finally, the lowpass and highpass filters can be is called the "wet" part of the effect. used to make the reverberated sound lower or higher. Increasing the lowpass filter filters out the This is mixed together with the original sound, high frequencies, and similarly increasing the which is called the "dry" part of the effect, to highpass filter filters out the low frequencies. produce the combination of direct (unreverberated) and indirect (reverberated) sound, which is what you would naturally hear. If you set the dry level to infinity and the wet level to 0 dB, the result is something like standing outside of a concert hall: you can only hear the reverberated sound.

Spectrograms You can view any audio track as a Spectrogram instead of a Waveform by selecting one of the Spectral views from the track's popup menu. This dialog lets you adjust some of the settings for these spectrograms. FFT Size: The size of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) affects how much vertical (frequency) detail you see. Larger FFT sizes give you more low frequency resolution and less temporal resolution, and they are slower. Grayscale: Select this for gray spectrograms instead of colored ones. Maximum Frequency: Set this value anywhere from a couple of hundred hertz to half the sample rate (i.e. 22050 Hz if the sample rate is 44100 Hz). For some applications, such as speech recognition or pitch extraction, very high frequencies are not important (visually), so this allows you to hide these and only focus on the ones you care about.

Directories

Use this panel to set the location of Audacity's temporary directory. Audacity uses this directory whenever you work on a project that you haven't saved as an Audacity Project (AUP file) yet. You have to restart Audacity (close and open it again) for changes to the temporary directory to take effect. This directory can contain a lot of files and is used a lot, so choose a disk with plenty of free space to put it on. Never put it on a network drive.
Interface Autoscroll while playing page flips to the right when the cursor travels to the right hand end of the wave display, either during playback or recording. Always keeps the cursor on screen, but may cause breaks in recording or playback if you have a slow machine. Always Allow Pausing Update spectrogram while playing Tries to keep the spectrogram updated while playing. This requires a lot of cpu power, and really isn't a good idea unless you're playing a really small piece or have a powerful CPU and plenty of RAM. In combination with Autoscroll while playing this can cause pauses during playback or recording. Enable Edit Toolbar Gives you a toolbar of a few useful functions. Check out the page on the Edit Toolbar for more information. Enable Mixer Toolbar Turns on display of the Mixer Toolbar used to control soundcard mixer settings. Enable Mixer Toolbar Turns on display of the Meter Toolbar, with VU meters you can use to monitor the recording and playback levels of your project. Quit Audacity upon closing last window Sets Audacity to shut down when the last project window you are working is closed. If you turn this off then audacity will keep respawning new blank project windows until you do File > Quit. Enable dragging left and right selection edges Lets you manipulate selections by clicking on the edges and dragging them along the

Linux/Unix Macintosh

For links to these MP3 encoders, go to the Audacity web page (http://audacity.sourceforge.net) and click on the link for your operating system. The first time you try to export an MP3 file, Audacity will ask you to locate your MP3 encoder. Locate the file indicated above. From then on, Audacity will not need to ask you again and you will be able to export MP3 files easily!
Support for more MP3 encoders may be coming in the future. Let us know if there is a particular MP3 encoder you want supported. What is an MP3 file and how does it differ from WAV and AIFF files? MP3 (MPEG II, layer 3) is a popular format for storing music and other audio. A typical MP3 file is one tenth the size of the original WAV or AIFF file, but it sounds very similar. MP3 encoders make use of psychoacoustic models to, in effect, "throw away" the parts of the sound that are very hard to hear, while leaving the loudest and most important parts alone. Unfortunately, no MP3 encoder is perfect, and so an MP3 file will never sound quite as good as the original. Still, most people find that the quality of an MP3 file is virtually indistinguishable from a CD when played on headphones or on small computer speakers, which is why the format is so popular. Why doesn't Audacity ship with an MP3 encoder? Unfortunately, the algorithm to encode or create MP3 files is patented, and Audacity would not be able to include an MP3 exporting algorithm without either charging a fee or violating the law in many countries.

Toolbars

Main Toolbar
I/O Sliders and Input Selector

Edit Toolbar

Back to the Reference page Main Toolbar Edit Toolbar Input/Output
Selection Tool Cursor to Start This is the main tool you use to select audio. Click in a track to position the cursor, or click and drag to select a range of audio. If you drag from one track to another, you can select multiple tracks. Extend a selection by shiftclicking a new point in the track. Playback will always begin at the position of the selection cursor. If a range of audio is selected, only the selected range will play.
Places the cursor at the start of the project. SHIFT + click expands the selection to the start of the project.

Play Button

Press the play button to listen to the audio in your project. You can also hit the spacebar to Envelope Tool start or stop playback. Playback begins at the current cursor position. If a region of audio is selected, only the selected region will play. To The envelope tool gives you detailed control quickly play the entire project, execute Select over how tracks fade in and out, right in the All before playing. If there are multiple tracks main track window. When the envelope tool is selected, the amplitude envelope of each track is going to the same channel in your project, they will be mixed automatically for playback. highlighted in a green line, with control points at the beginning and end of each track. To change a control point, click it and drag it to a new position. To add a new point, click

Exporting and Importing label tracks
Label Tracks are saved when you save an Audacity Project, so if you just want to continue and also provides a way to massedit the labels using the labels along with the same file, just if necessary. save a project. But you can also export the labels to a simple text file, and import them. To export a Label Track, choose Export Labels. from the File Menu. The exported file will This allows you to save information about the contain one line per label, starting with the time locations of events in an audio file for use in offset in seconds, then a tab, and then the name another program, of the label, for example :
1.217995 3.921073 7.584454
Bass intro Guitar enters Drums enter

11.070002

Chorus
To import a Label Track, choose Import Labels. from the File Menu.

Note Tracks

Note tracks display data loaded from a MIDI file. They are currently not editable or playable. It's best to ignore the note tracks for now until further notice.

Time Tracks

This track consists of a single envelope. It controls the playback speed within a given range, i.e. it facilitates envelopebased resampling. The envelope handing is exactly the same as for the volume envelope. Clicking on the track panel reveals a few options, similar to the ones of the track panel of an audio track. "Set Range" lets you set the minimum and maximum pitch change. It is expressed in percentage values relative to 100%. Start by choosing New Time Track from the Project Menu. Then change the range of time warping by clicking on the Track PopDown Menu and choosing Set Range (an option which only appears for Time Tracks) The converter used will be the one(s) set up on the Quality tab of the Preferences. You can make separate choices for To edit the time warping, choose the envelope tool from the Control Toolbar the same tool you use to edit amplitude envelopes in Audio Tracks. Click to create and edit control points. Drag points off the track to delete them. The Time Track has a ruler. As you edit the warping, the ruler will warp to show you at what time playback will reach each place in the audio.
Realtime (playback) and High Quality (exporting), trading speed against quality. Older computers may be incapable of playing audio in realtime that makes use of a Time Track, however you can always Export the file as a WAV and then playback the WAV file later.
Back to the main page Back to the Track page Delete PopDown Menu Solo Mute Gain and Panning Controls Vertical Track Resizing

Track Delete Button

Clicking on this button deletes the track. This action is undoable. Back to the Track page

Vertical Track Resizing

For horizontal resizing, which is called zooming, visit the View Menu page. Vertically resizing a track is fairly simple. Click and hold the mouse button on the resizing handle (see figure), move mouse up or down until the track has the wanted vertical size release mouse button

reproduced with permission
Here we have the Highshelf and Lowshelf EQs for Damping(left) and for the final output(right). The upper middle display depicts the Early Reflections placement and level, as well as the Reverb portion start and fading. Above this display is the Reverb Type selector. This changes the placement and level of the Early Reflections. The Size slider has influence on the Early Reflections as well. Blank concrete will reflect sound quite well across the frequency spectrum. A large thick curtain or padded walls will reflect sound poorly. A large club filled with people sounds completely different
from an empty one. People, comfy chairs, curtains, carpets, beds and many more objects reflect only part of the sound that hits them. Back to the main page Back to the Effects page
What is a Delay ? This effect uses a RAM buffer to store the audio for a certain amount of time, after which it outputs this audio. The RAM buffer will not always be just large enough to store the amount of audio set by the current delay time, but will actually be considerably larger sometimes, because many delay effects allow for their delay parameter to automated.
MultiTap Delays This effect simply incorporates several discrete delay lines, each with its own delay time, level(amplitude) and panning. The feedback parameter is usually shared by all delays in a multitap delay. Some multitap delays feature a modulation section that modulates the delay times, which can
be used to create chorus effects.
Common parameters of a digital Delay Delay Time Parameter Range : 0.000 to xxx.xxx seconds The upper boundary of this parameter(xxx.xxx) depends on the amount of RAM in the hardware unit, or the amount of RAM reserved by the software plugin. For software plugins, the programmers or designers of the plugin set this upper boundary. The delay software plugin Supertap by Waves for example comes in two flavours on Protools TDM systems. One allows for delays of up to two seconds, but another version accommodates delay times of up to six seconds. This is due to the availability of RAM on the DSP hardware of a TDM system. The native(>CPU) version of this plugin for Windows for example only allows for delays of up to four seconds in length, but there are delay plugins that allow for delays of several minutes.

Feedback Today's delay units and plugins will feature one of several different types of feedback parameters : a) Percentage Range : 0 to 99(or 100)% This is used by most hardware units and some software plugins. It determines the amount of a delayed signal to be sent back to the RAM buffer. The same delay time is applied. This is the most common parameter type for feedback.
b) Decay Time : 0.1 to xx seconds A slightly different approach. The plugin or hardware unit determines the amount of delayed signal, that it sends back in to its RAM buffer, itself. Some may find this more intuitive. It isn't widely used however. c) Feedback Delay Time : 0.000 to xxx.xxx seconds This is like an additional delay line that takes the already delayed signal as input. This kind of parameter also requires a level setting, which is usually a percentage parameter, like a).
EQs & Filters Many delay plugins feature highshelf and/or lowshelf EQs, or they feature highpass and/or lowpass filters. These EQs or filters usually process each delay. The idea behind this is usually to simulate distance, because with increasing distance, the lower and higher frequencies are dampened. Hi & Lowshelf EQs Gain : xx to xx dB Frequency: 20 Hz 20 kHz Low & Highpass Filters Frequency: 20 Hz 20 kHz Filter Strength : 6, 12, 18 or 24 dB/Octave
PANNING These are the most common types of stereo panning parameters you'll find. LEFT RIGHT 63 +64 LEFT RIGHT 0% 100% LEFT RIGHT 100% 100%
Simply a panning control for the delay. The feedback parameter may also have its own panning control.
What is a Chorus ? A chorus is a Delay for which the delay time is modulated by an LFO ( Low Frequency Oscillator). The most used LFO waveforms are sine and triangle. Most modern chorus effect unit, be they plugins or hardware based, also spread the effect signal across the stereo field. Sometimes a parameter to control the depth and other behaviours may be encountered. The effect can produce interesting sounds, one of which is to produce the illusion of more than one instance of the instrument/vocalist being present. What you get out of this effect, largely depends on your desire to experiment. Play with the parameters one at a time and experiment.

5. Can I include or sell Audacity on a CDROM ? Basically the same as the first question, so that is a big YES. You are also free to do almost anything you want with it. We do like to hear about it of course, but as long as you comply with the GNU Public License, you'll be ok. This means that you need to make any changes you make to Audacity available, including the source code. The source code doesn't need to be on the CDROM, but it should be available via the internet for example. INSTALLATION 1. Windows: What do I do with the.exe file? From the browser, select the option to "Run from current location". This launches the Audacity setup program, which will install the Audacity program files and create an entry in the start menu. If you already downloaded the file, just doubleclick on it to start the installer. If you prefer not to use the Installer program, you can also download Audacity as a ZIP file, which you can decompress using WinZip or any other extraction program. 2. Windows: How do I uninstall Audacity? Audacity can be uninstalled by opening Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel. Select "Audacity" from the list and click the button "Add/Remove". This launches the Audacity uninstall program. 3. Mac: What do I do with the.sit file? You need a recent version of StuffIt Expander. StuffIt Expander comes with all Macintoshes and is usually configured by default with all Mac web browsers. If Audacity does not decompress automatically, drag "audacity.sit" to StuffIt Expander to decompress it. There is no need to install Audacity. Just drag the Audacity folder to your Applications folder, or wherever else you would like to put it. To uninstall, just drag the entire folder to the trash. 4. Unix: Why do I get failed dependencies when installing from the RPM?
First, ensure that the wxGTK is installed; a link can be found from our Linux page http://audacity.sourceforg of wxGTK Audacity 1.2.x requires wxGTK 2.4.x, and it will not work with any other version. 5. Unix: Why do I get an error while loading the shared library libwx_gtk2.4.so? This could be one of two problems: If you installed the wxWidgets RPM, be sure to run "ldconfig" (as root) so your system knows about the new library. If you installed wxWidgets from source, it may have been installed in /usr/local, but /usr/local/lib may not be in your library path. Add /usr/local/lib to the file "/etc/ld.so.conf" and then run "ldconfig". You may also want to add "/usr/local/bin" to your path, so that programs can find the "wxconfig" utility.
USING AUDACITY 1. How do I mix two tracks together? Audacity mixes automatically. All you have to do is import two tracks into the same project, which you can do using the "Import Audio" command in the Project menu, or simply by dragging the two audio files to Audacity. When you press the record button, Audacity generates a new track automatically, also. In order to save your mix, you can either Export the project, which will automatically mix all of your tracks together, or you can select your tracks and use the "Quick Mix" command in the Project menu. 2. Can I remove the vocals from a recording? With some stereo recordings, it is possible to remove the vocals because of the way in which the recording was mixed at the studio. Often, the vocals are placed in the exact center of the recording, while all other instruments are slightly offcenter. If you subtract the right channel from the left channel, the vocals get completely canceled out, leaving only the other instruments. This only works on some recordings! To attempt this in Audacity, import a stereo recording, then click on the track popup menu (the little downarrow next to the name of the track) and select "Split Stereo Track". Now select the lower track (the right channel) and use the "Invert" effect (from the Effect menu). Finally, use the track popup menus to make both channels Mono channels, and then mix them together using Quick Mix. If you're lucky, the vocals will be gone. 3. When I try to record harmonies with myself, why are the two tracks out of sync? This is normal and it happens because there is a small delay between when Audacity starts playing sound and when it actually reaches your speaker. Audacity does not automatically try to correct for this delay, and you must do it manually. To correct this delay, use the Time Shift tool to slide one of the tracks over until they line up. Note that you can use the tool while you are listening to the recording. 4. Why doesn't Audacity ship with an MP3 encoder? Unfortunately, the algorithm to encode or create MP3 files is patented, and Audacity would not be able to include an MP3 exporting algorithm without either charging a fee or violating the law in many countries. As a compromise, Audacity comes with the ability to use other MP3 encoders, which you must download separately. It is up to you to make sure you are in compliance with any licensing restrictions imposed by MP3 encoders. For more information, see the page on Exporting MP3 files.

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021111307

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program. It is safest to most effectively should have at least full notice is found.
Copyright (C) 19yy This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 021111307
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail. If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode: Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c' for details. The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be mouseclicks or menu itemswhatever suits your program. You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker. , 1 April 1989 Ty Coon, President of Vice This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.

Index of Terms

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Copy , how to Cut , how to
Duplicate , tutorial Draw Tool Exporting
FAQ File Formats , AUP , AIFF , AU , IRCAM , MP3 , OGG , WAV
ID3 Tags, Editing Import Audio , Labels , Midi , Raw Data
Menu File Menu Edit Menu View Menu Project Menu Generate Menu Effects Menu Analyze Mute button
Preferences , Audio I O , Quality , File Format , Spectograms , Directories , Interface , Keyboard Quickmix
Reverb , early reflections , parameters , Virtual Room with
Selection Tool selecting , expand or contract Silence , tutorial Solo button Split , tutorial [2]

Editing Audio with Audacity (Part 2)
The first guide (Part 1) is here: http://www.jtoolkit.com/audio/Audacity_Guide.pdf Part 1 explains how to download and install Audacity and use it to make recordings, import and export audio files, and make simple edits on one track. You can also learn how to convert a stereo file to mono, which results in a much smaller file size for online goodness. Your MP3 file for the Web should be 44.1KHz, 16-bit, mono (in most cases). To ensure that the format is correct, use this guide to change the Preferences before you begin editing in Audacity: http://www.jtoolkit.com/audio/Audacity_File_Tips.pdf
How to Isolate One Segment of Audio
Ctrl-D (Cmd-D/Mac) is your best friend in multitrack editing in Audacity. With Ctrl-D (Cmd-D), you duplicate a selected segment of a track into a new track, where it stands alone. Like this: 1. Click and drag to select the bite you want.
2. Press and hold Ctrl (Win) or Cmd (Mac) and press D. As the next illustration shows, this creates a new track, which contains a copy of the bite or section you had selected.
Editing Audio with Audacity (Part 2) v. 2.0 | 2009 by Mindy McAdams
3. Instantly you have a new track containing only that selected sound bite. Your original track is unchanged. 4. Now use the Time Shift Tool (shown at right) to drag the clip (or bite) into position in its track.
Normally we do all our selecting, cutting, pasting, etc., with the Selection Tool (at right).
When you are editing with multiple tracks, its good to mute some of the tracks (and un-mute them later as well). Each track has its own Mute button. Click it to mute the track, then again to un-mute that track.
Before you export the MP3 file, delete any unneeded tracks. To delete a track, click the X at top left corner of the track (to the left of the track name, which you can change by clicking it).
In the illustration above, you can see four tracks. This is part of an Audacity project in which six interviews (with six different people) were mixed together. The project has eight separate tracks.
How to Add More Audio to the Same Project
On the Project menu in Audacity, select Import Audio. (In newer versions of Audacity, there is no Project menu. Instead, open the File menu. Import opens a sub-menuselect Audio there.) Find your audio file and select it. Audacity will add it as a new track. 1. If your tracks are all mono and the new one is stereo, convert it to mono (using the steps in the first tutorial; see page 1 here for the link to that tutorial). 2. Note that the sampling rate of the tracks (44100Hz, at right) need not match. Audacity manual: You can import audio of any sample rate or bit depth and Audacity will resample and convert it to the project rate and bit depth on the fly, as well as upon Export. If all your files were recorded on the same device, you should have no problems. If files were recorded on different devices, they may have technical differences that will prevent them being edited together cleanly. Generally, I now save all my audio for the Web at a sampling rate of 41,100 Hz (or 41.1 kHz). Remember to keep saving your project so you dont lose your changes: File menu > Save Project When youve finished all your editing, you can simply export the MP3 file (as explained in the first tutorial); there is no need to mix or combine the tracks. They will be mixed automatically upon export.
Fading, and Messing Around with Volume
The Fade options are on the Effect menu. Select something first (click and drag over several seconds), then look at the menu. If you select about 2 seconds of room noise at the beginning of a file, for example, and then select Fade In from the menu, youll create a smooth beginning for your audio. Its usually good to fade out a couple of seconds at the end of the completed file so that it does not cut off too abruptly. (Fade Out is also on the Effect menu.) Remember: If you have paused your audio, nothing works in the menus. Click the Stop button to fix this problem.
Editing Audio with Audacity (Part 2) v. 2.0 | 2009 by Mindy McAdams 4
For more sophisticated control of the volume on multiple tracks, you must use the Envelope Tool. Changing the volume of a track in various places (e.g. bringing music up and down to accompany narration) requires the Envelope Tool (at leftupper left corner). It takes some practice, but dont give up. In the illustration above, I clicked at three different spots in the track(1) around 50 sec.; (2) at 1 min. 20 sec.; and (3) at 2 min. Then I dragged the cursor down at the middle spot (1 min. 20 sec.), and the result is that the volume decreases from 50 sec. until 1 min. 20 sec., and then increases again (up to normal) until the 2 min. mark. Look at the illustrationit shows you what the volume does!

In the example above, a street performer is playing his guitar and singing in the first track (named Guitar). In the second track (named Narration), someone is talking about the street performers in that town. I used the Envelope Tool to make four handles in the Guitar track. That is, after selecting the Envelope Tool, I clicked four times: at 4 sec., at 5 sec., at 16 sec., and at 17 sec. I dragged down the handles at 5 sec. and at 16 sec.,
Editing Audio with Audacity (Part 2) v. 2.0 | 2009 by Mindy McAdams 5
making the guitar very quiet during the time when narration is voiced on the lower track. The Envelope Tool is what allows you to add handles (by clicking). The handles allow you to pull down the volume anywhere, on any track, for any duration needed. After using the Envelope Tool, be sure to select the normal cursor again (that is, the Selection Tool) the one to the left of the Envelope Tool.

Erase Unwanted Noise

Heres how to clean up noise, like a nasty air conditioner humming or buzzing. According to the Audacity manual, this works best when the audio signal is much louder than the noise. 1. Select a section of the audio that is silent except for the noise you want to filter out. (This section can be only a few seconds long.) 2. Effect menu > Noise Removal 3. Click the Get Noise Profile button. 4. Select all of the audio you want to filter. 5. Effect menu > Noise Removal (again) 6. Click the Remove Noise button. If you dont like the result, Edit menu > Undo.

More Help

Everything on the mysterious Effect menu is explained here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/menu_effects.html Nice Audacity tutorials are here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html