Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Table of Contents

Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

Preface

What this book covers

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Audacity and the World of Audio Editing

What is Audacity?

Will it work for me?

Windows and Mac OS

GNU/Linux

Moving up to Audacity 1.3

Common audio editing terms used in Audacity

Opening Audacity

Audio controls and editing toolbars

Project View

Selection Toolbar

Using the main menu

Understanding the toolbars

Control Toolbar

Mixer Toolbar

Give it a try!

Tools Toolbar

Meter Toolbar

Edit Toolbar

Transcription Toolbar

Selection Toolbar

Understanding projects

Pointers for working in Audacity

Using the best equipment

Sound cards

Microphones

Summary

2. The Basics: Setting Up a Project

Creating a new project

Setting the Audacity Preferences

Verifying playback and recording settings

Quality settings check

Setting up for importing and exporting

Planning for your recording session

Performing an equipment check

Positioning your microphone

Planning a podcast

Summary

3. Ready and Action! Creating a Voice Track and Recording Interviews

Recording voice tracks

The simple voice track

Adding to a voice track

Labeling recorded audio tracks

Deleting an audio track

Recording an interview with Skype

Download and install Skype

Set up Skype for your telephone interview

Recording the Skype call

For better volume control

Using timed recordings

Summary

4. Making It Sound Better: Editing Your Podcast

Dissecting the recorded audio

Voice waves

Silence

Timeline

Working within the project

Playback

Rewinding and fast forwarding

Selecting portions of your track

Magnifying your view

Viewing your project

Fit in Window

Fit Vertically

The basics of editing

Cut and Paste

Copy and Paste

Trimming

Deleting

Silencing

Adjusting volume levels

Summary

5. Advanced Editing: Fixing the Glitches and Removing the Noise

Using filters

Additional filter plug-ins

Plug-in installation

Removing noise

Setting up the noise profile

Removing the noise

Evening out the sound

Using Compressor

Normalizing

More sound effects

Changing pitch

Changing the speed

Changing the tempo

Summary

6. Saving Projects and Exporting Podcasts

Audio formats to which Audacity exports

Podcast formats

Installing libraries

Exporting your project as an MP3

Opening and exporting your project

Adding tagging information

Genres

Templates

Saving your exported file

Distributing your podcast

Sending the file

Uploading to a website

Website with hosting

Free blogging service

RSS feeds

Uploading to iTunes

Other Export File Options

Summary

7. Beyond the Basics: Editing for Even Better Sound

Softening sibilants

Clip and replace sounds

Aligning tracks and using Time Shift

Using Time Shift

Aligning tracks

Splitting and duplicating audio

Splitting tracks

Split and Time Shift

Split and cut

Split Delete

Duplicating tracks

Joining audio tracks

Modifying settings for the entire track

Customize the project rate for each track

Changing a Stereo track to Mono

Muting a track

Increasing the volume of the entire track

Sorting tracks

Summary

8. Importing and Adding Background Music

Importing digital music into Audacity

Importing WAV, AIFF, MP3, and MP4/M4A files

Importing music from iTunes

Unprotected files from iTunes

Protected files from iTunes

Burn a CD and extract from it

Adding music to your podcast

Timing the music for introductions and endings

Fading in and out

Adding background music

What is overdubbing and how do I do it?

Downmixing and rendering

Vinyl records, cassette tapes, or minidiscs

Summary

9. Giving Your Audio Some Depth: Applying Effects

The Effect menu

Amplify

Auto Duck

Bass Boost

Pitch

Speed

Tempo

Click Removal

Compressor

Echo

Equalization

Fading In and Out

Invert

Leveller

Noise removal

Setting up the noise profile

Removing the noise

Normalizer

Phaser

Repair

Repeat

Reverse

Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift

Truncate Silence

Wahwah

Summary

10. Making Audacity Even Better With Plug-Ins and Libraries

Installing plug-ins

Installing VST Enabler

Installing libraries

Using a plug-in

Using libraries

Summary

A. Toolbar, Menu, and Keyboard Shortcut Reference

B. Glossary of Terms

Index

Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Bethany Hiitola

Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Copyright © 2010 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2010

Production Reference: 1240210

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 978-1-847197-64-1

www.packtpub.com

Cover Image by Vinayak Chittar (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Bethany Hiitola

Reviewers

Arturo 'Buanzo' Busleiman

Adriano Varoli Piazza

Acquisition Editor

Sarah Cullington

Development Editor

Dhiraj Chandiramani

Technical Editor

Aaron Rosario

Indexer

Monica Ajmera Mehta

Editorial Team Leader

Akshara Aware

Project Team Leader

Priya Mukherji

Project Coordinator

Zainab Bagasrawala

Proofreader

Dirk Manuel

Production Coordinator

Adline Swetha Jesuthas

Cover Work

Adline Swetha Jesuthas

About the Author

Bethany Hiitola is a working writer. She's worked as a technical writer and multimedia developer for over 12 years, and spends the rest of her time as a wife, mother, caretaker to pets, and Master of the household. She's written more user manuals than she can count, essays, short stories, academic papers, press releases, and feature articles. And all between the day job, nap times and diaper changes. More details are available at her website: www.bethanyhiitola.com.

Without you, Matt, this book wouldn't have been possible. Thanks for watching the kids for endless hours, late nights, and into the wee mornings.

About the Reviewers

Arturo Busleiman, most commonly known as Buanzo, is a young (born in 1982) security expert (or maniac, as you prefer) who has dedicated his life to security and, as such, has been learning and working non-stop since his first line of BASIC, at the early age of eight. Today, with a lovely wife and a wonderful son, Buanzo works with new technologies, and contributes to state-of-the-art of IT security as an independent security consultant, by talking at security conferences, dictating seminars, and developing new technologies, such as Enigform and mod_openpgp (see http://wiki.buanzo.org for more information).

As an independent IT consultant, Buanzo has no employees, but a large set of people he likes working with, from all over the world, who he prefers to call friends and associates. His main partner and best friend, Bryan Slatner, is an extremely talented programmer and analyst based in North Carolina, USA. Together, there's nothing they can't achieve. Feel free to visit http://www.buanzo.com.ar/pro/eng.html for more details.

Buanzo was lucky enough to have reviewed some great books,such as Nmap, by Gordon Fyodor Lyon, (ISBN-10: 0979958717) and Computer Security: Principles and Practice by William Stallings, (ISBN 0136004245). Additionally, he has contributed to OISSG's Information System Security Assessment Framework (Unix security), SANS TOP-20 (2003-2008), and has written many articles for Linux and security publications, such as Sys Admin Magazine (USA), SoloLinux (Spain), Linux Users (Argentina) and 2600 (USA, using a pseudonym). He's a Project Leader of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP).

As a member of the Audacity Team, he is in charge of system administration and security, occasionally commenting on development issues. Of course, he uses Audacity to record in his home studio. You can download some of his Audacity-recorded and mastered songs at http://blogs.buanzo.com.ar/futurabanda.

Adriano has become what he is now by both teaching himself and by paying others to do so. Although he has taken courses in Software Engineering, most of his experience in programming comes from his own interests. He's not yet a great programmer, but that's the general idea. He also has a grounding in Chemistry that started in a previous life. Adriano enjoys programming on both the LAMP and WAMP stacks, and does so for a living, creating and maintaining web applications. He wonders when will they add the Javascript J to those acronyms.

I would like to thank my lovely wife for the patience and support shown when I added a book review to an already-full schedule, and my friend Buanzo for the opportunity of reviewing for Packt. I also wish my mom was able to see this. You're always with me.

Preface

This book is useful if you're new to Audacity. Using the Audacity software as a starting point, we discuss what the software is, what it can do, how you can use it, and its installation. All of this information is grounded in some basic audio editing terminology and background for those that aren't so technologically inclined.

Then we'll start digging into a sample project! You'll learn how to set up a project, create a voice track, record an interview using Skype, and also learn some basic audio editing techniques. All of this done in an easy-to-follow, task-based approach with lots of examples. Then go one step further, and teach you how to wrap all of these steps together and create a podcast that can be posted on your own website or blog.

There's always more that you can do with Audacity! The last portion of the book is dedicated to just that - discussing more advanced editing and mixing techniques, using effects, adding music, and adding additional plug-ins to the software. All of this is done incorporating examples and easy-to-follow tasks that you can try on your own audio projects. This book also provides a section on advanced editing and mixing techniques that should satisfy even experienced Audacity users. Have fun and let's get into the details so that you can get started!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Audacity and the World of Audio Editing—From the start, we discuss what Audacity is, who typically uses it, how you can use it, and what computer operating systems it will work on. We also talk a bit about how Audacity is an open source project and what this means to you, and then we jump into learning the basics about the software: it's main screen, the menus, project window and settings for your first project.

Chapter 2, The Basics: Setting up a Project—This chapter focuses on the set up and basics about how to create a project, setting some preliminary preferences, and of course laying the ground work for your first voice track recording for a podcast.

Chapter 3, Ready and Action! Creating a Voice Track and Recording Interviews—With this chapter, it is time to actually record the podcast script, save it, and learn a few tricks about adding more to an already-recorded voice track, record additional tracks, set up a timed recording, label and delete tracks, and learn all of the details of using a third-party Internet telephony software to record telephone interviews. This is a meaty chapter, full of all of the practical instructions you need to get you really using Audacity.

Chapter 4, Making It Sound Better: Editing Your Podcast—We first discuss the basics of what digital voice waves look like, how to move around the timeline, and how to do all the basics: playback, rewinding, fast forwarding, selecting portions of the voice track, and setting up your Audacity screen to see your entire project on the screen.

Then we jump into editing details: how to cut, copy, paste, trim, delete, adjust volume levels, and silence portions of your track.

Chapter 5, Fixing the Glitches and Removing the Noise—In this chapter we get into some more advanced editing options. We see how to use filters, clean up background noises, use the equalizer, change some other sound options such as pitch, speed, and tempo and also how to normalize volumes and even out the sound across the entire audio track.

Chapter 6, Saving Projects and Exporting Podcasts—With this chapter, it is time to learn how to save your project in its final state and export it in different audio types so that you can send it as a final podcast or post it to a website for download. We'll even discuss how to use IDE tags for your podcast (artist, genre, title, and so on), the best tips and tricks for compressing your final projects into a decent file size, and preparing a file for upload to a web hosting service.

Chapter 7, Beyond the Basics: Editing for Even Better Sound—Working with the audio tracks,