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02alab2 Audacity PDF

1) The document discusses how to use the audio editing software Audacity to complete Project One. It describes how to open Audacity, create and save a new project, import an audio file, make selections and edits to the audio, and export the final edited audio as a new file. 2) Key steps include launching Audacity, creating a new project and saving it, importing the audio file, selecting parts of the audio to edit using zooming and selection tools, cutting and pasting sections, and exporting the final edited audio as a new file type like AIFF to submit rather than the Audacity project file. 3) Mistakes can be undone using the undo feature, and help is provided if

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Walid_Sassi_Tun
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© © All Rights Reserved
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27 views

02alab2 Audacity PDF

1) The document discusses how to use the audio editing software Audacity to complete Project One. It describes how to open Audacity, create and save a new project, import an audio file, make selections and edits to the audio, and export the final edited audio as a new file. 2) Key steps include launching Audacity, creating a new project and saving it, importing the audio file, selecting parts of the audio to edit using zooming and selection tools, cutting and pasting sections, and exporting the final edited audio as a new file type like AIFF to submit rather than the Audacity project file. 3) Mistakes can be undone using the undo feature, and help is provided if

Uploaded by

Walid_Sassi_Tun
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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LAB TWO IN AUDACITY

OVERVIEW
Project One can be done in ProTools or Audacity, or it can be done in
an audio editor, such as Amadeus or Soundforge. Audio editors work
with the audio data in a slightly different way than ProTools and
Audacity does; we will discuss the difference further in Lab Three.
How to use an audio editor for Project One will also be discussed in
Lab Three.
Like a word processor, an audio editor edits a single document
at a time; a multitrack audio mixer, like a page layout program,
assembles several documents into a collection. In the case of ProTools,
this collection is called a session. In the case of Audacity, this
collection is called a project.
Therefore, once you have launched Audaicty, the first step is to
create a project. Projects in Audacity (and sessions in ProTools)
contain references to audio files, amplitude, panning envelope
data, and various other pieces of information. Because
projects/sessions do not contain the audio file data, they are quite
small in terms of file size.

The audio data used by ProTools and Audacity remain in separate


audio files. You can have hundreds of separate audio files contained
in a single session/project.

USING AUDACITY FOR PROJECT ONE


Launch Audacity. A new, blank project (the container used
to hold audio files in Audacity) will open automatically, entitled
Audacity. Save the project right away by selecting Save Project
As from the File menu.

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Lab Two using Audacity

A dialog window will appear warning you that a project


saved in Audacity cannot be opened by other software. However,
material created within an Audacity project can be exported in
various ways.
Give the project a name (such as Assignment_1), and save it
into a logical location.

IMPORTING AN AUDIO FILE


To import the downloaded audio file into the Audacity
project, select, from the Project menu, Import Audio

This will open a dialog box. Navigate to the folder in which


you moved the downloaded audio file and select it, then click on
the Open button.
The audio file should now appear within Audacity as a track:

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Lab Two using Audacity

Press the space bar to listen to the file.

DISPLAYED AUDIO INFORMATION


Audacity, like most audio programs, displays audio data using
a timeline (time moves from left to right). This is obviously
something not part of the traditional, or classic, analogue tape
studio. Furthermore, audio is displayed graphically in tracks,
allowing the user to see the relationships between events. Such an
interface demonstrates the benefits of the computer in audio
editing.

TRANSPORT COMMANDS
Like all audio programs, Audacity has controls that emulate the
transport controls of an analogue tape recorder. These allow the
user to begin and stop playback and to move the start point
through the document (via the Fast Forward, Rewind, Return to
Zero, and Go to End buttons).

Audacitys transport controls, Mac

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Lab Two using Audacity

Audacitys transport controls, Windows


Many of the transport controls can be reproduced through
keyboard commands:

Play/Stopspace bar

Return to Zerohome

Go to Endend

RecordR.

Note that keyboard commands can be set in Audacity via the


Preferences dialog box (found under the Audacity menu, Mac; Edit
menu, Windows).

ZOOMING IN AND OUT


Zooming is done via the View menu, or via the command-1 /
command-3 (control-1 / control-3 on Windows) key combinations:

Zooming In will display less of the entire waveform, but in


greater detail. Zooming Out will display more (up to the entire
waveform itself), but in lesser and lesser detail.
To begin editing, zoom in so that more detail is displayed in
the track only the first two seconds or so. Look at the Timeline,
which is displayed immediately above the region in the track, to
determine the resolution.

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Lab Two using Audacity

The timeline, displaying seconds.


In order to select something, the Selection Tool must be
active:

The Selection Tool in Audacity


After zooming in (you might need to move the selection slider
at the bottom of the window all the way to the left in order to see
the beginning of the file), select the first word by clicking and
dragging over it.

Selecting the word sometimes.

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Lab Two using Audacity

LISTENING TO A SELECTION
As with most audio programs, pressing the space bar will play
only the selected audio.
What is played depends upon several factors. First, if
something is selected, only the selection will be played. If nothing
is selected, the program will play from the current insertion point
(which is set by clicking within the track, or by selecting audio
data). Most likely, the insertion point will be at the beginning of the
session, and so it will play from the beginning. To return the
insertion point back to the beginning of the file (for example, in
order to listen to your work from the beginning), press the home
key. Doing so will also deselect the current selection.

The insertion point without a selection. Audacity will start


playing from this point.

CHANGING THE SELECTION


The first edit should be the initial sibilance in sometimes. You
can continually try to reselect different portions of the track until
you get the proper selection, but a better solution is to adjust the
current selection.
You adjust by dragging the mouse while holding the shift key
down. Audacity will change the end of the current selection if the
cursor is closer to the end of the selection than the beginning.
Similarly, Audacity will change the beginning of the selection if the
cursor is closer to the beginning.
Change your selection so that it looks like the illustration
below:

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Lab Two using Audacity

This selection will play only the S of Sometimes.

USING THE CLIPBOARD TO CUT AND PASTE


Once you have selected the entire sibilance (and only the
sibilance), you can cut the material to the clipboard. Do this by
selecting Cut from the Edit menu, or pressing the key
combination command-X (control-X). This will remove the selection
from the document, and place it on the clipboard. Note that the
hole in the file will have been removed, so that subsequent audio
data is moved over.

The track with the first sibilance removed.


Drag the selection slider (below the track, above the project
information) all the way to the right, so that the end of the file is
displayed. Click the mouse about one second after the end of the
file. This will place the cursor into the empty space. Copy the
contents of the clipboard into the cursor location by selecting
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Lab Two using Audacity

Paste from the Edit menu, or pressing the key combination


command-V (control-V).

The initial sibilance, moved to the end of the file with a one
second separation.
Continue editing the rest of the ss, then move on to the hard
ts and finally the ps, always placing them at the end of your
file after the selection you last moved.

IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE


Remember that any mistake you happen to make can be undone
(provided you didnt save your data and quit the program). The
standard Undo command (command Z on the Mac, control Z on
the PC) will not only forgive your last mistake, most programs
allow for the undoing of multiple mistakes.

If you make any mistake while editing, press command Z (control Z


on a PC) to undo the error.

CREATING AN AUDIOFILE
EXECUTING A BOUNCE (EXPORT)
When you have completed editing Project One, you will need to
create an audio file that can be uploaded to WebCT.

Do not upload the Audacity project (the .aup file)! The project is a data
file; you need to create an audio file!

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Lab Two using Audacity

Audacity can create audio files from any part of a project using
a technique called bouncing. This concept will be discussed in
greater depth in later labs.
To create a bounce, select the material that is to be included in
the audio file. In the case of Project One, it will be the first twenty
(or so) seconds of the project, which contained the original text
together with the edited out text. Selecting Select All, from the
Select submenu, will accomplish this:

Using the very useful Select All command.


Just to be sure, you can press the space bar and listen to the
selection. When it comes to bouncing, whatever you hear will be the
resulting audio file.

Selecting all the regions to be included in the bounce


Next, select Export Selection as AIFF . . . (or Export Selection
as WAV) from the File menu.

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Lab Two using Audacity

The Save dialogue box will then come up, allowing you to
give the new file a name, and location on your hard drive where it
should be saved.
When it is finished, Audacity will return to the project.
I saved my file in the same folder that Audacity created its
project. Note that the Audacity project file is only 4 KB in size:
obviously not large enough to hold twenty seconds of audio data
inside! The file Assignment_1.aiff, which is 1.5 MB in size, is the
file that holds the audio data, and the file that needs to be
uploaded.

The audio file after the export, together with the Audacity
project files. Only upload the audio file, with the AIFF
extension.

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