Audacity Editing

Laura Elizabeth Pohl | COMM-535-002W | American University ©

Zooming in: Two tools, circled above, allow you to zoom in on tracks for precise editing.

Zooming out: One tool, circled above, allows you to zoom out on tracks.

Selection tool: This is the “cursor” that lets you select parts of a track. The track starts playing from where the cursor is located.

Envelope tool - 4-point edit: This tool lets you control the volume in a specific part of a track. Use it to make 4 points around an area where the volume needs to be lowered. Move the middle two points up and down to isolate and control the volume in the area between the two points.

New track: Create a new track to better organize your edited audio. Go to Tracks >> Add New >> (“Audio” or “Stereo”) Track. Which track should you add - “Audio” or “Stereo”? Select the one that matches the the track already on your timeline. You can find this information in the area circled above in red.

Select part of a track: Use the selection tool (circled above in red) to select a portion of track one that you want to move to track two. Copy the selection with “Command + C.”

Copy to a new track: Use the selection tool to place the cursor where you want the copied audio from track one to start in track two. Paste the audio using “Control + V.”

Destructive editing: You’ve selected a portion of track two that you want to permanently cut. Audacity is a destructive editing program, which means once you delete something it’s gone forever. Instead of permanently cutting audio, consider copying and saving it into a new Audacity project, so you can find the audio later if you need it. Then delete the selected audio from track two and continue editing.

Audacity Editing | By Laura Elizabeth Pohl | COMM-535-002W | American University

Fading in and out: Now that you’ve cut audio from the start of track two, the transition between track one and track two is stilted. You can fix this by fading in track two and fading in track one. Use the envelope tool (circled above) to create two points at the beginning of track two. Move the first point up and down until the fade in sounds proper to you. Repeat in reverse to fade out track one.

Fading in and out: Now that you’ve cut audio from the start of track two, the transition between track one and track two is stilted. You can fix this by fading in track two and fading in track one. Use the envelope tool (circled above) to create two points at the beginning of track two. Move the first point up and down until the fade in sounds proper to you. Repeat in reverse to fade out track one.

Final Tips• Save early and safe often. Repeat: save early and safe often.

• Save your edited Audacity project with a different name than the original. If you’re editing “20120121_Interview_01,” rename the edited version “20120121_Interview_01_edited.” This will allow you to always have a clean copy of your audio file in case you mess up your edited version and need to find original audio.

• Stay organized: save all files for one project in the same folder.

• When editing multiple audio files into one project, create a master Audacity project for final edits. For example, you have file A and file B. You edit both down to the best bits. You rename audio file A as “File_A_edited” and file B as “File_B_edited.” Then you create a third Audacity project “FinalEdit_FileA_FileB” where you combine everything from “File_A_edited” and “File_B_edited.”

• When you’re finished editing, export your project as an MP3 into the same folder where all other project files are located.