creation stations AUDIO RECORDING WITH AUDACITY 120 West 14th Street www.nvcl.ca techconnect@cnv.org
PART I: LAYOUT & NAVIGATION Audacity is a basic digital audio workstation (DAW) app that you can use to record and edit spoken word audio tracks, like podcasts, audiobook narration, and voice-overs; as well as live instrumental tracks, like vocals and acoustic guitars. Audacity s layout has two different sections: the toolbar on the top and audio tracks below. In the Toolbar there are three important tools to help you navigate Audacity: Zoom In/Out: Zoom in and out on your audio tracks to help you see them better. Fit Project to Window: re-size the audio tracks so that you can see everything on your screen without scrolling to the right/left. Selection Tool: highlight segments of your audio track so you can edit them. In the Audio Tracks area, note: Each individual audio track you record is represented by separate sections arranged vertically, which you can name and even mute if you don't want to hear them. The Waveforms represent the audio of each track: the horizontal axis represents time (duration), and the vertical axis represents volume (the strength of the audio signal) The Timeline shows you the length of your project in minutes and seconds Use the Scrollbar at the bottom to move chronologically through your audio track. North Vancouver City Library 2
PART II: SETTING UP TO RECORD Saving: Project File vs. Music File The first thing to do when you open Audacity is to save a New Project. Go to File at the top left, and then choose Save Project As. Save your project on the Desktop, give it a Name, and click Save. This creates an Audacity Project File and a Project Folder. The project folder contains all the audio clips you record in Audacity, and the project file contains all the instructions for Audacity to put your project together. The project file is not an audio file when you re finished creating your project you will then export as an audio file as the last step. Connecting a Microphone The library s microphones have only XLR outputs (see images next page), so they need to be connected to the computer with the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 device. Plug the female end of the XLR cable into the mic, and the male end into one of the input jacks on the front of the Focusrite. Microphone & XLR cable Plug the female end of the XLR cable into the microphone Plug the male end of the XLR cable into the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 digital audio input device Choosing and Testing Your Audio Source The tools for selecting an audio source, and viewing and adjusting the strength of its signal all have a Microphone icon next to them. There are three tools: The Monitor: shows the strength of the input signal The Volume Dial: allows you to turn the signal strength up or down The Recording Device drop-down: where you select the device that you're using to record the source of the audio signal. North Vancouver City Library 3
1. Select your recording input device from the Recording Device drop-down: On the Library's Recording Station computer, you will need to hook up a microphone to the Focusrite Scarlett digital audio input device via an XLR cable, and choose Microphone (Scarlett 2i2 USB) from the dropdown. 2. Click the Click to Start Monitoring button in the Recording Level (Microphone L R) Audacity will then begin monitoring sound going into your microphone 3. Test the audio input levels by speaking/playing into the mic, and check the display lights on the Focusrite Device to see if your gain setting is correct. If the lights are displaying orange and red then it s too loud and you will need to turn down the gain knob for that input (1 or 2) If the display is consistently sitting at -20 or below you may need to turn up the gain knob for that input Once you've selected your recording device and tested/adjusted the gain you are ready to record! Importing Audio from an Existing File To edit a pre-existing audio file, open your File Explorer and find the audio file. Then drag and drop it into the audio track area of Audacity. Audacity will create a new track for it, and name the track with the same as the name as the original audio file. North Vancouver City Library 4
PART III: RECORDING Start Recording To begin recording click the round red Record button. This immediately creates a new track, and you can begin. Click the square Stop button to stop recording To continue recording on the same track, just press Record again Don t record for more than 5 minutes at a time! Make sure you press Stop regularly to avoid system freezes Record on a New Track To record on a new track, click Tracks > Add New > Mono Track (for recording from microphones) When you press record on a new track, Audacity will begin recording at the beginning of the timeline, and play the previous track while you record the new one. If you don t want to hear the first track, click the Mute button on that track. If you want to begin recording at place other than the beginning of the timeline, click the spot on the first track where you want the second track to begin. Then click record, and a new track will be created, beginning at the place on the timeline that you've selected. Recording multiple tracks simultaneously Audacity is not designed to record more than one track simultaneously. You will need to use a more advanced digital audio workstation app like Pro Tools 12 in order to do this. North Vancouver City Library 5
PART IV: PLAYBACK & SELECTION TOOLS Working with the Cursor The cursor toolbar allows you to change what the mouse does when you click an audio track: Selection Tool: highlight a portion of audio to delete it or apply effects to it Envelope Tool: allows you to adjust the volume of the track, including ducking specific portions. Time Shift Tool: move an audio clip forwards, backwards, or even into/out of a track Zoom Tool: when selected, left-click anywhere on a track to zoom in, and right-click to zoom out. Return to the beginning of the project Enable the selection tool and click once at the 0.0 mark of the audio track to move the playback cursor. Make sure to click in the audio track NOT the timeline in order to move the playback cursor. Start/Stop/Pause Playback Hit the spacebar key on your keyboard to stop and start playback, or click the Play, Pause, and/or Stop buttons at the top left of the toolbar. Selecting Audio In order to remove or apply effects to a portion of audio within a track you will need to first select it. To do that, move your mouse over the beginning of the area that you want to select and make sure you're seeing the selection cursor (it looks like an I). Then click and drag your mouse across the area the section will be highlighted in grey when it is selected. If you want to change the start or end point of the selection, hold down the shift key and click and drag the mouse forward from the end of the selection, or backwards from the beginning. North Vancouver City Library 6
PART V: BASIC AUDIO CLIP EDITING Deleting Audio Tracks To delete an entire audio track, click on the X at the top left corner of the track Deleting Portions of Audio from a Single Track To delete a portion of audio you'll need to first select the part you want to remove (see "selecting audio" above). With your selection highlighted, hit the Delete key on your keyboard. This will immediately delete that segment of audio, and shift all the other audio backwards so there's no gap left. However, if you want to leave a gap where you deleted a segment of audio, instead of hitting the delete key on your keyboard, click Edit and choose Remove Special > Split Delete. Splitting Audio Tracks Splitting an audio track is useful if you want to insert new audio clips in the middle of an already existing audio track. To make a split make sure you're on the selection tool, and then click the spot on the audio track where you want to make the split. Then go to Edit > Clip Boundaries > Split. Moving Audio Clips In order to move an audio clip backwards/forwards in the timeline you need to have the Time Shift Tool selected. If the audio clip you want to move is part of a longer audio track, then you will first need to split it off from the rest of your audio track (see above). Once you have the time shift tool enabled and the audio clip that you want to move separated from other tracks, all you need to do is click anywhere in the audio clip and drag the audio clip forwards or backwards. You can even drag a clip into a different track by pulling it up or down into that track. North Vancouver City Library 7
Joining Audio Tracks If you have a single track with multiple clips in it you will see lines or even gaps between segments of your audio. To join the separate clips into a single audio track (which will make it easier to edit), make sure you have the selection tool on, and then make a selection that covers the ends of both tracks. Then click Edit > Clip Boundaries > Join. PART VI: BASIC VOLUME EDITING Recorded Volume vs. Playback Volume In audio recording the volume that you're hearing through your headphones or speakers is not the actual recording volume of your project what you're hearing through your computer is just the volume that your computer s speakers are turned up to. The tools that have the microphone symbol are for the actual volume of the recording. The tools that have the speaker symbol are for the volume of your computer speakers. When you are listening to your recording on playback, don t take what you're hearing from your headphones or computer speakers as the actual volume of your recording you re just hearing the volume of your computer s speakers. To tell how loud your actual recording is, you want to check the levels on the Audacity Recording Meter Toolbar. As discussed in Part II, if North Vancouver City Library 8
your recording levels are regularly in the red you need to turn the microphone input dial down. If your recording is sitting under 20 you want to turn the microphone input dial up. But if you can't get the volume right at the actual time of recording there are some tools you can use to adjust it after. Adjusting the Volume for the Entire Track To adjust the volume of an entire track use the slider in the panel at the beginning of your track. Drag the dial to the right (the + side) to turn the track's volume up, or to the left (the side) to turn the track's volume down. Adjusting the Volume for Portions of a Track Audacity's Envelope Tool allows you to control the volume on specific parts of a track. The Envelope tool is found in the toolbar next to the selection cursor click it once to enable it. Once it is enabled, you can drag up/down on the track to increase/decrease the volume in portions. We recommend checking out the Lynda.com video on the Envelope Tool from the Learning Audacity course, available at https://tinyurl.com/yb5tqhk7. Note that Lynda.com is available for free to North Vancouver City Residents with a NVCL library card. Fade In/Out In order to apply a fade in/out effect on your audio track you first want to cut off any silent parts at the beginning and end of your track if you leave them in the fade effect will include these silent parts in its fade calculation, and you'll still end up with an abrupt beginning/end. Select the silent parts by enabling the selection tool, then clicking and dragging to the right or left over any flat lines at the beginning/end of your track. Once the area is selected (in grey), click delete on your keyboard. To create a fade in/out start by enabling the selection tool, and then select audio that you want to apply the fade to by clicking and dragging over the portion of audio for example, to fade in, click on the beginning of the track, and drag to the right until you've got a few seconds of audio selected. Then click on Effect up in the toolbar, and choose either Fade In or Fade Out. North Vancouver City Library 9
PART VII: EXPORTING TO A MUSIC FILE When you are finished editing your project and are ready to export it to a music file, go to File in the toolbar and choose Export. Choose what file format you want to export as: MP3: small, compressed file type. Good for sharing online, but some quality loss will result. WAV: high-quality, uncompressed audio file. We recommend exporting a.wav copy of your recording so you always have your original highquality version. You can always export again to get an.mp3 version to share. Next, select where you want your exported file saved to. You could choose the Desktop, or your USB stick. You can always change You will next be prompted to enter some information about your audio file we recommend at least entering an Artist Name and a Track Title. Then click OK, and Audacity will begin exporting your project file to a playable, shareable audio file. PART VIII: SAVING YOUR FILES AT THE LIBRARY If you are on a library computer you will need to take your files with you on a USB stick or uploaded to Cloud Storage in order to save them. If you have not finished working on your project and plan to return to the library to continue working later, there are two items you will need to get off the library's computer the Project File and the Project Folder. If you have finished working on your project and have exported a final audio file, there will be three the Audio File (mp3 or wav) plus the original project file and folder. Plug in your USB stick or external drive, and drag and drop your Project File, Project Folder, and, if finished, your.mp3 or.wav audio file into your USB stick. Then eject your stick, unplug it, and you can shut down the computer. North Vancouver City Library 10