PLEASE NOTE: EVERY ACTIVITY IN THIS SECTION MUST BE SAVED AS A WAV AND UPLOADED TO YOUR BOX.COM FOLDER FOR GRADING. Multitrack Recording There will often be times when you will want to record more than one track. One example of this is if you are recording a song. There is usually a separate track for each instrument and each vocal part. The tracks are recorded one at a time. When you decide that you want to record another track, simply click the record button again and another track appears beneath the previous track, and starts recording. A "Click Track" is often used to help in keeping all the parts of a song in sync. Generating the Click Track is the first step in the process. To generate a Click Track: 1. Go to the 'Generate' menu and select 'Click Track'. 2. Type in the tempo you would like (let's use 120) 3. Leave the rest at the default settings. 4. Click 'OK' Record with the Click 1. Start a new project. Choose 'File', then 'New' 2. Generate your Click Track. 3. Press the record button to start recording in track 2. For 10 seconds, make a low, bass drum sound in time with every click. 4. Press the stop button. 5. Press the record button again to record another track. This time make a snare drum sound with every second click. 6. Press the stop button. Listen to your recording. How well did you stay in sync with the Click Track? Staying with the Click takes practice. It is an essential skill for recording musicians.
When finished the multitrack recording, the click track is muted by clicking on the mute button in the track header, or even deleted altogether by clicking on the small x in the top left of the track header. A song can then be saved or exported without the Click. Time to learn to edit audio! Here you will learn: - how to delete - how to cut and paste - how to copy and paste - how to split - how to insert silence http://wikieducator.org/using_audacity/editing_tracks In order to practice the next sections, please create a recording of your voice saying your first and last name. Save the project as a wav with your first and last name as the title Delete Follow the steps to learn to delete audio. 1. Open the Audacity Project file of you speaking your name. 2. Choose the 'select tool' by clicking on it. 3. Listen to the file. 4. Select the part of the file where you say your last name. To do this, with your mouse, leftclick and hold down the left mouse button as you drag the select tool over the part of the waveform where you say your last name, then let the mouse-button up. (This can also be done with a track pad if you prefer to use one.) Delete is forever 5. To delete the selected audio, go to the 'Edit' menu, then 'Remove audio or labels' and choose 'Delete' or simply press the delete key on your computer keyboard. The selected part of the waveform disappears! 6. Click the 'File' menu, the 'Save as' in the drop down list to re-save your file. Make sure to give it a new name so it does not write over your first file, for example, "first name-stew.aup" This new file only says your first name. Cut and Paste Sometimes you might not want to delete a section of your audio forever, but you may want to move it to another place in the recording. To do this we cut and paste. This time lets import an MP3 to use. Import the file of you saying your full name. (remember, 'Project, menu, then 'Import Audio)
Follow the steps to learn to cut and paste. 1. Choose the select tool and select the part of the waveform where you say your first name. 2. In the 'Edit' menu, select 'remove audio or labels', then 'Cut'. Alternately, you could click on the button that has a picture of scissors on it. The selected part of the waveform disappears. 3. Move your cursor by clicking at the end of the waveform 4. From the 'Edit' menu choose 'Paste' Your recording now says your last name and then your first name. Export your MP3 file to your desired location with a new name (last_name_first_name_dent_stew.mp3) by choosing 'File', 'Export MP3'. Split Creating a split in a track is an easy process. If you want to add something in the middle of a track that you have already recorded you may want to split the track. Splitting is also useful when you are combining audio with video and you want to move the audio so that it lines up with some event in the video. Follow the directions below for most operating systems (see note below). 1. Start a new audacity project. (Click 'File', 'New') 2. Record yourself saying your first and last name, wait for a couple of seconds, then say your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, please use a name you like. :) 3. Use the select tool to select and your last name. 4. From the 'Edit' menu choose 'Clip Boundaries', then the 'Split New' command. Your last name will disappear from the first track and appear in a new track under the first one. There will be silence in its place in track one.
5. In track one, select and delete the space between the waveforms of your first and middle names. 6. Choose the 'Timeshift' tool, click on your last name and drag it to the right, until it is just past the waveform of your middle name. Recombine the tracks. 7. In the 'Edit' menu, choose, 'Select', 'All'. 8. In the 'Tracks' menu, choose 'Mix and Render'. Your tracks combine into one.
Now, when you play the file, you will hear yourself saying your first name, middle name and last name. (On some Mac and older Windows operating systems, the split process is a little different. If the outlined steps do not work for you, watch the video below to see the different split process.) Silence There may be times when you are making more advanced recordings that you will want to remove some audio from your recording but you do not want to delete the time from the recording. This may occur if you have audio where a mistake is made, or something is said that needs to be removed. For example, it might happen that an unwanted noise is heard during a recording of a track. Other than the offending noise, the recording is very good. Simply deleting the noise may interupt the flow of the recording. If this is the case, you maybe able to fix the problem of the unwanted noise by generating silence in its place. To do this, make a new recording of yourself counting slowly and evenly from one to four. Keep the counting even, but in between three and four, cough. Like this: 1 2 3 cough 4. If you delete the cough, the word four will move closer to the word three and the counting will not sound even. 1 2 3 4 Instead use the 'Select' tool to select the waveform of the cough, then from the 'Generate' menu choose 'Silence' When the Silence Generator window pops up choose 'OK'. The waveform of the cough will disappear and in its place there will be silence. When you play back the file, your counting will remain even and the icky cough will be gone! In music and movies, audio effects are often added. Some effects make the recording sound better to our ears, some make it sound funny.
This part of the unit shows you how to add some audio effects. You will try out the following effects: Normalize Fade In, Fade Out Change Tempo Change Pitch Change Speed Reverb Delay Normalize is used to make audio as loud as possible without distorting. Start a new project in Audacity. Record yourself quietly singing happy birthday, or a short part of one of your favorite songs. Listen to your short recording. Select all the song. ('Edit' menu, 'Select All') From the 'Effects' menu, choose 'Normalize'. Listen to the difference. Fade in, Fade out Fades are nice effects at the beginning and ending of some songs. Import the MP3 of the song you recorded and normalized in the previous exercise, 1.7.1. With the 'Select' tool, click and drag a small section of the beginning of your song. From the 'Effects' menu, choose either 'Fade In'. Select a small section from at the end of your song. From the 'Effects' menu, choose either 'Fade Out'. Listen and note the difference in your song. Change Tempo 1. Import the MP3 of the song you recorded in the 1.7.1 'Normalize' exercise. 2. 'Select All' of your file (from the 'Edit' menu choose 'Select', then 'All'). 3. Choose 'Change Tempo' from the 'Effect' menu. 4. To increase the tempo of your recording, use a positive value for the percent change. To slow it down, use a negative value/
5. Click 'OK' Listen to how your recording has changed! Notice that changing the tempo speeds up or slows down the pace without affecting the pitch of your voice. Change Pitch 1. Import the MP3 of the song you recorded in the 1.7.1 'Normalize' exercise. 2. 'Select All' of your file and choose 'Change Pitch' from the 'Effects' menu. 3. Go to the 'Effect' menu and click 'Change Pitch'. 4. For a higher pitch, use a positive number in the 'semitones (halfsteps)' box. If you would like the pitch to be lower, use a negative number. 5. Let's choose 8, to make it higher!. 6. Click 'OK' Listen to how your recording has changed! Reverb Reverb can be added to give the effect of being in a large room, a cathedral, or even a cave! Let's have some fun and add a lot of reverb to create an echo effect! 1. Import the MP3 of the song you recorded in the 1.7.1 'Normalize' exercise. 2. Go to the 'Effect' menu and choose echo. 3. Set your 'Delay Time' to 0.5 4. Set your 'Decay Factor' to 0.6. 5. Click 'OK' Listen to how your recording has changed!
Robot Voice Some of the effects we can add are only for special circumstances. Let's make your voice sound like a robot! 1. Import the MP3 of the song you recorded in the 1.7.1 'Normalize' exercise. 2. 'Select All' of your file. 3. In the 'Effect' menu, scroll down until you find 'Delay'. Click it. 4. Set the 'Delay time' to 0.009. 5. Set the 'Number of echoes' to 30. 6. Click 'OK' 7. Go back to the 'Effect' menu and choose 'Repeat Delay' from the top of the list. Do this at least 4 times. After repeating the delay 4 times, listen to your recording. You may have to repeat this step as many as 8-12 times to achieve the desired effect. 8. When you like the "robot-ness" of your voice, you are done!