Recording your Voice Tutorials 3 - Basic Uses of Audacity Wayne B. Dickerson In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to use Audacity to perform some basic functions, namely, to record, edit, save and transmit your audio assignments. Remember: This tutorial will move along automatically. However, if you want to pause, or go back a slide, or move forward or resume playing, just right-click your mouse on the screen for these options. To return to the main menu, just press the Escape key. Now that you ve installed Audacity and set the computer and Audacity to make the best possible recordings, you are ready to start doing your assignments. The first thing we need to do is make a few sample recordings to check how the computer and Audacity are working together. Then we will demonstrate how to add one, two, three, or more separate recordings to the same sound file. This is important because you will save the various recordings you make over several days in single digital file, and you will submit this single file to your instructor when it is time. Next we will talk about editing our recordings: We rarely make perfect recordings the first time. Sometimes we have to stop to correct things, or we have to pause to practice some more or to let a noisy airplane go by. Finally, we offer some advice on how to submit your digital file to your instructor. In your course syllabus, your first assignment will look something like this. Notice the word Orange in parentheses after the assignment. If you were using cassette tapes for your recording assignments, you would choose the tape with the orange label. 1
Each new recording assignment, labeled Orange, would go on the same orange tape until it is time to turn in the orange cassette. When the time comes to turn in the orange cassette, you will see this notice on the syllabus. It shows all the recordings that should be on the same orange cassette. Similarly, when you make digital recordings, the filename of your first recording will be Orange 1. You will put into this same audio file all the recordings that show the word Orange after the assignment. When it is time for you to turn in your Orange 1 sound recordings, you will submit your Orange 1 audio file instead of turning in a cassette tape. Now let s move along to the task of making sample recordings to be sure everything is working well. First, try to find a quiet environment in which to record; microphones pick up EVERYTHING! Then, when you are ready, bring your microphone to within an inch or two of your mouth for optimal clarity. 2
To make your first sample recording, start with the microphone volume slider about two-thirds of the way to maximum, as noted by the red arrow. Then click the red Record button to start recording. You can click the yellow Stop button when you re finished. Or if you hit the space bar, that will also stop the recording. Your first recording will be simple. Begin by saying, This is orange recording number 1. Then click the yellow Stop button to stop. When you click Stop, or hit the spacebar, Audacity will put the wave form of your recording on the screen in a single track. To listen to your recording, you can press the green Play button, or you can just press the spacebar once again. (Bottom slide) Now, let s take a moment to analyze this test recording. You can listen to the recording to see that you have actually recorded sound. But listening is not the best way to tell if you have a good recording. A better test is to look at the size of the sound waves. Ideally, the up and down spikes of the sound waves should be + or - 5 or greater but not SO much greater that the spikes are cut off at top and bottom that would be distortion. With this kind of recording, the listener should not have to turn up the volume past the mid-point. Even with your playback volume half-way up, you will still have a sound that is easy to hear. In this recording, the waves peak slightly above +5 and below -5. So the recording is pretty good. If the computer settings and Audacity settings are correct, the microphone volume slider could be moved a little more to the right to improve this recording somewhat. 3
If you did that, the result might look like this. And this would be even better. Of course, if you moved the volume slider too much, you might distort the recording. The peaks go off the scale on the top and bottom. The audio quality will sound bad. In this case, the volume slider should be moved to the left to improve this recording. So if you get this kind of results, you would want to delete it. Simply click on the X in the upper left corner of the track and try again. 4
On the other hand, instead of volume that is too high, you might see this result: The volume in this recording is too low to allow comfortable listening. It cannot be improved by using the microphone volume slider. Instead, we should check to see that the computer was set to Microphone Boost. If the boost was not selected, it should be. If it was selected, then the speaker s mouth was likely too far from the microphone. One inch or so away is about right. Delete this file by clicking on the X, too. These examples should help you judge the audio quality of your recording. If you do not change the settings, they should stay selected from one recording to the next. If they have changed, remember to look at the wave form you are recording to be sure you are getting the best quality. If it s too high, decrease it using the microphone volume slider. If it s slightly low, you can try to move the slider to the right. But if it is very low, remember to check the Microphone Boost and to narrow the distance between your mouth and the mic. After you have run your test, you should end up with a recorded title for your file, This is orange recording number 1. Now that you have a good recording, it is time to save your file. Under File, click on Save Project As... Give your file the name of Orange1, choose a directory where you will save it, and then click Save. The file is saved with the.aup extension, Audacity Project. 5
You are now ready to make another recording on the same file. Your assignment is to record General Script A - Open O Words. Notice that there is the reminder to record each word twice. The objective is to record this assignment so that it comes immediately after the title, This is orange recording number 1. So find your General Script A -Open O Words list. It is a page you download from the class web. It looks like this: In Audacity, open Orange1.aup if it is not already open. Your next recording will not appear on the same track as This is orange recording number 1. Instead your second recording will appear on a second track below the first recording. To be sure that the recordings do not overlap in time, take your cursor and click at the end of the first recording. Your cursor will turn into a hand when you click, and a vertical black line will appear at the end of the recording. Then proceed to record General Script A - Open O Words, starting with the name of the handout, the title of the section, then say each word twice. 6
When you end, you click on the Yellow Stop button or simply hit the spacebar. Your Audacity screen will look like this: If you happen to forget to click your cursor at the end of the previous recording, your new recording will end up wherever your cursor was. If your cursor happened to be somewhere in your first recording, your second recording will end up under the first recording. That is, it will overlap in time and be unintelligible gibberish when played. (Bottom slide) This is not a serious problem because you can easily fix it. Go up to the top lefthand corner of Audacity and click on the two-headed arrow. This is the Time Shift Tool. When you click and hold down the left mouse button on the track that s out-of-place, you can drag the whole track to the position it should be in. Once it is in the right place, return to the upper lefthand corner of Audacity and click on the standard I-beam cursor to return to normal. After this, you can continue to add recordings every day in the same way until you complete all of the orange tape recordings. There is no practical limit to the number separate mono tracks you can add to a single file. I ve recorded more than 25 tracks on a single file with no problem at all. 7
(No audio during the movie) Now, let s deal with one of the realities of recording. The reality is that we rarely make a recording from start to finish without having to stop and correct some mistake, start over, or simply pause to do covert rehearsal or to find the next pages, or because we are interrupted. Stopping to correct and pausing are two different functions you should know about. Let s say you make a mistake and you need to start over and redo the whole track. There is nothing simpler. After you stop recording, just click the X in the upper lefthand corner of the track to remove the entire track. You are now ready to re-record the track. 8
But sometimes you make a mistake and need to repair just that error. In this case, you stop recording and go back to listen to the recording. You click on the track about where you think the error is. The cursor turns into a hand and a thin black vertical line appears across the recording to mark your starting point temporarily. From that point, you can now hold the left mouse button down and drag across the recording to the right, to the point where you have included the mistake. Press the spacebar or click the Play button to listen to what you have highlighted. If you started too early or too late or went too far or not far enough in highlighting the recording, you bring your hand cursor to the left edge of the highlighting and drag that edge to the right or to the left. Or you can bring the cursor to the right edge and drag that edge to the right or to the left...until you have highlighted the error. Now you have two choices. You can cut out the mistake by pressing the Cut button. The effect is to remove the mistake and bring the left and right edges together, closing the gap. This may be exactly what you want to do. For example if you made a mistake and immediately recorded a correction without stopping, then you would go back and remove the mistake, closing the gap and leaving the correction. But if you want to leave a space where the mistake came out, so you can replace the mistake with a correct version that you will record, then you should press the Silence Selection button. 9
The Silence Selection button will leave silence in your recording the same length as what you cut out. With the error cut out, the next task will be to record the correct word or phrase on the next track and insert it into the gap. Here s how we do it. First, click with your cursor at the left side of the silent gap and then make your recording. The repair appears on the track below. As we will see, it does not have to be the same size as the gap above. Next highlight the repair and cut it out of the lower track. In the upper track, be sure to highlight the silence and then use the Paste button to insert your repair into the silence. Your repair will fit perfectly into the gap. Finally remove the repair track by clicking on the X in the upper left corner of that track. (No audio during the movie) 10
In summary, there are several ways to fix a recording you are not happy with. You can, of course, start over by deleting the track with the error and beginning again. Alternatively, if you have recorded a repair immediately after making an error, you can find and remove the error with the Cut button. If you made a mistake and then stopped to make a repair, you would find the error and remove it with the Silence Selection button, leaving a gap in your recording. To make your repair, start by clicking on the left side of the gap, then record your patch. Next, cut out the patch, highlight the gap, then paste the repair into the gap. Now, what if you needed to pause your recording for a moment, for example to practice some more, or to answer the phone, or handle another interruption? You do not need to stop recording. Instead you could press the Pause button. When you are ready to resume recording, you can press the Pause button again. You can do this as many times as you need to. Finally, how do you save your Orange1 file to turn in? The process is called EXPORTING. You will find the Export command under File. You will export your audio file in an MP3 format because MP3 gives high quality results with a small file size. Audacity will tell you that the exporting function will mix all your separate tracks into a single track. That s why it is so important to start each new track where the previous track ends. Click on OK. When you are asked to give the file a name, call it Orange1 to match your assignment name and add your initials to the file name. Then save your audio file to a folder on your hard drive where you keep such course files. In this example, student WBD is submitting the Orange 1 assignment. So the filename reads Orange1-WBD. The color 11
(continued) name - Orange - the number - 1 - and your initials will help you and your instructor keep track of your assignments. Later on, there will be a Blue 2 sound file, an Orange 3 sound file, and Blue 4 sound file, and so on. (Top slide) When it is time to turn in your assignment, your instructor will give you a ticket to the instructor s drop box. The ticket is simply a URL which will open a folder in the instructor s NetFiles into which you can upload your assignment. You will use this same ticket throughout the semester. So keep it safe! When you paste the ticket into your Web browser, it will take you directly to the drop box where you will see an Upload button. (Middle slide) When you click on the Upload button, you can browse your computer to find the folder where you have stored your Orange 1 recording. When you have found the file, click OK to upload. Your sound file will be transferred to your instructor s drop box, and you will see a message that the upload was successful. That s all there is to it! 12
There are other useful features in Audacity. But these basics - for recording, editing, and transmitting your audio files - are sufficient for you to do a good job with your recording assignments..and have fun using Audacity! Total run time: 19:20 min 13