Audacity Assistance Needed

[Kitten23]

Back in the stone-age, when programs were placed on tapes (anyone remember them?), I was quite adept at editing my music.  Fast forward (another cassette tape reference ) to today and I have to edit music on my computer and burn it to a cd.  I'm not quite as skilled at that and am asking for any assistance I can get.

Anyone here use Audacity to edit music?

Thanks!

[alejeather]

Do you have any specific questions? If you have experience cutting the "old-fashioned" way, then you shouldn't have too much trouble doing it with Audacity. The concept is baaasically the same. I say basically because you have a lot more flexibility to go back and add in more than you did when you were working with tape. To me, the hardest part is always figuring out where I want to cut it.

The way I work with Audacity is roughly this:
1. Import my chosen song
2. Copy roughly the first section I want onto another track. (make sure you add a stereo track if your music is stereo, which most is)
3. Copy other sections I'm considering onto other tracks, sliding them backwards and forward in time, trimming off bits
     (Slide - There's a tool with arrows pointing left and right near the cursor button; deleting - highlight section to delete then press delete button)
4. Listen to how transitions sound when played together. I always have a ton of tracks open at a time, and mute ones I don't want to play.
5. Fade out any sections that may need it, if a blunt cut doesn't work.
     (highlight the section to fade, then select effects -> Fade Out)
6. While I'm working, I just save as .aup
7. Once I've arrived at something I like, I delete any tracks that contain cuts I ended up not using, then I export to .wav which can then be burned onto a CD.

Hope that helps a bit. It's a bit of an art form, deciding which bits to cut, but that's always been hard! But now, with digital you have the option to go back and try again much more easily

[Live2Sk8]

Hi Kitten23 (I love your screen name!  and your blog), I am no expert at editing music at all but I successfully used Audacity to edit music recently.  The hardest part for me was figuring out how to start.  I just wasn't sure where to click and how to highlight my music.  Youtube came to the rescue - I found a tutorial on Youtube that showed exactly how to get started, and from there, it was very easy!

I tried to find the exact tutorial that I used but I can't find it now.  Go to Youtube, and search on 'Audacity tutorial for beginners' and many will come up.

Good luck.

[rd350]

I don't know but wanted to say I absolutely remember cassettes! I was a sound engineer when I was 16 and my expertise was editing 1/4" tape the old fashioned way, with a razor blade!  I loved that.  Left the field when it began going digital.  Good luck!

[Doubletoe]

I also edit using Audacity and pretty much use the same process as Alejeather.  When I downloaded the software, there was a tutorial (in PDF format, I think) that I downloaded and used as reference to teach myself the program.  Having said that, a video is worth a million words, so you might want to check out this 3-part YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7BuceavV-Y

[Kitten23]

Thank you all!!!  I had been getting an error message, but I got that straightened out.  Now, to edit my program how I want it.  I'm going to check out the video because I'm still doing something wrong, but not quite sure what it is.

Seriously, tapes were easier.

[Doubletoe]

Hang in there.  The quality of what you can do in Audacity is so beyond anything you could do with tapes that once you get a hang of it you will love it!

[4711]

once you figure it out, you will be golden and whip a new one out in no time flat!

[amy1984]

I found audacity really clunky but then again I used to be a radio producer and I'm used to a bit more creature comforts when editing.  I use an old version of Adobe Audition called cool edit.  I'd love to have audition, but the subscription based service makes it ridiculously expensive... more so than pro tools and such which is absolutely ridiculous.  This *ahem* old version of Audition is easily find-able if one were to *ahem* look around the net for it.  Not that I should be encouraging you to.  But in all honesty, when compared to free programs, even this outdated version is way better.  And it's so much easier to use.  Even with Audacity, if you run into any specific problems, feel free to PM me and I can help you out.  Heck, if you send me the pieces, I'd sew them together even.  I do this stuff for fun.

[Kitten23]

Just wanted to give everyone an update.  It took around nine hours over three days, but I was finally able to edit my music. It's not perfect, but it'll do for now. 

Thank you all for your assistance.  Hope to see you on the ice soon!

[4711]

Not bad for a first time!