Audacity users
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@franniezest Jan 2022
Hi are there any other FAWMers using Audacity? It’s the only software I’m familiar with so I’ve been sticking with it but there’s so much I still don’t know so I thought I’d create a thread for us all to be able to ask questions and share tips.
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@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
Been using it since 2013, still learning new tricks with it.
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@candle Jan 2022
I use it post-Jeskola Buzz (my Tracker/DAW) to convert WAV files to MP3s & do a bit of trimming at the start & end of the recordings. I also use it to edit samples before I drop them into Buzz. It's a handy all-purpose WAV editor that has been part of my Buzz workflow for years.
See You In The Shadows… -
@franniezest Jan 2022
Awesome nice to meet you all!
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@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@franniezest Thanks for starting this thread! I'm interested to learn more and compare notes with other audacious folks :)
If you're interested in branching out, we have a group started for BandLab users to collaborate and learn from each other. It has some features that Audacity doesn't (and vice versa, that's why I use both). Learning a new workstation during FAWM is a lot but I'm hoping to keep checking in with the group throughout the year.
No pressure, just seemed worth mentioning. -
@candle Jan 2022
One thing I do like is that you can customize the hot key bindings. I come from a Video Editing background & have gotten used to the industry-standard hotkeys in video editors. So I've changed Audacity's default key bindings to closer match the Video Editing bindings that my mind/fingers are so familiar with. It's made my workflow within Audacity so much quicker now that I'm able to manipulate audio clips in the same way I'm used to manipulating video clips.
See You In The Shadows… -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@candle I'm a recovering Luddite so I don't know any of the default function keys, let alone how to tweak them, but that is something I keep meaning to learn. Bookmarked the Audacity manual to add to my reading assignments.
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@candle Jan 2022
@gardeningangel1, the great thing about hotkeys is that they make editing so much faster when combined with the mouse. Basically, if you have one hand on your mouse & the other on your keyboard, you can edit with surprising speed as long as you are familiar with the hotkeys. For video editing, the standard is "I" for selection start"; "O" for selection end (In/Out respectively); "J" for scrubbing in reverse; "K" for play/pause & "L" for scrubbing forward. IOJKL are in a convenient pattern on a QWERTY keyboard (standard keyboards) and make for really fast control of the playback head & selections. I've also added "M" as my goto "Select None" in order to clear any selections I've made. Again, because the "M" key is located conveniently close to the IOJKL keys. But the great thing about Audacity is that you can set the Hotkeys to be anything you want - so whatever works for you. You just go into: Edit -> Preferences -> Keyboard & you can modify just about every command available to you in the program. It really is a powerful feature, one I wish a lot of other software had (customizing hotkeys, that is).
See You In The Shadows… -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@candle That's awesome! Will likely help my frozen shoulder if I can work two handed. I keep planning to learn Reaper but then realize, I still haven't fully utilized all the features of Audacity.
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@candle Jan 2022
@gardeningangel1, found a PDF that lists some of the more common Audacity hotkeys. It might help to print it out (it's only 2 pages) & have it next to your computer as you edit in Audacity. I found that to be the best way to help me learn hotkeys for many programs.
https://tutorialtactic.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Audacity-Shortcuts-PDF.pdf
See You In The Shadows… -
@timfatchen Jan 2022
My main DAW is Cakewalk in various forms (FAWMs :D ) but I use Audacity extensively for some tasks because (a) it loads fast (b) for those tasks it works fast. Trimming each end of a recording. Using its AMAZINGLY EASY and v v good noise reduction feature, whether on individual tracks or final products. Tagging files (still can't work out how to do that easily in anything else). And setting peak amplification. Occasionally i will use the treble/bass balances and other things on the effects list but those are the main ones. PLUS: I do use it for live recording often, and especially where the "live" is using a serious synthesiser which hogs machine memory, because Audacity doesn't need much resources.
But I don't use it as a full-featured DAW. -
@cblack Jan 2022
Audacity is still hands-down the easiest software for recording that I've come across.
Set inputs.
Press the big red button.
Done. -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@candle The sacred codex!!! Thank you so much :)
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@frey Jan 2022
I always use it. Other editing software are way too complicated for me!
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@thedustcollector Jan 2022
perpetual audacity user here! i'm trying to make the move to Reaper, but it's extremely slow going because it's so alien to what i'm used to and audacity is, as @cblack pointed out, incredibly easy to record with. and given that most of what i do is layered vocal harmonies, that's mostly what i need.
it's not particularly suited for virtual instruments, though, hence poking gingerly at Reaper. -
@franniezest Jan 2022
Oh wow I wonder if I can set up a keyboard shortcut for “create new track” I’ve always wanted that to be only one click or one button while I have a guitar in hand - instead of three clicks !
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@headfirstonly Jan 2022
I'm with @timfatchen - I use Audacity for trimming files, encoding them as mp3s, and embedding metadata in files. Like Tim says, it's by no means a DAW, but it's fast and easy to use for basic tasks.
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@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@franniezest I don't see that in the magical codex but if you figure it out please share, that would be handy!
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@kanttila Jan 2022
I use Audacity in a vaguely silly way.
I record everything on it because of how simply it is and the fact that there are absolutely no latency issues.
But then I export all the tracks and mix them on Reaper. If you export all on Audacity it goes from the start of the tracks though, which creates a problem if a solo or something is recorded midway through the song. So I have to export tracks one by one in an overly complex manner we don't need to discuss.
I would record on Reaper but it not only has bad latency, that I can't seem to adjust correctly, it sometimes will stop for a split second when recording. In general it has too many issues on my laptop to be worth my time.
Audacity though? No issues, just perfectly usable and simple. My process takes more time then it needs to, but it saves me from the absolutely awful troubles recording with Reaper gives me.
To be able to hit alt-r to instantly start recording on a different track is a dream. Then just hitting the space bar, ctrl-z and alt-r if I make a mistake. So simple. -
@torsten Jan 2022
@franniezest If I remember rightly (have'nt been using Audacity since quite a while) a new track is created automaticly in Audacity when you hit "record" (or press "R"). If this doesn't work (but hitting record just glues audio to the end of an already existing track) I think you can mark the following in the preferences: "Recording - > record on a new track"
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@berni1954 Jan 2022
I had messed around with Audacity for ages, but the most useful feature I discovered quite by accident. I am referring to the ability to separate Stereo Tracks and work on each one separately. That's very useful to balance out the volumes if one track is not as loud (or too loud) in a recording.
Basically, what you do is click on the name of the track (in the box just above the Mute - Solo options) and you'll find a whole new menu section pops up. Among the options are "Split the Stereo Track" which will allow you to work on each track separately. -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@kanttila I do pretty much the same, but with BandLab instead of Reaper.
BandLab has all the fun MIDI stuff but working around the latency issue gets frustrating. -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@torsten YES!!! That did the trick. The default does just tack on to the end of the existing track.
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@candle Jan 2022
@franniezest the hotkey for recording on a new track is SHIFT+R, but again: you can go into Preferences & change it to whatever key combination works best for you.
Hope that helps!
See You In The Shadows… -
@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@berni1954 That is a cool trick!
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@fuzzy Jan 2022
Yes, thanx for tagging me here, @metalfoot.
I'm using the same version of Audacity I downloaded in 2011 and have always been super happy with it.
It's really easy to use and it does everything I need it to.
It may have fewer options compared to some other DAWs, but the Tyranny of Choice is a real thing, and I make the limitations work for me. -
@yam655 Jan 2022
@kanttila Try selecting the space from the start-of-recording to the start-of-track and "generate silence".
For multiple tracks, though, I think you can just select the common ~1 second or so at the very beginning of the tracks and "generate silence" for them all. (I tested, and it works as expected with multiple tracks selected.) With something at the start of each track, the tracks should all start at the same point and be aligned properly when imported. -
@yam655 Jan 2022
Using Audacity was the next logical step from recording on my phone at the time.
As mentioned by others, it really is easy to record and edit in it. It's easy to experiment with effects. It's also easy to export to MP3. (Historically, some of the tools I've used didn't support MP3.)
Even with my other tools, I regularly come back to Audacity for simple audio edits. There's a few things -- like splitting a 40 minute track in to 14 song-length tracks -- that are super easy to do in Audacity, but I wouldn't have a clue how to do in other apps.
Audacity isn't really a DAW, though. You can experiment with effects in Audacity, but the effects are all destructive. With a DAW effects are not destructive, and you can tweak settings for various effects out-of-order.
For fluid tempo recordings, it is really hard to get the most out of a typical DAW. However, just the way effects are processed has typically been enough that I can do things in a DAW that I could never do in Audacity.
I consider Audacity a versatile multitrack audio editor. It is a valuable tool, even if it isn't a DAW.
I mean, fundamentally, DAWs all basically work the same. There's some learning curves of application-specific quirks and features, but most of the core things you know relate pretty well to other DAWs. Audacity isn't like that. It is its own thing, and mastering Audacity does not help with learning anything about a DAW. -
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@reinderd Jan 2022
I use Audacity for light post-production: volume normalization, fade-outs, edits and so on. Unlike the poster above who praised its lack of latency, I've had nothing but bad experiences recording in Audacity (on Mac) because the latency was so bad I couldn't keep time while recording. But I've got GarageBand and the Zoom R16 for that.
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@czep Jan 2022
Audacity user, beginner level. I would love to learn more. I use it for podcast editing as well as songs.
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@yam655 Jan 2022
@fuzzy Yeah, there are ways to make it work using Audacity best practices.
It gets a lot easier to use <effect-1> and <effect-2>, then tweak the setting for <effect-1> with a DAW. But that makes it easy to re-listen to the whole song while twiddling the settings for a single plugin.
Plus, with a DAW you can automate the ways effects are used. "The effect comes in <here>" or "the intensity of the effect varies from off at the beginning, low generally, but high in the bridge" or even just "the panning of this instrument wanders drunkenly from left to right and back again." Again, it's frequently possible to achieve similar effects in Audacity, but it is labor-intensive as it showcases how Audacity isn't really designed for that sort of thing.
The said, it is literally the fact that all the effects are destructive that makes it so light on resources. Nothing needs rendered real-time. It's just some light mixing. Changing this would make it significantly less useful for the people with older machines. -
@kanttila Jan 2022
@gardeningangel1 I just got a MIDI keyboard, the motioning and recording latency issues with Reaper made me feel hopeless about learning it! Then I realized it wasn't me that was out of time.
@yam655 Oh awesome it works perfectly! Thanks for the tip, that will save me time and annoyance in the future! -
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@yam655 Jan 2022
For folks who want to explore and experiment with Audacity, their DAW, or some other music application: I highly recommend you try Song Skirmishes, or at least try to make a song with the song skirmish "1 hour" constraint.
The various effects can be too intimidating to try if you have all the time in the world, but if you have one hour it's possible to quickly explore and experiment and grow. (It's like how the time limits associated with classwork force people to get out of their comfort zones.)
The year I did "Not Crapcapella" I had a goal of not posting acapella -- but I only really knew how to sing. It was a FAWM, and -- except for one song -- they were all done within 1 hour skirmish time constraints. (Usually skirmishes.) https://yam655.com/p/not_crapcapella/
The thing is, when a one-hour song experiment "fails," you often learn things you didn't know you didn't know, and it can allow you to perform better searches for the information later. -
@hyljetronic Jan 2022
I love Audacity. I actually made my first FAWM album last year almost completely "in the box", as in I only used Audacity's tonegenerators for my pieces. This year I'm planning to use Ableton, though. Lets see how long that decision holds ;)
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@gardeningangel1 Jan 2022
@kanttila If I may stray off-topic a bit, I was recording 4-track in a garage during a heat wave and getting frustrated because the tuning kept getting off and the click wasn't lining up and I thought the heat was just messing with my guitars. Turned out the tape was melting.
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@franniezest Jan 2022
Thanks so much for the new track keyboard shortcut tip!!! Cannot wait to use that
Tape melting?!!!!!!!!!!! Yikes -
@candle Jan 2022
@franniezest, glad I could help :D
See You In The Shadows… -
@ben Jan 2022
I've used Audacity for I forget how long, maybe 15+ years? I previously used N-Track Studio back in the mid-late 1990s, it crashed a lot but it was as simple as Audacity, just hit the red button and you're recording a new track while the others play back.
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@griffith10 Feb 2022
I'm also an Audacity user, for a few years. Still lots to learn. Latency was a problem until I found the fix. It's all explained in Audacity's help.
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@suscotting Feb 2022
Total technophobe but I can at least do the basics in Audacity.. it’s quite friendly and I’ll probably stay there forever