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1. You can change the units that are snapped to using the Set Selection Format option in the View Menu Snap To gt Snap Off Turns Snap To mode off letting you select arbitrary ranges of time Preferences opens the Preferences dialog View Menu Zoom In Zooms in on the horizontal axis of the audio displaying more detail about less time You can also use the zoom tool to zoom in on a particular part of the window Zoom Normal Zooms to the default view which displays about one inch per second Zoom Out Zooms out displaying less detail about more time Fit in Window Zooms out until the entire project just fits in the window Fit Vertically Resizes all of the tracks vertically so they all fit inside of the window if possible Zoom to Selection Zooms in or out so that the selection fills the window Set Selection Format lets you choose the formatting that is displayed at the bottom of the window indicating the current selection time Options include film video and audio CD frames seconds samples or pure time If you turn on Snap To mode in the Edit Menu the selection will snap to the frames or other quantization you have selected in this menu History Brings up the history window It shows all the actions you have performed during the current session including importing The right hand column shows the amount of hard disk space your operations used You can jump back and forth between editing steps quit
2. in effect making the program proprietary To prevent this we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone s free use or not licensed at all The precise terms and conditions for copying distribution and modification follow TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0 This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License The Program below refers to any such program or work and a work based on the Program means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law that is to say a work containing the Program or a portion of it either verbatim or with modifications and or translated into another language Hereinafter translation is included without limitation in the term modification Each licensee is addressed as you Activities other than copying distribution and modification are not covered by this License they are outside its scope The act of running the Program is not restricted and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program independent of having been made by running the Program Whether that is true depends on what the Program does 1 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program s source code as you receive it in any medium provided that you conspicuously and appropr
3. with the top track representing the left speaker and the bottom track representing the right speaker When tracks are joined into a stereo pair all edits automatically apply to both the left and right channel Split Stereo Track if the selected track is a stereo track a pair of left and right tracks joined together as a single track this operation splits them into two separate tracks that you can modify and edit independently Set Sample Format this determines the quality of the audio data and the amount of space it takes up 16 bit is the quality used by audio CD s and is the minimum quality that Audacity uses internally 8 bit audio files are automatically converted when you open them 24 bit is used in higher end audio hardware 32 bit float is the highest quality that Audacity supports and it is recommended that you use 32 bit float unless you have a slow computer or are running out of disk space Set Rate sets the number of samples per second of the track 44100 Hz is used by audio CDs Tracks can have different sample rates in Audacity they are automatically resampled to the project sample rate in the lower left corner of the window File Menu New creates a new empty window Open opens an audio file or an Audacity project in a new window unless the current window is empty To add audio files to an existing project window use one of the Import commands in the Project menu Close closes the current window asking
4. you may get clipping it will sound like pops clicks and noise To avoid this drag the gain slider on the tracks down to reduce their volume before mixing New Audio Track This creates a new empty Audio Track This command is rarely needed since importing recording and mixing automatically create new tracks as needed But you can use this to cut or copy data from an existing track and paste it into a blank track If that track was at a non default rate then you may need to use Set Rate from the Track Pop Down menu to set the correct sample rate New Stereo Track same as above but creates a stereo track You can also create a stereo track by joining two tracks using the track pop down menu New Label Track This creates a new Label Track which can be very useful for textual annotation New Time Track This creates a new Time Track which is used to vary the speed of playback over time Remove Tracks This command removes the selected track or tracks from the project Even if only part of a track is selected the entire track is removed You can also delete a track by clicking the X in its upper left corner To cut out only part of the audio in a track use Delete or Silence Align Tracks All the Align functions work on whole tracks or groups of tracks not on selections even if they span across multiple tracks They all operate by time shifting tracks moving them left or right making it easier to synchronize tracks or g
5. before you start recording Each meter shows several characteristics of the audio level at once e The right hand end of the meter corresponds to the point at which the audio will be clipped and the left hand end is silence e For stereo the top bar shows the left channel and the bottom bar shows the right channel e The brightest part of the bar shows the average audio level related to the loudness and the darker part of the bar shows the peak audio level e The peak hold line to the right of this shows the maximum audio level achieved in the last 3 seconds e Finally the clipping indicators on the far right of each meter will light up if clipping is detected meaning that the audio was too loud and will sound distorted If clipping is detected when you are recording you should stop lower the volume of your input source and start recording again from the start If the output meter clips then you need to make some or all of your tracks quieter using the track gain control If the level of the input recording source is too high you can try to lower the input level using the Mixer Toolbar but if this doesn t work you should try to lower the volume of the external input source e g your microphone cassette player or record player It is possible especially if you have an older slower computer that the Meter Toolbar may interfere with Audacity s ability to record or play audio with the highest quality because your computer is
6. main window view from audacity showing the tracks and waveforms Exit Quit closes all windows and exits Audacity prompting you to save any unsaved changes first Edit Menu Undo This will undo the last editing operation you performed to your project Audacity supports full unlimited undo meaning you can undo every editing operation back to when you opened the window Redo This will redo any editing operations that were just undone After you perform a new editing operation you can no longer redo the operations that were undone Cut Removes the selected audio data and places it on the clipboard Only one thing can be on the clipboard at a time but it may contain multiple tracks Copy Copies the selected audio data to the clipboard without removing it from the project Paste Inserts whatever is on the clipboard at the position of the selection or cursor in the project replacing whatever audio data is currently selected if any Trim Removes everything to the left and right of the selection Delete Removes the audio data that is currently selected without copying it to the clipboard Silence Erases the audio data currently selected replacing it with silence instead of removing it Split Moves the selected region into its own track or tracks replacing the affected portion of the original track with silence See the figure below a oe Duplicate Makes a copy of all or part of a track or set of tracks int
7. of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation If the Program does not specify a version number of this License you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation 10 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different write to the author to ask for permission For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation write to the Free Software Foundation we sometimes make exceptions for this Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally NO WARRANTY 11 BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING REPAIR OR CORRECTION 12 INNO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND OR REDISTR
8. so busy redrawing the meters that it doesn t have time to process enough audio In this is the case for you you can disable the Meter Toolbar in the Interface tab of the Preferences dialog Menu Bar Track Pop Down Menu Libertango w i E Name 3 t L Waveform dB Spectrum Pitch EAC The Track Pop Down Menu appears when you click in a track s title This lets you access a few special commands that apply to individual tracks Name lets you change the name of the track Move Track Up exchange places with the track above this one Move Track Down exchange places with the track below this one Waveform sets the display to Waveform this is the default way of visualizing audio Waveform dB similar to Waveform but on a logarithmic scale measured in decibels dB Spectrum display the track as a spectrogram showing the amount of energy in different frequency bands Pitch EAC highlights the contour of the fundamental frequency musical pitch of the audio using the Enhanced Autocorrelation EAC algorithm Mono makes this track a mono track meaning it is played out of just one speaker or played out of the left and right speakers equally Left Channel makes this track come out of only the left speaker Right Channel makes this track come out of only the right speaker Make Stereo Track if there is another track below this one joins them to make a single stereo track
9. the following e a Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine readable source code which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange or e b Accompany it with a written offer valid for at least three years to give any third party for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution a complete machine readable copy of the corresponding source code to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange or e c Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer in accord with Subsection b above The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it For an executable work complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains plus any associated interface definition files plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable However as a special exception the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed in either source or binary form with the major components compiler kernel and so on of the operating system on which the executable runs un
10. the label is the close box Click here to delete the track though you can Undo this operation To the right of the close box is the track s title Clicking on the title brings up the Track Pop Down Menu allowing you to rearrange tracks and change various track options The next line in the label tells you the channel of the track left right mono or stereo and the sample rate e g 44100 Hz is the audio CD rate Beneath that is the quality 32 bit float is high quality but takes up more disk space and 16 bit is the same quality as an audio CD The Mute button stops this track from playing The Solo button plays only this track or other solo tracks and overrides the Mute button Muting and soloing doesn t affect mixing or exporting just playback within Audacity The top slider is the gain control it affects the relative volume of the track By default it only lets you select multiples of 3 dB but if you hold down shift you can choose any level Be careful not to set it too high or you can exceed the maximum volume of a track which results in clipping The bottom slider is the pan control it affects the balance between the left and right speakers Vertical Ruler The Vertical Ruler is a guide to the levels you see in the waveforms A level of 1 0 or 1 0 is the maximum supported by the audio file anything beyond these levels will be clipped which can sound like distortion When the mouse is over the vertical ruler it ch
11. you again and you will be able to export MP3 files easily General Public License Note Audacity is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License GPL the full text of the license is below All of the source code to Audacity is available from http audacity sourceforge net However some of the libraries that Audacity is based on are distributed under the terms of different but GPL compatible licenses Version 2 June 1991 Copyright C 1989 1991 Free Software Foundation Inc 59 Temple Plac Suite 330 Boston MA 02111 1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document but changing it is not allowed Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it By contrast the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its users This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead You can apply it to your programs too When we speak of free software we are referring to freedom not price Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software and charge for th
12. Audio Tracks Click to create and edit control points Drag points off screen to delete them The Time Track has a ruler As you edit the warping the ruler will warp to show you at what time playback will reach each place in the audio MIDI Track incomplete Audacity currently supports displaying MIDI files if you import them using Import MIDI in the Project menu Audacity does not support playing recording or editing MIDI files It does not even support saving MIDI Tracks in a project file The current functionality is useful to only a small group of people who are studying algorithms that relate MIDI data to audio data and simply wish to see the visual representation of the MIDI data and how it lines up with the audio data Other Preferences Audio I O e Playback Device Use this control to select the device that will be used for playback audio output This is usually only applicable if your computer has more than one sound card e Recording Device Select the devce that will be used for recording audio input Note that many devices have multiple sources such as Microphone and Line in to select the input source you will need to use the Mixer Toolbar For finer control over audio I O open your system s Sound control panel or the control panel software that came with your sound card e Recording Channels Use this to select the number of channels to record simultaneously Select 1 for mono and 2 for stereo Audacity will s
13. IBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES INCLUDING ANY GENERAL SPECIAL INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES
14. anges to a magnifying glass By clicking you can zoom in vertically and by shift clicking or right clicking you can zoom back out You can zoom out as much as a factor of 2 which can be useful for editing envelopes When zooming vertically Audacity will automatically snap to the normal range of 1 1 when you get close If you are having trouble resetting the vertical ruler shift click a bunch of times until the range is 2 2 then click once to zoom back to 1 1 If you change the display on the Track Pop Down menu then the units of the vertical scale will change to reflect this Label Track asst Sour emes Drams enter Soror Label Tracks can be used to annotate an audio file They can be used for lyrics markers or notes and they can even be used to save selections To create a Label Track select New Label Track from the Project Menu Alternatively simply click or select where you would like to place a label and choose Add Label at Selection from the Project Menu and a Label Track will be created automatically if one doesn t already exist To add a new label click or select where you want the new label to appear then select Add Label at Selection from the Project Menu then type the name of the label and finally press Enter or click outside of the label In addition you can use the Add Label at Playback Position command from the Project Menu if you want to add a label at a certain place while you are listening By d
15. e easily by simply clicking on the entries in the window the same as selecting Undo or Redo many times in a row You can also discard Undo history to save disk space The history window can be kept open while you work Float Control Toolbar moves the Control Toolbar out of the window and into its own floating window so you can position it wherever you want The menu item changes to Dock Control Toolbar which you can use to put the toolbar back into the main window Float Edit Toolbar moves the Edit Toolbar out of the window and into its own floating window so you can position it wherever you want The menu item changes to Dock Edit Toolbar which you can use to put the toolbar back into the main window Float Meter Toolbar does the same thing for audacity s VU meters which you use to set recording levels and adjust playback Float Mixer Toolbar moves the Mixer Toolbar out of the window and into its own floating window as above Project Menu Import Audio This command is used to import audio from a standard audio format into your project Use this command if you already have a couple of tracks and you want to add another track to the same project maybe to mix them together You cannot use this option to import Audacity Projects The only way to combine two Audacity Projects is to open them in separate windows then copy and paste the tracks Import Labels This command takes a text file which contains time codes and labe
16. eal time playback Real time dither Dithering is used when converting high quality samples with a lot of dynamic range to CD quality samples with less dynamic range A small amount of dithering can make the audio sound a little bit better but it can also slow down processing a little bit This option lets you set the dithering used for real time playback High quality dither Dithering is used when converting high quality samples with a lot of dynamic range to CD quality samples with less dynamic range A small amount of dithering can make the audio sound a little bit better but it can also slow down processing a little bit This option lets you set the dithering used during Export and mixing File Formats When importing uncompressed audio files into Audacity o Makea copy of the file before editing safer Selecting this means that Audacity will take longer to import files but it will always have its own copy of any audio you are using in a project You can move change or throw away your files immediately after you open or import them into Audacity o Read directly from the original file faster Selecting this means that Audacity depends on your original audio files being there and only stores changes you make to these files If you move change or throw away one of the files you imported into Audacity your project may become unusable However because Audacity doesn t need to make copies of everything first it can import files
17. efault this command has a shortcut of Control M To edit the name of a label click anywhere in it Zoom in first if there are too many labels crowded together and you are unable to click on the one you want When a label is selected for editing it looks like the first label below allies r Gi ores Sras enter When editing the name of a label you are limited to using just the backspace key for editing There is currently no way to move the insertion point to append a letter to the beginning of a label Once a label is selected you can move to the next label by pressing Tab and move to the previous label by pressing Shift Tab To delete a label or multiple labels select the area containing the label flags you wish to delete and choose Silence from the Edit Menu Alternatively you can delete an individual label by clicking on it and pressing Backspace until you have deleted all of the characters in the label then pressing Enter To move labels use the normal editing commands like Cut Copy Paste Delete and Silence You can save a selection in a label When you create a new label the left selection edge determines the position of the label s flag However the right selection edge is also stored in the label and when you click on it the full original selection will be restored If you wish to apply this selection to only a subset of the tracks shift click in the label area to the left of each track s waveform to change whether each
18. ency Oscillator LFO Repeat repeats the selection a certain number of times This operation is quite fast and space efficient so it is practical to use it to create nearly infinite loops Reverse This effect reverses the selected audio temporally after the effect the end of the audio will be heard first and the beginning last Wahwah uses a moving bandpass filter to create its sound A low frequency oscillator LFO is used to control the movement of the filter throughout the frequency spectrum Adjusts the phase of the left and right channels when given a stereo selection so that the effect seems to travel across the speakers Plugins 1 to 15 etc These submenus contain any VST Ladspa or Nyquist plug ins loaded by audacity It is possible for a poorly written plug in to crash Audacity so always save your work before using a plug in effect Analyze Menu Plot Spectrum To use this feature first select a region of audio from a single track then select Plot Spectrum It opens up a window that displays the Power Spectrum of the audio over that region calculated using the Fast Fourier Transform The graph represents how much energy is in each frequency As you move the mouse over the display it shows you the nearest peak frequency This window can also display other common functions that are calculated using the Fast Fourier Transform including three versions of the Autocorrelation function The Enhanced Autocorrelation functi
19. es MP3 MPEG I Layer 3 This is a compressed audio format that is a very popular way to store music It can compress audio by a factor of 10 1 with very little degradation in quality Audacity can both import and export this format For more information on how to export MP3 files from within Audacity see Exporting MP3 Files Ogg Vorbis This compressed audio format was designed to be a free alternative to MP3 Ogg Vorbis files are not as common but they are about the same size as MP3 with better quality to rival AAC or WMA Audacity can import and export this format Envelope Editing Audacity lets you edit the amplitude envelope of a track directly using the Envelope Tool 7 Envelope tool Editing the amplitude envelope lets you change the volume of a track gradually over time by adding a number of control points to the track Each control point sets the amplitude volume at that point in time which can be as low as zero and as high as 150 of the normal maximum volume and the volume is interpolated smoothly between the points The image below shows a track with an amplitude envelope with the Envelope Tool selected 0 0 10 20 3 0 40 50 60 7 0 80 9 0 10 0 In the figure above there are five control points at 1 0 3 0 5 0 7 0 and 9 0 seconds Each control point has up to four handles arranged vertically The top and bottom handles are positioned at the target volume and the middle handles are positioned a quarter
20. et rid of silence at the beginning The cursor or selection stays in the same place unless you use Align and move cursor below Align and move cursor same as the functions above except that the cursor or selection is moved along with the tracks That allows you to shift the tracks without losing your relative place Add Label at Selection This menu item lets you create a new label at the current selection You can title the label by typing with the keyboard and then hitting Enter when you re done Add Label at Playback Position This menu item lets you create a new label at the current location where you are playing or recording Do this if you want to mark a certain passage while you re listening to it You can title the label by typing with the keyboard and then hitting Enter or Return when you re done Only available whilst audacity is playing Generate Menu If you choose an item from the Generate menu when there are no tracks in a project a new track is created Otherwise the current track is used If a track is selected and the cursor is placed in a single place in the track audio is inserted at the cursor position The default duration is 30 seconds The audio created will replace the any selection otherwise it is inserted into the track shifting up later parts of the track Silence inserts silence Tone you can create a Sine wave Square wave or Sawtooth wave White Noise inserts random audio samples w
21. ether or not you want to display the Edit Toolbar which has some common shortcuts for editing commands e Enable Mixer Toolbar Sets whether or not you want to display the Mixer Toolbar which lets you set the volume levels and input source e Enable Meter Toolbar Sets whether or not you want to display the Meter Toolbar for setting audio recording and playback levels e Quit Audacity upon closing last window By default on Windows and X Windows but not Mac OS Audacity quits when you close the last project window If you uncheck this box Audacity will open a new blank document instead of quitting To quit Audacity in this case you must specifically select Exit or Quit from the File menu e Enable dragging of left and right selection edges Normally when you move the mouse over the left and right edge of a selection the cursor changes to a left or right pointer and you can adjust that edge of the selection independently If you don t like this feature uncheck this box and then clicking will always create a new selection unless you hold down Shift to extend an existing selection e Language sets the language used by Audacity Language files are named audacity mo and are found in the Languages folder on Windows and Mac OS X or in usr share locale or usr local share locale on most Unix systems Audacity will detect new languages the next time you start it Keyboard This panel lets you change keyboard shortcuts All of the co
22. hich sounds like pure static Any items which appear after these three built ins are VST Ladspa or Nyquist plug ins It is possible for a poorly written plug in to crash Audacity so always save your work before using a plug in Note that any effect that doesn t take any audio as input will automatically be placed in the Generate menu Effect Menu The items in this menu only work when you have audio selected Audacity does not have any real time effects you must select the audio apply the effect and then listen to the results Most effects have a Preview button Clicking on this button plays up to three seconds of audio allowing you to hear what it will sound like after the effect is applied This is useful for fine tuning the effect parameters Repeat Last Effect selecting this command is a shortcut to applying the most recent effect with the same settings This is a convenient way to quickly apply the same effect to many different parts of a file Amplify changes the volume of the selected audio If you click the Allow clipping checkbox it will let you amplify so much that the audio ends up beyond the range of the waveform and is clipped distorted The default value when you open the effect is to amplifiy so that the loudest part of the selection is as loud as possible without distortion Bass Boost enhances the bass frequencies in the audio Change Pitch changes the pitch frequency of the selected audio without changing
23. http audacity sourceforge net help documentation Audacity User s Manual Table of Contents Toolbars Control Toolbar tools play button etc Mixer Toolbar volume controls input device Meter Toolbar Input and Output level meters Edit Toolbar editing shortcuts Menu Bar Track Pop Down Menu File Menu Edit Menu View Menu Project Menu Generate Menu Effect Menu Analyze Menu Help Menu Tracks Audio Track Label Track Time Track MIDI Track incomplete Other Preferences Sound File Formats Envelope Editing MP3 Exporting General Public License Toolbars Control Toolbar m 7 Pek d gt Fe i a D Editing Tools I Selection tool for selecting the range of audio you want to edit or listen to Z lt Envelope tool for changing the volume over time o Draw tool for modifying individual samples Zoom tool for zooming in and out el Timeshift tool for sliding tracks left or right x Multi tool lets you access all of these tools at once depending on the location of the mouse and the keys you are holding down Audio Control Buttons so Skip to Start moves the cursor to time 0 If you press Play at this point your project will play from the beginning Play starts playing audio at the cursor position If some audio is selected only the selection is played Loop if you hold down the Shift key the Play button changes to a L
24. iately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee 2 You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it thus forming a work based on the Program and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above provided that you also meet all of these conditions e a You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change e b You must cause any work that you distribute or publish that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License ec If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run you must cause it when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty or else saying that you provide a warranty and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions and telling the user how to view a co
25. in much less time Uncompressed Export Format This lets you select the format that Audacity will use when you export uncompressed files 11 common options are displayed in the list but you can also select Other and choose a nonstandard file format for Audacity to export Ogg Export Setup Use this control to set the quality of Ogg Vorbis exporting Ogg Vorbis is a compressed audio format similar to MP3 but free of patents and licensing fees A normal quality Ogg Vorbis file is encoded with a quality setting of 5 Note that unlike MP3 encoding Ogg Vorbis does not let you set a bitrate because some audio clips are easier to compress than others Increasing the quality will always increase the file size however MP3 Export Setup Use these controls to locate your MP3 encoder and set the quality of MP3 encoding Higher quality files take up more space so you will need to find the level of quality you feel is the best compromise For more information see Exporting MP3 Files Spectrograms You can view any audio track as a Spectrogram instead of a Waveform by selecting one of the Spectral views from the Track Pop Down Menu This dialog lets you adjust some of the settings for these spectrograms e FFT Size The size of the Fast Fourier Transform FFT affects how much vertical frequency detail you see Larger FFT sizes give you more bass resolution and less temporal timing resolution and they are slower e Grayscale Select th
26. is for gray spectrograms instead of colored ones e Maximum Frequency Set this value anywhere from a couple of hundred hertz to half the sample rate i e 22050 Hz if the sample rate is 44100 Hz For some applications such as speech recognition or pitch extraction very high frequencies are not important visually so this allows you to hide these and only focus on the ones you care about Directories Use this panel to set the location of Audacity s temporary directory folder Audacity uses this directory whenever you work on a project that you haven t saved as an Audacity Project AUP file yet You have to restart Audacity close and open it again for changes to the temporary directory to take effect Interface e Autoscroll while playing Scrolls the window for you while playing so that the playback cursor is always in the window This can hurt playback performance on slower computers e Always allow pausing Normally the Pause button is only enabled while you are playing or recording Checking this box allows you to set the pause button anytime which allows you to press Record and not have the recording start until you unpause it Sometimes starting a paused recording can be faster than starting to record in the first place e Update spectrogram while playing Because spectrograms are slower to draw normally they are not drawn during playback but this option lets you draw the spectrograms anyway e Enable Edit Toolbar Sets wh
27. is service if you wish that you receive source code or can get it if you want it that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs and that you know you can do these things To protect your rights we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software or if you modify it For example if you distribute copies of such a program whether gratis or for a fee you must give the recipients all the rights that you have You must make sure that they too receive or can get the source code And you must show them these terms so they know their rights We protect your rights with two steps 1 copyright the software and 2 offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy distribute and or modify the software Also for each author s protection and ours we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software If the software is modified by someone else and passed on we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors reputations Finally any free program is threatened constantly by software patents We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses
28. lar to Equalization lets you enhance or reduce arbitrary frequencies The curve here uses a linear scale for frequency Invert Flips the waveform vertically the same as a phase inversion in the analogue domain Noise Removal This effect lets you clean up noise from a recording First select a small piece of audio that is silent except for the noise select Noise Removal and click on the Get Noise Profile button Then select all of the audio you want filtered select Noise Removal again and click the Remove Noise button You can experiment with the slider to try to remove more or less noise It is normal for Noise Removal to result in some distortion It works best when the audio signal is much louder than the noise Normalize allows you to correct for DC offset a vertical displacement of the track and or amplify such that the maximum amplitude is a fixed amount 3 dB It s useful to normalize all of your tracks before mixing If you have a lot of tracks you may then need to use the track gain sliders to turn some down Nyquist Prompt for advanced users only Allows you to express arbitrary transormations using a powerful functional programming language See the Nyquist section of the Audacity website for more information Phaser the name Phaser comes from Phase Shifter because it works by combining phase shifted signals with the original signal The movement of the phase shifted signals is controlled using a Low Frequ
29. less that component itself accompanies the executable If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code 4 You may not copy modify sublicense or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License Any attempt otherwise to copy modify sublicense or distribute the Program is void and will automatically terminate your rights under this License However parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance 5 You are not required to accept this License since you have not signed it However nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License Therefore by modifying or distributing the Program or any work based on the Program you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so and all its terms and conditions for copying distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it 6 Each time you redistribute the Program or any work based on the Program the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy di
30. ls and turns them into a Label Track Import MIDI This menu command imports MIDI files and puts them into a MIDI Track Audacity can display MIDI files but cannot play edit or save them yet Import Raw Data This menu command allows you to open a file in virtually any uncompressed format When you select the file Audacity will analyze it and try to guess its format It will guess correctly about 90 of the time so you can try just pressing OK and listening to the result If it is not correct however you can use the options in the dialog to try some other possible encodings At the beginning of your imported track s you may notice a little bit of noise This is probably the file s header which Audacity was not able to parse Just zoom in and select the noise with the Selection Tool and then choose Delete from the Edit Menu Edit ID3 Tags Opens a dialog allowing you to edit the ID3 tags associated with a project for MP3 exporting Quick Mix This command mixes all of the selected tracks together If you are mixing stereo tracks or mixing tracks that are marked as Left or Right channel the result will be a stereo track two channels otherwise the result will be mono Your tracks are implicitly mixed whenever you hit the Play button and whenever you export This command offers a way to do it permanently and save the results to disk saving on playback resources Note that if you try to mix two very loud tracks together
31. mmands that appear in Audacity menus appear on the left along with a few other buttons that can get keyboard shortcuts To change a command first click on the command you want to change Then type the new keyboard shortcut on your keyboard Verify that the correct shortcut appears in the box below If it s what you want press the Set button Or to get rid of a keyboard shortcut press Clear To reset to Audacity s defaults press the Defaults button This will get rid of any changes you have made If you have customized your keyboard layout and want to share it with someone else you can press Save and save your complete keyboard layout as an XML file that you can share To load an existing layout press the Load button and locate the XML file Mouse This panel doesn t let you change anything but it lets you view all of the commands and actions that you can do using the mouse many by holding down extra modifier keys Sound File Formats Audacity Project format AUP Audacity projects are stored in an AUP file which is a format that has been highly optimized for Audacity so that it can open and save projects quickly In order to achieve this speed Audacity breaks larger audio files into several smaller pieces and stores these pieces in a directory with a similar name as the project For example if you name a project chanson then Audacity will create a project file called chanson aup to store the general information about your p
32. o new tracks See the figure below Select gt All Selects all of the audio in all of the tracks in the project Select gt Start to Cursor Selects from the beginning of the selected tracks to the cursor position Select gt Cursor to End Selects from the cursor position to the end of the selected tracks Find Zero Crossings Modifies the selection slightly so that both the left and right edge of the selection appear on a positive slope zero crossing This makes it easier to cut and paste audio without resulting in an audible clicking sound Selection Save Remembers the current selection or cursor position allowing you to restore it later Selection Restore Restores the cursor position to the last position saved by Selection Save Move Cursor gt to Track Start Moves the cursor to the start of the current track Move Cursor gt to Track End Move the cursor to the end of the currently selected track Move Cursor gt to Selection Start Moves the cursor to the start of the current selection Move Cursor gt to Selection End Moves the cursor to the end of the current selection Snap To gt Snap On Enable Snap To mode When Snap To mode is enabled the selection will be constrained to the nearest interval on the time scale by default the nearest second So if you click and drag from 4 2 seconds to 9 8 seconds it will result in a selection from 4 seconds to 10 seconds exactly
33. on is very good at identifying the pitch of a note The Analyze menu is intended for effects and plug in effects that do not modify the audio but simply open a dialog with some descriptive information Audacity also supports Analyze commands that create annotations in a Label Track Help Menu About Audacity displays the version number and credits If you compiled Audacity yourself check here to verify which optional modules were successfully compiled in Contents opens this reference guide in a searchable form Tracks Audio Track X Libertango Ww Stereo 44100H2 32 bit float Mute Solo Waveform display This is the waveform display part of the track although it is also possible to display a spectrogram instead of a waveform here This image shows a stereo track which is a group of two tracks the top one is for the left channel and the bottom one is for the right channel If you need to edit the two channels as separate tracks you can split them using the Track Pop Down Menu Controls X Libertango w Stereo 44100Hz 32 bit float Mute Solo The track Control Panel appears directly to the left of every track Clicking in the panel outside of one of its buttons or controls selects the entire track Shift clicking a track label adds or removes that track from the selection Also clicking and dragging a track label is one way to rearrange the order of tracks At the top right of
34. oop button which lets you keep playing the selection over and over again Record starts recording audio at the project sample rate the sample rate in the lower left comer of the window The new track will begin at the current cursor position so click the Skip to Start button first if you want the track to begin at time 0 Pause temporarily stops playback or recording until you press pause again Stop stops recording or playing You must do this before applying effects saving or exporting Skip to End moves the cursor to the end of the last track Mixer Toolbar Win gg KPi wtieg Me 3 The Mixer Toolbar has three controls used to set the volume levels of your audio device and choose the input source The leftmost slider controls the playback volume the other slider controls the recording volume and the control on the right lets you choose the input source such as Microphone Line In Audio CD etc Use the Record Level Meter to set the correct level Changing these controls has no effect on the audio data in your project in other words it doesn t matter what the output volume level is when you Export or Save a project the end result is the same Edit Toolbar EL in ind oje ad Ea All of the buttons on this toolbar perform actions and with a couple of exceptions they re all just shortcuts of existing menu items to save you time Holding the mouse over a tool will show a tooltip in case you forge
35. py of this License Exception if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves then this License and its terms do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it Thus it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you rather the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program In addition mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program or with a work based on the Program on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License 3 You may copy and distribute the Program or a work based on it under Section 2 in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of
36. re take up much less disk space but they lose some audio quality Another compressed alternative is Ogg Vorbis below You can set the quality of MP3 compression in the File Format Preferences See alsoMP3 Exporting Export Selection As MP3 same as above but only exports the current selection Export as Ogg Vorbis exports all of the audio as an Ogg Vorbis file Ogg Vorbis files are compressed and therefore take up much less disk space but they lose some audio quality Ogg Vorbis files tend to take up a little less disk space than MP3 for similar compression quality and Ogg Vorbis is free from patents and licensing restrictions but Ogg Vorbis files are not as widespread You can set the quality of Ogg compression in the File Format Preferences Export Selection As Ogg Vorbis same as above but only exports the current selection Export Labels if you have a Label Track in your project this lets you export the labels as a text file You can import labels in the same text format using the Import Labels command in the Project Menu Export Multiple lets you split your project into multiple files all in one step You can either split them vertically one new file per track or horizontally using labels in a Label Track to indicate the breaks between exported files Page Setup configure how Audacity will print out the track waveforms using the Print option and what printer to use Print Print out the
37. roject and it will store your audio in several files inside a directory called chanson_data While the Audacity Project format is based on XML and is meant to be open it is not currently compatible with any other audio programs so when you are finished working on a project and you want to be able to edit the audio in another program select Export from the File Menu WAV Windows Wave format This is the default uncompressed audio format on Windows and is supported on almost all computer systems Audacity can read and write this format People working with multichannel audio at very high quality settings or with very long recordings should note that the maximum size of a wav file is 2GB AIFF Audio Interchange File Format This is the default uncompressed audio format on the Macintosh and it is supported by most computer systems but it is not quite as common as the WAV format Audacity can read and write this format Sun Au NeXT This is the default audio format on Sun and NeXT computers and usually u law compressed so it is not a very high quality format U law compression is a very simple fast but low quality way to reduce the size of the audio by about 50 This format was one of the first audio formats supported by Web browsers and it is still often used for short sound effects where quality is not as important Audacity exports both 8 bit u law files and 16 bit uncompressed files which are the same quality as wav or aiff fil
38. screen down giving you a way to move the envelope above the 1 0 level Note the dotted line at the top and bottom between 5 0 and 8 0 seconds This indicates that the actual envelope is above the screen You can see the entire contour by zooming vertically position the cursor over the vertical ruler to the left of the track and shift click to zoom out To create a new control point just click To move a point just drag To remove a point click on it and drag it outside of the track then let go MP3 Exporting Audacity cannot encode MP3 files by itself because the MP3 encoding algorithm is patented and cannot legally be used in free programs However Audacity has been programmed to recognize other existing MP3 encoders that you can download separately All you have to do is obtain the appropriate MP3 encoder for your computer and then show Audacity where it is located If you use Windows Download LAME and look for the file called lame_enc dll Download LAME and compile it as a shared object then look for the file called libmp3lame so You need to Linux Unix Macintosh Download LAMELib see our website for more info For links to these MP3 encoders go to the Audacity web page http audacity sourceforge net and go to the page for your operating system The first time you try to export an MP3 file Audacity will ask you to locate your MP3 encoder Locate the file indicated above From then on Audacity will not need to ask
39. stribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients exercise of the rights granted herein You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License 7 If as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason not limited to patent issues conditions are imposed on you whether by court order agreement or otherwise that contradict the conditions of this License they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all For example if a patent license would not permit royalty free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims this section has the sole purpose of protecting
40. t which one is which w Cut Copy E Paste ME Trim away the audio outside the selection HW Silence the selected audio Undo Redo repeat last command Zoom In Zoom Out 2 Fit selection in window zooms until the selection just fits inside the window P Fit project in window zooms until all of the audio just fits inside the window Meter Toolbar L A O O o es lhUr o dog 5 30 24 8 2 BO P 5 30 24 18 2 6 0 The Meter Toolbar is used for monitoring the input and output audio levels Typically it is used to make sure that the loudest volume is as loud as possible for maximum fidelity without clipping or distorting it The output playback meter is the green one on the left in the picture above and the input recording meter is in red on the right The meters provide a visual indication of the current audio levels going in and out of audacity If you float the Meter Toolbar either by dragging it out of the toolbar or by selecting Float Meter Toolbar from the View menu you can resize it and even orient it vertically Normally the meters are only active when you are playing or recording audio However you can also monitor input when you re not recording to do this either select Monitor Input from the input meter s pop up menu or else just click on the input meter If you have a microphone or other input source attached you will be able to watch the level of the audio
41. the integrity of the free software distribution system which is implemented by public license practices Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system it is up to the author donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License 8 If the distribution and or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded In such case this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License 9 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and or new versions of the General Public License from time to time Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns Each version is given a distinguishing version number If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version you have the option of following the terms and conditions either
42. the tempo When you open the dialog the starting frequency is set to Audacity s best guess as to the frequency of the selection This works well for recordings of singing or musical instruments without background noise You can specify the pitch change in one of four different ways musical note semitones frequency or percent change Change Speed changes the speed of the audio by resampling Making the speed higher will also increase the pitch and vice versa This will change the length of the selection Change Tempo changes the tempo speed of the audio without changing the pitch This will change the length of the selection Compressor compresses the dynamic range of the selection so that the loud parts are softer while keeping the volume of the soft parts the same You can optionally normalise the recording afterwards resulting in the entire piece having higher perceived volume Echo very simple effect that repeats the selection with a decay sounding like a series of echos This effect does not change the length of the selection so you may want to add silence to the end of the track before applying it using the Generate Menu Equalization Boost or reduce arbitrary frequencies You can select one of a number of different curves designed to equalize the sound of some popular record manufacturers or draw your own curve Fade In fades the selection in linearly Fade Out fades the selection out linearly FFT Filter simi
43. through but in software This means that the audio you hear may be slightly delayed relative to the input and activating this option will use some more system resources However it works on all systems even if you are recording from one device and playing back through another Quality Default Sample Rate This controls the sample rate of new projects To change the sample rate of an existing project use the control in the lower left corner of the main project window Default Sample Format This controls the default format used to store audio samples 16 bit takes up the least space and is equivalent to audio CD quality 32 bit float takes up twice as much space but is much more flexible If you have a fast computer and enough disk space you should always use 32 bit float samples while editing and then export your final mix as a 16 bit WAV file the default Real time sample rate converter Audacity has more than one sample rate converter that s used when you have a track that s not the same sample rate as the project This option lets you set the converter used during real time playback which can be different than the one you use during Export or mixing High quality sample rate converter Audacity has more than one sample rate converter that s used when you have a track that s not the same sample rate as the project This option lets you set the converter used during Export and mixing which can be different than the one you use for r
44. track is part of the selection or not Exporting and Importing label tracks Label Tracks are saved when you save an Audacity Project so if you just want to continue using the labels along with the same file just save a project But you can also export the labels to a simple text file and import them This allows you to save information about the locations of events in an audio file for use in another program and also provides a way to mass edit the labels if necessary To export a Label Track choose Export Labels from the File Menu The exported file will contain one line per label starting with the time offset in seconds then a tab and then the name of the label for example 1 217995 Bass intro 3 921073 Guitar enters 7 584454 Drums enter 11 070002 Chorus To import a Label Track choose Import Labels from the File Menu Time Track The Time Track is a new feature that lets you change the rate of playback over time Start by choosing New Time Track from the Project Menu Then change the range of time warping by clicking on the Track Pop Down Menu and choosing Set Range an option which only appears for Time Tracks Older computers may be incapable of playing audio in real time that makes use of a Time Track however you can always Export the file as a WAV and then playback the WAV file later To edit the time warping choose the envelope tool from the Control Toolbar the same tool you use to edit amplitude envelopes in
45. upport recording more simultaneous channels but note that most sound cards only support stereo and even if your sound card supports more than 2 inputs you need a fast computer and a large fast hard disk to record many channels for a long time Mono recording is not the same on all computers or sound cards Sometimes recording mono only records the left channel and sometimes it mixes the left and right channels e Play other tracks while recording new one When this box is checked Audacity will play existing tracks when you press record otherwise it simply records the new track without letting you hear what you ve already recorded You can use this option to record harmonies with yourself or add a voiceover You may notice that when you play the two tracks you recorded together they aren t synchronized This is unavoidable to a certain extent although Audacity tries to minimize it To fix it you will need to grab the Time Shift tool and slide one of the tracks around until it sounds right e Hardware Playthrough Mac Only plays the audio you are recording straight back out to your headphones or speakers so you can hear it This option is done in harware so it is fast and doesn t consume resources However it is only possibly if input and output are on the same sound device PC users can do the same thing in their volume control settings turning up the relevant audio input e Software Playthrough Does the same thing as hardware play
46. you if you want to save changes On Windows and Unix closing the last window will quit Audacity unless you modify this behavior in the Interface Preferences Save Project saves everything in the window into an Audacity specific format so that you can save and quickly continue your work later An Audacity project consists of a project file ending in aup and a project data folder ending in _data For example if you name your project Composition then Audacity will create a file called Composition aup and a folder called composition_data Audacity project files are not meant to be shared with other programs use one of the Export commands below when you are finished editing a file Save Project As same as Save Project above but lets you save a project as a new name Recent Files brings up a list of files you have recently opened in audacity to be re opened quickly Export As WAV exports all of the audio in your project as a WAV file an industry standard format for uncompressed audio You can change the standard file format used for exporting from Audacity by opening the File Format Preferences Note that exporting will automatically mix and resample if you have more than one track or varying sample rates See also File Formats Export Selection As WAV same as above but only exports the current selection Export as MP3 exports all of the audio as an MP3 file MP3 files are compressed and therefo

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