JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques General Technical Forum Audacity

Hi Jim, hi all

What a great thread, I haven't been in for a while and was just reading all. I really do think that Audacity is great, but you have to experiment, and every trick you learn makes it easier. I used to use Ntrack, and I did have the problems with Sync there. Some of my old recordings still show that. I haven't noticed any with Audacity, although I see some have, so maybe I am just lucky lol.

I have learned one trick to share with you about removing or editing parts of your song. Down at the bottom of audacity,
Cursor:0:00.000000000 min:sec

Example: Say you have finished your song, and you love the vocals on the first chorus, but the second one has a flaw.
You can highlight the chorus you like, making sure that the view of the track is spread out by hitting your magnifying glass at the top. You have to be able to see the beats clearly so that you get it planted right in the chorus you want to replace.

1. Highlight the chorus that is good with your cursor.

2. Very important, look at the little spot at the bottom I told you about earlier, that says Cursor: 0:00.00. Now this will have numbers in it, that tell you exactly how much time the selection is. Write it down unless you have a great memory lol.

3. Find the beginning of the chorus you want to replace, and make sure to line up the beginning or your cursor with the same beat as the beginning of the one you highlighted before. ( this is a little hard, you must look at the notes and make sure it is the same as where the other one started, or it will be off beat, but you can always just hit the undo if you paste it wrong and do it over)

4. Start highlighting at the chorus you want to replace on the right beat. Look at the bottom numbers, and highlight until the numbers are exactly the same.

5. Click Paste and the chorus will be replaced with the good chorus.

It has been a great tool to know, as it makes it pretty accurate to replace parts. Remember, if you have more than one track in your song, you should highlight all the tracks, not just one.

You can use this to add or delet silence also, as Jim was describing. As I hate to admit, but I might have come in late on a vocal once in my life lol.


Also, I think that I would love to try other programs such as Pro tools or something, but because the price is a factor for me, I just keep working with Audacity and find it has a multitude of assets, but we have to experiment and learn so that we can benefit and use them. It is only as good as we make it I guess. I learn something new each time I record or edit or mix. I have a friend with Cubebase, and they are trying to do a great big editing job on a recording 3 hours long. I cant say from personal experience, but it seems to be a lot more complicated to use.

Hope it is of benefit to someone,

Have a good day,

Letha