Audio Track Dropdown Menu

Name    Edit the name of the track Move Track Up/Down   Move Track Up or Down in the display Waveform   Traditional display of audio material. It displays the amplitude of the audio over time. This is the default display mode. Waveform (dB)   Like Waveform, it displays the amplitude of the audio over time, but here the vertical units are not linear, but logarithmic dB units. Spectrum   Displays the frequency spectrum of the audio over time. Pitch (EAC)   Tries to detect the pitch of the current audio and displays that information over time. Mono   Send playback of this single channel track to the left and right channels. Left Channel   Send playback of this single channel track to the left channel. Right Channel   Send playback of single channel track to the right channel. Make Stereo Track   The selected track and the track just beneath it are turned into linked stereo tracks, so that edits are applied synchronously to both tracks. Split Stereo Track   Turn one pair of stereo tracks into two single channel tracks, so they can be separately edited. Note that removing audio from one track will not shorten the other track: first apply Make Stereo Track to the pair if synchronicity is to be preserved. Set Sample Format   Change the sample format of this track. The result is that all newly written data for that track is written in this format, no matter what format the original material was in. Set Rate   Change the sample rate of this track. When importing audio, the track sample rate is set to that of the imported material. If your project rate is different, the audio will be automatically resampled to the project rate on playback or export. Changing the sample rate always changes the speed and pitch of the audio, so only use it for a special effect or if the audio sounds at the wrong speed and pitch.

Waveform

This image shows a "Chirp" tone which gets progressively higher in pitch. On this display you'd only see this if you zoom in in Audacity. The second part of the waveform is the word "Audacity" spoken aloud.

Waveform (dB)

This image shows the same waveform but with a logarithmic method for scaling the amplitude. Notice the change in the vertical scale on the left of the track. This representation is closer to showing the sound we hear. The logarithmic scaling gives better detail for faint sounds.

Spectrum

This mode of display shows how the frequencies in the audio signal change over time. Higher frequencies are towards the top, lower frequencies towards the bottom. This is the same waveform as in the other two examples. The second part of the plot, the word "Audacity" spoken aloud, shows a mixture of the different frequencies.

You may want to compare this with a spectrum plot of a short extract of this sound Should the image be of the chirp, the speech, one of each (the second as a link), or the point where the tone changes to speech? That plot shows how much energy is in each frequency across the extract as a whole, but doesn't show how the frequencies change from beginning to end of it. There are several options for adjusting exactly how the spectrum is displayed.

Possibly add a link to part of some tutorial page describing how to track down clicks (using the spectrum view) and remove them. Maybe not in time for 1.4.0.

Pitch