Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Tip: To find your answer more easily, try using CTRL + F ( COMMAND + F on Mac ) to search this page.

Gale: 15Oct13: not an absolute release blocker, but we should change the hover tooltip for the individual questions below to the new DISPLAYTITLE of "FAQ:Installation, Startup and Plug-Ins" (with anchor). See the section link immediately below for how to do it.

Peter 15Oct13: Done

Installation, Startup and Plug-ins

Recording - Troubleshooting

Recording - How To's

Playback

Opening and Saving Files

Editing

Errors

Ideas for new FAQs

ToDo develop responses for these proposed FAQs and migrate them to the published part of the page.

Outstanding suggestions

Steve 26Jul11: Perhaps there could be a section for using Audacity with other applications, such as Skype, YouTube, DAWs and Games
- How do I record Skype or other VoIP programs with Audacity?

It's hard to capture both sides of a Skype call with Audacity - Koz always recommends Pamela

How do I avoid the echo when using my USB microphone? (software playthrough)
How can I record in the same track?
- This could cover Append-Record and ways to "punch-in" too

Gale 29Jan13: I have pasted in a brain-dump of information that has been used to answer questions about this:

Gale's text: There are various ways to record a correction and insert it into the middle of existing audio, depending on the material and how accurate and unblemished you want the result to be. One simple (and rough) method to punch in a recording would be to temporarily remove the part before which you want to insert, Append Record at that point, then paste back the removed audio at the end of the appended recording. Select the area to be corrected, with a little silent space either side. Use SHIFT + RIGHT to expand the selection rightwards or SHIFT + LEFT to expand leftwards. CTRL + SHIFT + LEFT contracts the selection from the right and CTRL + SHIFT + RIGHT contracts from the left.

Make sure Transport > Overdub is "on" (checked).

Record (which records just the length of the selection into a new track underneath).

Press the "Silence button" in Edit Toolbar to silence the original mistaken audio or use CTRL + L. Then if necessary, press F5 on your keyboard then drag the recorded correction to the required exact position. If you do repetitive corrections it is recommended to perform a Latency Test to determine your system's recording latency, then set "Latency Correction" in Recording Preferences to the observed latency. This helps to ensure your correction slots into the original audio correctly.

If it is not practicable to select silence either side of the mistaken audio then you may hear clicks at the edges of the corrected result. In that case you need to crossfade both joins thus: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/User:Stevethefiddle/Fade_and_Crossfade#Creating_a_Crossfade .

You can use CTRL + ALT + K to "Split Delete" the mistaken audio instead of silencing it. Here is a slightly more complex set of steps that labels and split deletes the mistaken audio http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?p=168245#p168245

Text of that Forum post (Steve's answer)

The "punch in. punch out" concept goes back to the days of tape based recorders -
if you have only 4, 8 or 16 tracks available then "punching in" and overwriting a
previously recorded track is often the only practical option. However with Audacity
and modern computer hardware, the number of available tracks is enormous, so
there is no longer the need to be frugal with track (or tape) usage.

This is copied and pasted from a previous post so the shortcuts will not be quite right for a Mac.
When it says to press the "Ctr" key, it is usually the Command key on a Mac.

Doing a simple "punch in / punch out" with Audacity 1.3 (note that if
you are not familiar with the shortcuts (hot keys) all the commands are
also available from the menus):

Record track 1
Let's say we've messed up a section approximately 1 minute into the track.
We find a sweet point just before the mess to "punch in" and a sweet point
just after to do the "punch out".
Click on the track info box to select the track.
Click & drag from the punch in point to the punch out point
"Ctrl B" to label the region - type "bad bit" as a name for the label, then
"ENTER" to close the label and "ENTER" again to deselect the label track.
"Ctrl Alt K" to "split delete" the offending bit
Click a few seconds before the punch in point
"R" to record - play and re-record the new bit on audio track 2 - press "stop"
at the end.
If you mess up again, "Ctrl Z" to undo and try again.
When you have got it right, click on audio track 2 to select it,
Click on the name of the label ("bad bit") to select the labelled region of the
new recording.
"Shift Click" on the track info for the label track to deselect it
Go up to the right hand edge of the selected region of audio track 2 and drag
the selected region to the left so as to include all of the recorded section prior
to our "punch in" region and "Ctrl Alt K" to "split delete" it.
Repeat this method to delete the trailing region of the new track after out
"punch out" point.

You now have a perfect "punch in / punch out".

This may seem like a lot of steps, but I've put in all the details - once you are
familiar with the short cuts it's as simple as
1) mark it
2) delete it
3) re-record it
4) trim it.

When using labels to mark the positions, you can also use cross fades between
the old and new recordings - brilliant if there are no good punch in / out points
(and something that is just not possible with traditional punch in punch out),.

In the case where you are recording and make a mistake, you can press Stop, click in the waveform at a silent point before the mistake, then hold SHIFT on your keyboard followed by K to select from the click point to the end of the track. Delete the mistaken selection. Now press SHIFT + R (or SHIFT + Click on the Record button) to record at the end of the track and so re-record your mistake.

First track is being recorded onto the next track (Windows sound card set to record Stereo Mix).
How can I import WAV files from portable players?
How can I make my recording so it plays back in both speakers?
Can I use parts of Audacity source code in my school project?
Can I include screenshots of Audacity in my book, or link to Audacity on my web site?
Why does my MP3 file not loop smoothly in Audacity? (suggested by Steve)
- Gale 12Jun12: Parking suitable text for responding to requests about an academic citation. There are other types of requests here - citing Audacity in films/videos, producing an article about Audacity for a magazine which has a cover mount CD of Audacity, hardware bundlers providing Audacity documentation...

Please make a citation to Audacity starting with the name and 
version number of Audacity and giving our Trademark (R). 

Please quote the full three-section version number of Audacity 
as found at Help > About Audacity (or Audacity > About Audacity 
on a Mac computer).   

Examples could look like:

(A) "For this work I used version 1.3.14 of Audacity(R) recording 
and editing software[1]."

(B) "Audacity Team (2012). Audacity(R): Free Audio Editor and 
Recorder [Computer program]. Version 1.3.14 retrieved
December 20th 2011 from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ [1]." .

[1] must link to the following verbatim citation: 

 "Audacity(R) software is copyright (c) 1999-2012 Audacity Team.
 [Web site: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. It is free software
 distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.]
 The name Audacity(R) is a registered trademark of Dominic Mazzoni."

The section inside [ ] is optional. Note the first and last sentences must 
be presented exactly as above, without any additional text interspersed 
into them. 

The citation could be in a footnote, or linked to on a Credits page or 
similar. Alternatively you could append the citation verbatim underneath
the arbitrary text for version number. 

Also we would ask you to present the word "Audacity" on its first 
appearance in your actual research text as "Audacity(R)".

Why does Audacity hang when I launch it?
Why do my longer projects always crash but not the short ones?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Ideas for new FAQs

Outstanding suggestions

Navigation menu

Views

Personal tools

Search

Navigation

Reference

For Editors

Useful Links

ToDo

Tools