Generate Menu

ToDo briefly describe each type of generator

Audio Generation

The items in Generate menu are for creating a new section of audio, including different types of tones and noise, or silence. The audio you create can be placed into the project in three distinct ways:

• If there is no audio track already on screen, or no tracks on the screen are selected, a new track is created of the duration you specify.
• If there is already a selected track or tracks on screen, but no selection of audio, your specified duration of audio is inserted into those tracks at the cursor point, thus extending the length of the selected track(s).
• If there is already a selected track or tracks on screen, with an area of audio track selected, then that selected area is replaced with your chosen type of audio, such as a tone or noise. The total length of the selected tracks thus remains the same.

If there is no selected area of audio, the length of the created audio defaults to 30 seconds unless you specify another length. However some of the generators such as Noise always remember the last length entered, so that last length becomes their default.

Examples

Example 1: Insert two seconds of silence at the start of the track as a "lead-in":

1. Click the "Skip to Start" button or press HOME to place the cursor at the start of the track
2. Choose Silence from the Generate Menu
3. Specify the two seconds silence. This works by the highlighted digit being overtyped with the figure you enter, then the highlight moving to the next digit. So if the value is showing at 30 seconds with "3" highlighted, simply type "02". To change the digit that is highlighted, click on the one you want to highlight or use the left or right arrow keys on your keyboard
4. Click OK or hit ENTER on your keyboard

Example 2: Replace a 30 second section of audio starting at 1 minute 15 seconds with a tone:

1. Click in the track at 1 minute 15 seconds (underneath "1:15" in the timeline above the track).
2. Drag your mouse to the right to select 30 seconds of audio, then release the mouse button
3. Choose Tone from the Generate menu.
4. Specify your Waveform, Frequency and Amplitude in the dialogue (see explanation in the Tone section below)
5. Click OK or hit ENTER on your keyboard

The different types of generator are described below.

Tone...

Parameters:

• Waveform: can be Sine, Square, Sawtooth
• Frequency(Hz): 1-20000 (value below 1.0 and above 20000 will be corrected to 1.0 and 20000!)
• Amplitude: 0-1 - This is the volume of the generated wave.

Plug-in Generators

Any additional generators which appear underneath the menu divider are Nyquist or LADSPA plug-ins. Audacity includes the following three Nyquist generators, but more are available on our Nyquist download page.

Note: Nyquist generators do not take the length of any selected audio as the length of the audio to be generated: specify the length required in the appropriate input field(s) of the plug-in. Any selected audio will be replaced by the length of audio specified in the plug-in, but the total length of the track(s) will change unless the selected and specified lengths are identical.

Click Track...

Generates a track with regularly spaced sounds at a specified tempo and number of beats per measure (bar). This can be used like a metronome for setting a pulse to record against. To do this, enable "Play other tracks while recording new one" in the Audio I/O Preferences. Any length of track can be created by adjusting "number of measures" accordingly, and the type and pitch of the sound can be customized. Once created, the track can be edited (for example, its volume changed) like any audio track. Note: When exporting your finished recording, either close or mute the Click Track so that it's not audible in the recording - see Wave Tracks.

Pluck...

A synthesized pluck tone with abrupt or gradual fade-out, and selectable pitch corresponding to a MIDI note.

Risset Drum...

Produces a realistic drum sound consisting of a sine wave ring-modulated by narrow band noise, an enharmonic tone and a relatively strong sine wave at the fundamental. The length of the drum sound is determined by the "Decay" field.