Label Tracks

A Label Track is an additional track that can be created in your project. The labels in the label track can be used to reference points or regions in the project's audio tracks but the label track itself does not contain audio.

Features of a Label Track

• Labels can be used to mark then restore chosen points or regions of audio for playback or editing.
• Labels can contain text for purposes of annotation or transcription.
• Labels and their text provide a convenient way to name different songs in a recorded track then export all songs at once to separate audio files using File > Export Multiple....
• The label text can be edited and you can resize region labels or move region or point labels.
• The Label Track's Drop-Down Menu can be used to name the track, move it up or down or set the font of all label text.

Example of a mono audio track with a label track containing a region label and a point label.

Standard Edit Menu commands can be applied to the audio of multiple labeled regions (excluding audio outside those regions). To do this, drag a selection in the Label Track that fully includes (or extends beyond) the labels whose audio is to be affected, then choose Edit > Labeled Audio and your required command.

Creating and Selecting Labels

Labels can be created by selecting a region or clicking at a point of interest then choosing Tracks > Add Label at Selection (or use its keyboard shortcut CTRL + B on Windows and Linux or COMMAND + B on Mac OS X). An empty label appears then you can type to add text to the label. Press Enter on the keyboard to confirm the text and close the label.

When the label track has the yellow focus border as in the image above you can, if preferred, just type to create a label containing that text rather than first using the menu or shortcut to create the label.

You can also create labels while playing or recording.

• To create a point label at the current position of the green playback cursor or red recording cursor, choose Tracks > Add Label at Playback Position or its keyboard shortcut CTRL + M.
• To create a region label while playing or recording, click and drag the region then use the same Add Label at Selection command (or its shortcut CTRL + B ) as when adding a region label when the track is stopped. Similarly you can click anywhere in a track while playing or recording and use CTRL + B to label that point.

You can create extra label tracks using Tracks > Add New > Label Track but when exporting multiple files based on labels, audio is only exported for the labels in the uppermost label track in the project.

Selecting a label

When you click inside a label to select it, the label is opened so its text can be edited, and the cursor point or region of audio the label corresponds to is restored. The region will be visible in all audio tracks that are selected and the cursor will be visible in all audio tracks that have the yellow focus border. This applies even if the label track is above the audio track.

You can use Tab on your keyboard to select forwards through each label starting from the first label (or Shift + Tab to select backwards starting from the last label) whenever the focus border is in the label track. To restore focus to the label track if necessary, either use keyboard UP or DOWN or click in empty space on the Track Control Panel of the label track (which both selects it and gives it focus).

See this page for more details on label creation and selection.

Removing labels

Peter 9Jun13: implementing Gale's revised text as I prefer it - I think it still needs some tweaking though, I need to ponder that.

• Gale 09Jun13: I don't think it is quite right yet either. Somehow it seems like a mini-tutorial where the rest of the page isn't (despite I think it will help people understand better). Note that this change has implications for Removing Labels which still has the old text. Should we reuse my intro on Removing Labels here? I think that is a good summary:

  "Labels can be removed using a "Split" method (leaving the labels following to right in the same position), or by a cut or delete method (moving the following labels backwards). Cut or delete will desynchronize the following labels with their audio unless the region is deleted in both the audio and label track."

  Or should it be:

  "Cutting or deleting either labels or their associated audio will desynchronize the following labels with their audio unless you select and delete in both label track and audio track."?

• Peter 10Jun13: I kind of want this page to be relatively stand-alone, for smart readers, without having to drill down to the sub-pages. So I would certainly want to tell them about the Ctrl+Alt+K "cute trick" for just label removal. It's the next bit where the usage is deleting audio and labels together that seems a little clunky to me. Maybe we just need to lose the paragraph that starts "Had you not selected in the audio track ...". I need to ponder this some more.
• Peter 13Jun13: Ok I've had a further ponder about this and had a crack at tidying it up. Is this better now?

Labels can be removed (deleted) in a number of ways. However because labels are usually associated with an audio track, the label deletion method may affect whether or not the remaining labels are still synchronized with the audio (that is, remain associated with the same part of the audio track).

Removing labels only

Often you may want to remove labels from the label track without removing their associated audio, while keeping the remaining labels synchronized with their audio.

The quickest way to do this is to select any region in the label track that extends beyond the label or labels to be removed (without reaching other labels), then choose Edit > Remove Audio or Labels > Split Delete (or its shortcut CTRL + ALT + K). This will remove the selected labels without moving any labels that lie to right of the removed labels, so keeping those following labels synchronized with their audio.

Removing labels and their associated audio

Another common usage is removing labels (or a region between labels) together with their associated region of audio, but letting the labels following to the right move back (leftwards) so as to maintain audio synchronization - for example, you may have labeled a region of noisy audio for later deletion.

To delete labels in this way, select over or between the labels as required then include the audio track in the selection by dragging upwards into the audio track. Keyboard users can instead press UP then ENTER as described in Selecting using the keyboard. Then choose Edit > Remove Audio or Labels > Delete or its shortcut CTRL + K.

Similarly, if you want to keep labels and audio synchronized when deleting audio to left of a label, you must include the label track in the selection before deleting.

To maintain label/audio synchronization without having to select in both label and audio track, enable Sync-Locked Tracks at Tracks > Sync-Lock Tracks. This feature defines groups of Sync-Locked audio and/or label tracks, such that a length-changing action in one track of the group affects all the others in the group, whether they are selected or not.

Peter 13Jun13: Commenting this out for now - it think it adds little and could cause confusion. I's also this paragraph that makes the text too tutorial-like imo, so worth removing on those grounds too.
Had you not selected in the audio track, the labels would have lost synchronization with their audio. In the same way, before deleting any audio selection to left of a label, you will usually want to drag the selection down into the label track or use DOWN then ENTER to delete the associated label region and so keep labels synchronized with their audio.

• Gale 15Jun13: I think the excision is too brutal, despite it helps in one sense. The note div below the excision makes less sense than it did before. I've added one sentence back above the note div. If you want to H3 this e.g. "Removing audio to left of labels" that's OK, but I don't think it is needed.
  • Peter 17Jun13: I think this looks fine now - your "one sentence" reads much clearer to me and conveys sufficient of the previous content meaning. An I agree that it doesn't need H3-ing.

Deleting the entire label track

You can also remove all labels at once by deleting the label track entirely. To do this, click on the close button in the upper-left corner of the label track.

See this page for more details on label deletion.

Peter 31May13: Maybe we should actually place the synchronizing in the Removing Labels Page so as not to overburden this page. It certainly was wrongly placed in its previous location on the Editing, Resizing and Moving labels page.

• Peter 6Jun13: I changed my mind about this after a long ponder. I now think it's worth having this information on both pages (slightly trimmed here for brevity). On this page for stand-alone completeness without the need to go to the sub-page. On the sub-page as an H3 subsection of the one H2 section for which it has relevance.
  • Gale 09Jun13: I've been pondering since then too. I think it may be OK to mention sync here as well as on Removing Labels, but I've read it several times and don't think it flows at all well - it still looks as if it doesn't belong. My two mystery shoppers said why would you use one method rather than another - don't understand. Does the above help or not? It's longish and perhaps some details could be dropped, but my two shoppers understood more of it.
    • Peter 9Jun13: My mystery shopper said that your new text was *much* better and clearer - so I removed the old text as I don't think we need to retain it for comparison.
  • Peter 13Jun13: Do the H3's, that I added, help with the flow - and with showing the reasons for different methods?

Editing, Resizing and Moving labels

You can edit labels by changing their text content, resize region labels or move region or point labels.

You can change label positions:

• move a point label by clicking and dragging its circle handle
• expand a point label into a region label by clicking and dragging either of its triangle handles
• move a region label by clicking and dragging either of its circle handles
• change the length of a region label by clicking and dragging one of its triangle handles.
• adjust the junction point where two labels meet by clicking and dragging their shared circle handle.

You can cut and paste region labels using Edit > Remove Audio or Labels > Cut and Edit > Paste, but you have to make sure you don't select any audio, or you will end up cutting and pasting audio where you probably didn't intend.

In many cases if you delete audio preceding a label you will want the label to move back so that it still relates to the audio it related to before the deletion. To achieve this, drag the selection down into the label track before deleting. Keyboard users can include the selection in the label track by pressing DOWN then Enter. See Selecting using the keyboard.

See this page for more details on editing labels.

Labels Editor

Tracks > Edit Labels... launches a keyboard-accessible Labels Editor where you can perform all remove, text edit, resize and move operations on labels. All the labels and label tracks in the project are displayed in a tabular view, similar to a spreadsheet. Each row represents a single individual label.

You cannot save empty labels that have no label text using Labels Editor, even if you are editing an existing label track that contains empty labels. Any empty labels will be removed from the label track(s) after closing the editor, unless you click Cancel.

See this page for more details on the editor.

Editing or moving the label track using the Drop-Down Menu

Clicking the label track's name by the downward-pointing triangle (or using shortcut SHIFT + M or the keyboard Menu key when the label track has focus) opens the Label Track Drop-Down Menu:

• Name

Displays the "Track Name" dialog where you can give the track a new name. Useful in multi-track projects to provide a visual indication of the content of each track.

• Font

Displays the "Label Track Font" dialog where you can set the font and font size of the labels. Note that this applies to all label tracks.

Moving Tracks

Tracks can be moved up and down using the menu items.

• Move Track Up: Moves track up.
• Move Track Down: Moves track down.

Label tracks can also be moved up or down by clicking between the controls in the track's Track Control Panel then dragging upwards or downwards.

Importing and Exporting Labels

Label Tracks can be exported to, and imported from plain text files ( .txt extension in Windows). The file structure is a tab-delimited plain text format that can be opened by any text editor or spreadsheet program and edited there.

See this page for more details on text label files.