Playing and Recording
The easiest way to control Audacity playback and recording is with the Control Toolbar:
Play: If a subset of the time range is selected in the main window, only the selection will be played. If there is no selection, playback will begin wherever the editing cursor is. To start playback from the beginning, choose Skip to Start.
File:Loop.png Loop: Hold down Shift while pressing Play to loop the current selection, playing it over and over again until you press Stop.
Record: Recording begins at the current cursor location or at the beginning of the current selection, but always creates a new track.
Stop: will stop playing or recording immediately.
Pause: will temporarily pause playing or recording without losing your place.
Skip to Start: move the cursor to the beginning of the audio. This is often useful if you want to play everything, or record a new track starting from the beginning.
Skip to End: move the cursor to the end of the audio.
Contents
Keyboard Shortcuts
The following keyboard shortcuts work exactly the same as the buttons in the Control Toolbar:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Spacebar | Play or Stop |
| L or Shift-Spacebar | Loop |
| R | Record |
| P | Pause |
| Home | Skip to Start |
| End | Skip to End |
Play Regions
The current region being played is indicated by the following arrows in the ruler - in this example, the play region is from 15 to 45 seconds:
During playback, a green triangle indicates the current playback position - in this example, at about the 25 second mark:
You can play simply by clicking and dragging in the Ruler to create a play region! That's a great way to play without modifying the selection.
Also, if you do modify the selection or the play region after playback has begun, it does not affect the active play region. The audio will stop whenever it would have based on the play region when playback began.
Special Playback Keyboard Commands
There are three extra keyboard commands that let you play a few seconds of audio near the current location of the mouse pointer. They can be really useful during editing, such as when you're trying to find the exact spot to cut and paste.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Play One Second |
| B | Play To Selection |
| C | Play Cut Preview |
All three of these special shortcuts are based on the mouse position. Move the mouse to a part of the audio you're interested in hearing, and press one of these three keys, above, without clicking the mouse button.
Play One Second ('1')
Press 1 while the mouse is pointing to a particular time, and you will hear 1 second of audio centered at that time. In this example, the mouse is pointing to 1.0 seconds, and you will hear the time range from 0.5 to 1.5 seconds.
Play To Selection ('B')
Suppose you've selected a range of audio, and you want to make sure it's exactly what you want to cut out.
Of course, if you press the spacebar, you'll hear the whole selection:
The "B" key lets you play the audio from the mouse to the selection - what you get depends on where the mouse pointer is.
If the mouse pointer is to the left of the selection, you'll hear the audio up to the selection:
If the mouse pointer is inside the left side of the selection, you'll hear the first part of the selection up to the mouse pointer:
If the mouse pointer is inside the right side of the selection, you'll hear from the mouse pointer to the end of the selection:
Finally if the mouse pointer is to the right of the selection, you'll hear from the selection to the mouse pointer.
Play Cut Preview ('C')
Press the 'C' key to hear 1 second of audio before and then 1 second of audio after the selection - as if the selection was deleted.
