Punch and Roll Record

Work in Progress...

This tutorial teaches you how to use the Punch and Roll Record command to correct errors easily during a recording session. You can stop, back up over a mistake, and continue recording, resulting in one track that eliminates the errors and is properly timed, without the use of cutting, pasting, and clip-moving commands, or mixing of multiple tracks. You can do rough editing as you go, with minimal interruption of your performance and less work left until afterward.

Before you record

It is advisable to tune the latency correction setting so that play-back and recording are synchronized.

Adjust the pre-roll duration (in seconds) and cross-fade duration (in milliseconds) in Recording Preferences to suit your personal preferences. These parameters are explained below.

Record as usual, until you make a mistake

Begin recording as usual with, the Transport toolbar Record button , the menu command Transport > Record > Record or the keyboard shortcut R key.

If you make a mistake, stop recording with the Transport toolbar Stop button or its shortcut Space.

Choose a splicing point

Select a position in the recording before the error by picking in the recording track. You must select a time within the recorded clip. (If you select a time range, only the left edge is important.)

You may simply estimate the duration of the error, or guess by sight from the waveform (such as to find a pause between spoken words). Or you may find the Scrub Ruler or Timeline Quick-Play useful to find the right place by ear.

Use the Punch and Roll Record command

The command Transport > Record > Punch & Roll Record can be used to initiate Punch and Roll recording, but it is more easily done with the keyboard shortcut Shift+D.

At once the portion of the selected track after the splicing point is deleted, and pre-roll playback begins left of it. Repeat your performance in unison with the playback, and continue as the play head moves beyond the end of the track. Playback ceases and recording proceeds from that point.

You can reassign this shortcut to another key of your choosing with Keyboard Preferences

Still not satisfied?

If you are not satisfied with your re-take, simply stop recording and Undo. The track and selection are restored as they were just before the Punch and Roll Record command began, so if the splice point was right the first time, you can simply press the shortcut key again to make another take.

Final results

To avoid leaving a click at the splice point, Audacity applies a cross-fade, specified in milliseconds in Preferences. This means the original bad take isn't completely deleted, but a tiny portion of it is blended with the new take, so that the waveform has no discontinuities.

A clip boundary is left behind at each splice point, so that you can easily find them again and listen. You can merge clips by clicking on the boundary, or select the entire track and use the Join command to remove many boundaries at once.

The Undo history will contain one recording item for each error that you corrected, plus one more for the original record command.

The Pinned Play Head may be preferable if you make small corrections frequently. Then you can choose your splicing points with less mouse movement. The Overdub preference determines whether other tracks are played during recording, and if so their playback continues after the splice point. The track being corrected always plays before the splice point, regardless of this preference.