Recording

Peter 24Jun15: This page was created by carving off a major section from Playing and Recording as that page was far too long and indigestible. Substantial restructuring and editing was performed. The parent page is certainly an improvement now I believe.

This page provides a detailed description of various ways of controlling recording in Audacity, including how to control where and which track you record in and keyboard shortcut commands.

• If you have not made any recordings in Audacity before, you may want to try the the Audacity tutorial "Your First Recording" which includes step by step details of how to set up your equipment too.

Contents

1. Setting up
2. Continuing recording in an existing track
3. Recording a new track
   • Continuing recording in a new track
   • Recording a region in a new track

Setting up

1. Connect your input source to your computer and verify that you are getting sound into your computer using your computer's sound input control panel or the custom mixer application that came with your particular soundcard.
2. Tell Audacity which source you have selected to record from.
3. Set the recording level using the input slider on the Mixer Toolbar while watching the indications in the Recording Meter. Try to aim for a maximum peak of around –6.0 dB (or 0.5 if you have your meters set to linear rather than dB). Tip: enlarging the Meter Toolbars by clicking and dragging them helps with this task.

To listen to what you are recording you have two options.

1. If you computer's sound control panel supports sending the audio input to the computer's audio output then make this setting there.
2. If that is not possible, click on Transport > Transport Options > Software Playthrough (on/off) so that it is checked.

Alternatively, if you are using an external soundcard or mixer you may be able to monitor the signal directly from that device.

For further information on setting up see: Audacity Setup and Configuration.

Detailed step-by-step instructions for setting up for recording are provided in the Your First Recording and the Copying tapes, LPs or MiniDiscs tutorials.

As soon as you have made a recording it is strongly recommended to File > Save Other > Export Audio... it immediately to WAV or AIFF (ideally to an external drive) as a safety copy before you start editing the project.

Recording on the same track

This is the default recording behavior in Audacity.

When you click the Record button on Transport Toolbar, or use the R, Audacity will record at the end of the currently selected (or only) track.

Alternatively, instead of stopping the recording, you can click the Pause button to pause recording, or use the P shortcut.

To continue recording click which releases the Pause button, or press P.

Recording a new track

Peter 12Apr17: ToDo-1 The "Record New Track" icon is taken from the "Classic" theme. Note that the same button in the other themes has a different icon. If and when we change the default theme we will need to change this button.

Do we need to show both forms for completeness?

If you hold the Shift button down the Record button in Transport Toolbar will temporarily change to . Then clicking on this modified Record button, or using the shortcut Shift + R will cause Audacity to create a new track and begin recording on that track from the current cursor position (or from the left edge of a region on the Timeline).

There is no need to create a new track before starting to record. If you want recording to start from the beginning of the project, click the "Skip to Start" button on Transport Toolbar or press the Home shortcut. Press the Stop button (or use its shortcut Space) to Stop the recording.

Continuing recording in a new track

Instead of stopping the recording with the Stop button or Space, you can stop the recording with the Play / Stop and Set Cursor shortcut X. When you record again using the Shift key modifier, recording will start in a new track at the end-position of the track above.

Recording a region in a new track

If there is no Timeline region, Audacity records until you stop the recording. To record only the Timeline region in a new track, use Tracks > Add New to create a new track if there are no tracks yet, select the region required in any track and ensure Transport > Overdub (on/off) is enabled (on) which is its default setting. Overdub may also be enabled in Recording Preferences. There is no need for the track containing the region to be selected.