Tracks

Anything that is added to your project will be placed inside a track container, underneath the timeline of the project. These are the different types of track:

Audio Tracks

Bill: This section is long, due to the three images and the fact that the stereo tracks are so large. It might work better with just two images: a mono track with data and including the timeline, and a stereo track with data, sized to that all the controls are just visible.

Mono Track:

Stereo Track:

Stereo Track with audio data:

Audio tracks contain digitally sampled sounds. The tracks can be stereo (with either joined or split left and right channels), or single channel (mono, left or right). All tracks can be mixed together, individually muted or made solo, panned left or right , or given their own gain settings. Each can also have their own sample rate and bit depth. The track display offers spectrum and pitch views as well as two waveform views. All these features can be controlled on the Track Panel and its Drop-Down Menu.

There is no limit imposed by Audacity on the number of audio tracks in a project, though a fast, modern computer is needed to edit and play back more than three or four long tracks.

Label Tracks

These tracks contain labels which mark specific points or selection areas in the project. They can be very useful to annotate projects, transcribe song lyrics or to name multiple-exported files.

Time Tracks

This special track allows you to gradually speed up or slow down playback of all audio tracks in the project over time. An initial lower and upper speed is set, and the time contour can be further edited with the same Envelope Tool used for making gradual changes in volume.

Note Tracks

Note Tracks display data from MIDI files - these can be imported with the File > Import MIDI... command. Note Tracks are not currently editable or playable, but can be useful to visually compare a given MIDI file with a sampled audio file (such as WAV) of the same music.