Tutorial - Audacity Settings for Recording
- Bill 16Dec11: corrected a few typos, added menu spans. Looks good.
Now that you know you're getting sound into the computer, it's time to start Audacity and make some basic settings to enable recording.
Project Sample Rate
The sampling rate, sample rate, or sampling frequency defines the number of samples per second (or per other unit) taken from a continuous signal to make a discrete signal. For time-domain signals, it can be measured in samples per second.
A setting of 44100 is standard for creating files that can be burned to CD, or for high-quality MP3 files.
Project Sample Format
The Project Sample Format (also known as Bit Depth or Word Size) is the number of computer bits present in each audio sample, it determines the dynamic range of the audio. Audacity's default is set to 32-bit float, which is good for editing and processing audio. You can easily downsample to 16-bit (which is standard for creating files that can be burned to CD) on exporting WAV files later.
If you need to change your sample format this can only be done through the Quality tab of Preferences. To access this, use . However it is strongly recommended that you retain the default setting.
Temporary Files
Most users have only one hard disk. However, if you have multiple hard disks, you will want to make sure that Audacity uses your largest or fastest hard disk to store audio. Open the Preferences (in the Edit menu, or the Audacity menu on Mac OS X) and click on the Directories tab. Make sure that the directory listed is on your preferred hard disk.
Software Playthrough
Now click on the Transport menu and, if you are recording from a microphone, make sure that "Software Playthrough" is not checked - Software Playthrough will cause undesirable feedback from the computer speakers to the microphone. If you are recording a guitar or keyboard and want to hear the instrument through the computer speakers, make sure that "Software Playthrough" is checked.
Overdub
Now click on the Transport menu again and make sure that "Overdub" is not checked. When this option is enabled Audacity will play other existing tracks while recording new one. You can decide which tracks will play according to their mute/solo buttons.
It is unlikely that you will need or want this for your first recording. If you do want to overdub by, for example, singing over an instrumental track that you have recorded you will need to be aware of the Latency correction.
Latency correction
On most consumer systems there will be a delay between singing or hitting your note and it being laid down in the recording. When the Overdub setting is enabled, Audacity will push recorded tracks backwards by 130 ms to compensate for this delay. If your latency is constant, you can adjust this correction value so that your recorded tracks should end up properly synchronized with the other tracks after correction. To set a custom latency value for your system, see the Latency Test page.
Sound Activated Recording
Also on the Transport menu make sure that "Sound Activated Recording" is not checked.
When this is enabled, recording will automatically start or resume when the input volume rises above the chosen threshold level, and pause when the level falls below that threshold. You cannot pause Sound Activated recordings manually using the Pause button or corresponding menu item or shortcut.
Audacity Preferences
If you prefer, you can make the above settings in your Audacity Preferences. To access this, use
The image below shows the Recording section of Preferences:
There are many other settings that can be made in your Preferences do take some time to explore and understand these.
For example Sample Rate and Sample Format can be changed from the Quality tab of Preferences.
Links
> Forward to: Tutorial - Selecting Your Input
