1. STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO AUDACITY PRO-EXPERTISE: AUDACITY
TRACKS AND CLIPS Prepared By SchulPortals Technologies Ltd.
www.schulportals.com [email protected]
2. Audacity Tracks and Clips An Audacity project can contain as
many tracks as you want. Each track can contain several audio clips
which can be moved around independently, but share several
properties of the track such as its overall volume, panning, sample
rate, and sample format.
3. Channels, Tracks and Clips The terms channel, track, and
clip can be a little confusing, especially because some programs
may use them to mean slightly different things. Within Audacity,
the meaning is always consistent: A channel is for audio input or
output. Audacity can record 2 channels of input (stereo), and more
if you have a special sound card or audio device that supports more
than two simultaneous channels. Audacity only supports 2 channels
of output, no matter what kind of audio hardware you have.
4. Channels, Tracks and Clips A track is like one instrument in
your symphony, or one voice in your dialog. You can have as many
tracks as you want, and all of them will be mixed together to
create your final output, but during editing you can manipulate
each track independently. If you have an interview that was
recorded with two microphones, each one can go in a separate track.
If you have background music, that could go in a third track. That
allows you to manipulate them separately before you mix them in the
end. A clip is a piece of an audio track that you can manipulate
somewhat independently from the rest of the track. For example, you
can split up an interview into sentences and move the sentences
around individually, even though they're all from the same track.
Less commonly, you can move clips between tracks.
5. TRACKS All audio files that are imported, or new audio that
is recorded, goes into a new track. Afterwards, you can move, copy
or paste audio into existing tracks. Many track properties can be
accessed by clicking the title of the track, near the upper-left
corner, bringing up a menu something like this:
6. TRACKS The options in this menu are described here Track
Drop-Down Menu.
7. STEREO TRACKS Stereo Tracks contain a single label area to
the left with two waveforms on the right. The top waveform
represents the left channel and the bottom waveform represents the
right channel, as in this example:
8. STEREO TRACKS By default, the two channels of a stereo track
are always edited simultaneously. However, you can split them apart
and work with them independently by opening the track menu (see
above) and selecting Split Stereo Track.
9. SPLITTING A TRACK INTO CLIPS When you record some audio or
import audio from a file, you get a single track. In many cases,
there are natural gaps in the audio - silence between sentences or
pauses between phrases in music. Those are good candidates for
splitting the track into multiple clips, allowing you to manipulate
the clips independently. There are five ways to get multiple clips
into a track: Split in the middle of an existing clip. Split Cut in
the middle of an existing clip. Split Delete in the middle of an
existing clip. Paste into an empty portion of an existing track.
Drag a clip from a different track.
10. SPLITTING A TRACK INTO CLIPS As an example, see what
happens when you select Edit > Split, in the before and after
figures below.
11. TIME-SHIFTING CLIPS To move clips around independently, use
the Time Shift Tool . When you click on a clip and drag it to the
left or right, this is called time-shifting, because you are
changing the time that audio will be heard.
12. TIME-SHIFTING CLIPS To move multiple clips at once, select
all of the clips you want to move using the Selection Tool, then
use the Time Shift Tool to click and drag. If you click inside a
selection area when dragging clips with the Time Shift Tool, the
selection area will move with the clip as shown above. Otherwise,
the selection area will stay where it is.
13. TIME-SHIFTING CLIPS If you click within the selection, all
selected clips will move together (see before and after figures
above and below).
14. TIME-SHIFTING CLIPS Note that moving clips also makes use
of guides, also seen in the chapter on Audacity Selection. When you
move a clip, Audacity will snap the left or right boundary of a
clip to the nearest edge of a clip in any other track, making it
very easy to line up clips during editing
15. Moving a Clip Between Tracks The Time Shift Tool can also
be used to move a single clip between tracks. The Audacity project
in the first figure below has three tracks ("Sax 1", "Sax 2", and
"Drums"). The first track has 2 clips, the second track has no
clips, and the third track has 1 clip. A clip can be moved from one
track to another simply by dragging it using the Time Shift Tool as
shown in the second figure
16. MOVING A CLIP BETWEEN TRACKS NOTE: if a clip contains a
selection area and you click with the Time Shift Tool within the
selection area Audacity will not let you drag the clip into another
track. To drag a clip containing a selection area into another
track, either click in the track with the Selection Tool to remove
the selection, or click outside the selection area (but still