i am so clueless and i am truly sorry if i am wasting your time. i am trying to mix tryout music for my daughters highschool cheer routine. so i have to have pieces of different songs ( 20 secs of Wont you be my neighbor, then Beyonce’s Single Ladies that has to have other pieces of other songs “cut in” on it and it then go back to playing). I have been looking at your manual and trying to read but i am still not getting it. I admit i am pretty clueless but i can learn. If this is not the program I need, if you could please direct me to a better one I would most deeply appreciate it. If this is where i belong if you could help an old lady get started I would really appreciate that too.
I am using my home computer and it is not anything fancy, i installed Audaacity from the installer and i have windows 7. The songs i have imported from ITunes.
Audacity is probably the best tool for the job and is easier to use than many of the other options.
The task will probably seem hard at first because it’s all new. Probably the best approach would be to spend a bit of time with the program doing nothing important and with no pressure. Try following a couple of the tutorials and have fun making some silly sounds. “Playing” is one of the most effective (and often underrated) ways of learning.
The job that you describe can be broken down into a few fairly simple main tasks: “Importing” an audio file, “Editing” and audio track, “Moving/Arranging” audio clips into a sequence and “Exporting” the finished mix. There are some tutorials here that may be helpful in learning how to accomplish each of these tasks: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Tutorials
In particular, try following this tutorial (but don’t bother with the “recording” bit for now because you don’t need to do that, just stick with the Importing, Editing and Exporting): http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_for_Teachers_-_Installation_and_Basic_Editing
thanks for the help, i have started messing around with it and it has become a little easier. Now i have another question and i cant find the answer. when i get finished and i need to put it on a CD how do i save it in a format that will be recognizable for her to use on her teachers laptop. i am sure she has the newest version of windows, etc. when i save it i see it saves as the aud file. how do i convert it?
In order to be able to do all of the fancy editing stuff, Audacity uses a special format for working on projects. The audio data is saved in small chunks (blocks) which are held in folders inside other folders. Audacity then creates a .AUP file when you save the project. The .AUP file is a special text file that contains instructions that tell Audacity how to put all of the little blocks of data back together again. The .AUP file itself does not contain any audio data. This is a very important concept when working with Audacity. You can read more about this here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Projects
To make an ordinary audio file you need to “Export” the audio from Audacity. For making CDs it is best to export as WAV files which can then be burned to CD to make ordinary audio CDs. Note that an “audio CD” is not the same as a “data CD”. A “data CD” has files that can play on a computer, but it will not play on most ordinary CD players. An “audio CD” will play on a computer or a CD player. When you make the CD it is necessary to tell the CD burning program whether you want to make an audio CD or a data CD. More information about this here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/FAQ:Opening_and_Saving_Files#tocd
how do i save it in a format that will be recognizable for her to use on her teachers laptop.
What is her teacher’s laptop expecting? Can she play a Music CD? Some laptops can and some can’t. This is a good time for a phone call or notes back and forth with the kids.
Almost everybody can read a thumb drive or USB drive. You can Export (not Save) the work as a Microsoft WAV sound file and put it on the thumb drive. All three types of computer can read those.
If it’s going to go on a proper CD that will play in a CD player you will need to make sure that you export at 44100 Kz 16-bit WAVs (part of the Red Book standard for CD’s).
You will need a proper CD burner program, your PC may well have one already installed - there are free ones available.
And then make sure you burn a “music CD” and not a “data CD” - oh and make sure that you use good quality CD-Rs and not CD-RWs.
Thanks to everyone, Yall told me EXACTLY what i needed to know. I have been able to get the pieces together and will have to do some more playing around but your help and patience has been invaluable.
