I am working with two tracks: one in Arabic, with 39 short clips and labels; and another one of the English translation of Arabic clips, also with 39 short clips and labels.
I need to combine them into one track with the English followed by the Arabic. I already created a separate track with Arabic followed by English, yet I am unsure if the process I used is most effective and/or efficient.
Should I ‘highlight’ and ‘duplicate’ each clip and label, and then use the ‘time shift tool’ for many additional short tracks (78)? Or should I just add another track and then ‘highlight’ and ‘copy/paste’ each short clip, alternating between En and Ar, and add labels for each one?
If you do two tracks and copy/paste between them, you will still have to add silence between each segment to make the timing work out between the two languages. I think the 78 tracks one above the other may be the easiest way if only because it lets you make a mistake and easily correct it. If you’re copying to one track, one mistake early on may be enough to need to recut the whole thing.
Depending on which Audacity you have, it’s a good idea to generate a silent track longer than the show somewhere in the show (first?? last??) When you export The Whole Show, make sure your silent track is part of the export. That will prevent your carefully-timed segments from wandering.
If you File > Export Sound, everything will be included in the show automatically unless they’re muted.
Maybe someone else will jump in with another method.
And what is the ideal length of silence between the two languages (foreign language, followed by translation), please? I think I put 1.5 seconds for the current track, but unsure if there is a standard that is used?
There is no “standard” I know of, so it is your decision.
If you are inserting silences manually, generating silence, copying it then pasting the silence can be the quickest way to ensure all silences are the same length.