Is there any way to play a segment at end of a song then have it “loop” back to the beginning of the song?
What I’m trying to do is clip/ cut the end of a song such that the timing is perfect for when it starts at the beginning when “looping” the whole song.
What I want is to play the last few seconds of the song then have it automatically restart at he beginning.
This way I can see how the transition is working when looping the whole song.
I’ve been searching and reading extensively and can’t find the answer.
Maybe it’s not possibly to do but I’m hoping it is possible.
There’s two loops. The theater loop is where the content and sounds mesh perfectly to each other, but there’s also a technical loop where the blue waves on the timeline meet in a harmonious manner. The technical loop is the one that can give you a mysterious tick or pop at the loop point which doesn’t appear anywhere in the actual show.
There are desperation moves where instead of a cold butt-splice, you fade one track out while you’re fading the other one in and then overlap them.
And that brings up another sneaky trick. Nobody wrote you have to present the song once. You can present the song two or three times and surgically create the loops yourself between one and two and two and three. It’s only the end of three and the beginning of one you have to worry about, and by that time, the listener may have gone home.
And another note. This looping thing doesn’t work with MP3. MP3 files have ratty, unpredictable beginnings and ends. You’ll be back here complaining that no matter what you do, your MP3 won’t cleanly loop.
Audacity does not have “loops” in the same way as DAWs (such as Cubase, Sonar, Reaper, Logic …). In Audacity you simply “Repeat” a section (see: Repeat - Audacity Manual)
For finding the loop points, use “Timeline Quick-Play”.
In brief, make a selection, then “Shift + Click” in the TimeLine to start loop play. (Spacebar or Stop button to stop).
See here: Tutorial - Looping - Audacity Manual
and here: Timeline - Audacity Manual
Yes. Select the audio that you want to loop, then “Shift + Click” on the Timeline at the place that you want to start playing (for example, 3 seconds before the end of the selection).
Right-click on time-line to Enable Dragging Selection
Right-click on time-line to view updated context menu.
Click drag in waveform to select audio from 0:30 to 1:30
SHIFT-click at 1:25 in time-line to play selected audio beginning at 1:25-1:30, automatically looping back to 0:30 and continuing.
[Note: if you watch Record Button carefully, you can see when SHIFT key is pressed]
I selected the whole song then Shift clicked on the timeline at 1:27
It started playing these last 3 seconds at 1:27 then looped back to the beginning. Yay!
I had been doing all the above over and over but when Shift clicking I was in the waveform and not on the timeline.
Clicking on the timeline was what I was missing.
