I have Audacity 2.0.4 on a Mac OS 10.8.5. I want to record simple audio voice (as another user did) for interviewing a person. I want to pause and then continue recording on the same track. I expect I will have dozens of pauses and continues, and I just want one long track at the end. I find that I can pause using the || button, and start recording again with the same || button and this does what I want. But if I once stop, using the rectangle button, then I can only continue recording on a new track. I have tried combinations of shift+R and cmd+A mentioned by others, without success. It would be helpful to have in the Help material some advice on this.
It would be helpful to have in the Help material some advice on this.
Probably not because we’re hoping it’s only broken for you. I’ve never heard of that not working.
You’ve been using the buttons in the control panel to Record, Stop and Pause. Start recording normally and press the “p” key. Does Audacity Pause Record and pick up again on the next “p”?
[X] delete that track back to a clean Audacity. Record a brief segment and just press Stop. Transport > Append Record. Does the recording continue from where you were – at the end of the first recording?
Koz
Yes, I can use either the p key or the || button to start and stop a recording. But then I push the rectangle stop button. I want next to start again, appending. I had not discovered the menu item Transport > Append Record. Using that menu I can restart the recording from where it left off, just as I wanted. The shift+R does not do that for me but the menu item does it. This is exactly what I wanted to know. Thank you very much for providing this information, which I had not found in the Help.
Do you have your Caps-Lock key on? I can’t think of a reason Shift+R wouldn’t work.
The segment in the instructions is for the Transport Toolbar specifically, not the button functions, so in that sense, it does leave you out in the cold. I’ll talk to the other elves and see if there’s anything we can do.
Further down those instructions, though, it did offer a glimmer of hope.
Audacity > Preferences > Keyboard.
Scroll down about a third of the way. Is your APPEND RECORD command still linked to Shift+R? If it’s not, that’s where your keys went.
When you get your keys back, it should be possible to Spacebar stop the recording and Shift+R start it up recording again just where it left off. Alternate between those two.
Koz
Since you seem to be using the “Append Record” function a lot, you may want to consider assigning a single key shortcut to it, rather than continue with the two-key default or the menu both of which would require more clicking.
You can either find a vacant key - or disable one of the currently assigned keys (for a command that you don’t use much and don’t really need a shortcut for) and use that.
See this page in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/keyboard_preferences.html
WC
UPDATE: The key A might be a good one to reassign as the default use for that is Previous Tool which only shifts you around the items in the Tools Toolbar which you can simply achieve by just clicking on the tool (it’s a more useful shortcut for unsighted users) - see http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tools_toolbar.html where I note the A and D shortcut keys are not documented - I have made a note to fix that for the 2.0.5 manual].
WC
If you look in the Transport Menu > Append Record, whatever is its current shortcut will be shown to right of the item.
Gale