Hi, using 2.2.1 and Windows 10. I’ve been working on an audio fiction project where I have multiple people recording the various characters and emailing their recordings to me. I then put them in a timeline and it sounds great. Here’s my problem. I get a new recording of Character 1 which is far superior than the one I’ve already used. I don’t want to go through my timeline and manually replace all those recordings. I was hoping that if I used the same file names as I used originally and put those files in the right folder that It would automatically update itself. But it doesn’t and I see why but I’m wondering if anyone has a thought to get around this. Hope this makes sense.
That will probably not work.
By default, Audacity copies the audio data from files when you import them, so all of the project’s audio data is as “block files” (.AU file extension) in the project’s _data folder.
It would be possible to do what you want IF Audacity had been set to read imported files directly AND the audio track had not been processed in any way. This is not generally recommended because it is easy to make a small mistake leading to devastating consequences (total destruction of the entire project). This is the “Read uncompressed audio files from original location (faster)” option in Preferences: Import / Export Preferences - Audacity Manual
I don’t want to go through my timeline and manually replace all those recordings.
Don’t mix the voices on the timeline. Assuming they’re all working from a common voice (call each other on the phone for the performance coord in addition to high-quality recording the local voices) just stack the voice tracks up one over the other. Audacity will push them all together when you export, or you can Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render to a new Track to see what one mixed track is going to look like.
Then, when you get the correction, that performer’s voice should be one whole track. Swap out the track.
If you’re slicing up the many performances by hand phrase at a time…um…you’re doing it wrong.
Koz