I’m using Audacity to record and check my exercises, but there is a big problem. After playing a scale or long tone I have to do a lot of things:
Switch my attention from musical task to computer (that’s the worst part!)
Remove right hand from the instrument
Bend towards computer and do some clicking
Switch my attention to the record and find what to improve next time
Switch my attention back to computer (EWWW!!!)
Do some clicking again. Since there is no big erase button I have to create new window and close previous.
Switch my attention back to the instrument and scores and return right hand where it belongs.
It’s very, very tiring and unproductive. 80% of the time I spend fiddling with computer and not excercising, and worse it lessens the effect of the exercises because of the attention switching back and forth. Now what I want:
Run the program in eh… let’s say “parrot mode” and walk away to the music stand with microphone
The program listens microphone
I play my exercise
The program detects some seconds of silence
The program plays whatever it heard back, trimming the silence from begin (it may take some time to concentrate on music and there is no reason to listen to this pause)
The program switches into listening again
Goto 2
Is it possible to do with current version of Audacity, or at least script this behaviour in some way? If not, is there ANY program that could do this?
I don’t believe any version of Audacity is scriptable, but someone will correct me.
That and “Silent Sense” is one of those good ideas that sounds like it should work so well and solve a lot of problems, It is, it does, but it doesn’t. Silent Sense is usually used once, sometimes with a lot of cursing, and then put in the garage.
You sound like the poster child for Post Production Editing. Just start Audacity recording and let it go for the duration of the performance. The silent passages should be simple to find just by looking at the timeline and you can set Labels at the beginning of each segment and Export Multiple.
Then how diffictult would be to hack this feature into current version? How good and readable is Audacity code? I did not study sources yet… I worked with wxWindows 2.2 some years ago, but C++ is not my favourite language and frankly I hate it
That and “Silent Sense” is one of those good ideas that sounds like it should work so well and solve a lot of problems, It is, it does, but it doesn’t. Silent Sense is usually used once, sometimes with a lot of cursing, and then put in the garage.
Well, I rehearse in a silent room, the difference between instrument sond and background is huge. If it worked well in simple tapecorders of the past what is difficult today? I just tried my old Panasonic recorder in “economy” mode and stops the cassete when I stop playing and wait some seconds…
You sound like the poster child for Post Production Editing. Just start Audacity recording and let it go for the duration of the performance. The silent passages should be simple to find just by looking at the timeline and you can set Labels at the beginning of each segment and Export Multiple.
Koz
It is NOT performance, it’s rehearsal! I do not create sound files. I need immediate feedback to improve my next attempt. Long tone exercises are essential for any wind player and playback of the current exercise after it’s done immediately shows many errors that you did not hear while playing, so you can do correct them and try again. It’s a training process.
You could try this:
Use Audacity 1.3.5
Record for say half an hour, then go to the computer and press stop (SPACEBAR).
Select the track that you have recorded (which has some loud bits of you playing, shuffling, coughing, etc.) and some very quiet bits.
From the Effects menu select “Truncate Silence” (you may need to experiment a bit to get the optimum settings)
Truncate silence will delete all parts that are below the threshold level, provided that these silent bits remain silent for longer than the “Max silence duration”.
<<<it’s rehearsal! I do not create sound files. I need immediate feedback to improve my next attempt.>>>
Right. So Audacity probably isn’t going to be the program for you.
<<<Then how diffictult would be to hack this feature into current version? >>>
As difficult as it would be to convince the programmers that they should stop working on 1.4, the next stable version of Audacity to do that for you.
There is a place on the forum for future feature requests. Built in auto-stop and repeat Dictation Tools comes up more often that you would think. You appear to be an extension of those tools.
Yes, that’s the answer I was looking for. Alas, there are no such programs at all
<<<Then how diffictult would be to hack this feature into current version? >>>
As difficult as it would be to convince the programmers that they should stop working on 1.4, the next stable version of Audacity to do that for you.
There is a place on the forum for future feature requests. Built in auto-stop and repeat Dictation Tools comes up more often that you would think. You appear to be an extension of those tools.
Koz
But these features may appear in a very distant future (or not appear at all). It looks I’ll have to implement a hardware solution with simple pedals and scripting program that could drive any recording program…
grrruk,
I’m not sure how annoying this will be, but you might be able to get by just using a wireless keyboard that you can buy anywhere. You’ll press ‘R’ to record, play your longest, most graceful tone, then press ‘Space’ to stop recording and now you can press ‘Space’ again to play back and/or stop the clip that you just recorded. Audacity conveniently keeps the cursor in the same spot once you’re done recording so you won’t have to adjust the position of the cursor as long as you don’t leave much dead-air in the beginning of the recording. Once you’ve stopped the clip, if you want to save that particular recording you’ll have to use the mouse to Mute that track, but if you don’t want to save each rehearsal then you can just press [ctrl]+z to undo the recording. Then Audacity will remove the most recent track and put the cursor back at the beginning and you can just press ‘R’ to start the whole process again.
That won’t get rid of any gaps before you recorded, but it will remove your need to look at the screen too often.
Coincidentally, this is similar to how I have my studio setup when I record drums. I have a keyboard set up on a chair next to me and I use the keyboard to do everything I need. The only thing I need the mouse for when I do this is to compare more than one take with another. It’s very convenient for me since it would be a real pain to have to get up and walk across the room every time I miss a kick drum (very often, I might add). Hopefully you won’t have to change your process too much to do something like this. I should also note that Audacity lets you edit the keyboard shortcuts in the edit → preferences menu.
There’s some good ideas there.
Just about everything can be done from the keyboard - a few short-cuts that may be useful in conjunction with these last suggestions:
ENTER = select/un-select track
Up/Down cursor = move focus to track above/below
HOME = go to beginning of track
END = go to end of track
SHIFT + U = mute/un-mute track
STIFT + S = solo/un-solo track
SHIFT + R = continue recording on end of selected track.
P = pause/un-pause.
