If I activate the Selection tool to Zoom by clicking F1 do I then de-activate the zoom by simply clicking F1 again? Is that the best way to turn Zoom on/off?
Thanks.
Please read the pages that I post links to - they answer your questions. http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tools_toolbar.html
I did read those instructions and they do not explain how to toggle the Zoom on/off.
Is Gale Andrews available, please?
She’s very good at abbreviating these tasks so they are simpler.
Gale? Could you please help?
Thank you!
Moderator note: Gale is actually a man - it’s just one of those names 
If you followed the likes in the zoom section on the page that Steve pointed you at then you should have come to this:
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/keyboard_shortcut_reference.html#view
You can’t turn zooming on or off - zooming is just the current level of magnification you are currently viewing at.
I suspect that what you are asking is “how do I get back to default zoom level?” in which case just use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + 2 as listed in the table I just pointed you at.
This page on the zoom command should explain more: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zooming.html
Personally I never use the zoom tool (in the link that Steve gave you) - I prefer to use the zoom buttons in the Edit Toolbar - see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/edit_toolbar.html or the keyboard shortcuts.
WC
Pressing F4 once turns Zoom Tool on, but never turns it off. If Zoom Tool is already on, F4 has no effect.
You asked:
If I activate the Selection tool to Zoom by clicking F1 do I then de-activate the zoom by simply clicking F1 again? Is that the best way to turn Zoom on/off?
Is this still a problem - the buttons in Tools Toolbar?
As Steve said, you can only have one of those buttons “on” at once. So if you have zoom tool enabled which you don’t want, pressing F1 once or the Selection Tool button once (top left in the image above) immediately enables Selection Tool and immediately disables whatever other tool was “on” before (Zoom Tool in your case). You don’t need to press twice.
Note that typing D turns off the current tool and turns on the next one, and typing A turns off the current tool and turns on the previous one. So if you have Selection Tool on and type D, typing D will turn off Selection Tool and enable Envelope Tool, and if you have Selection Tool on and type A, typing A will turn off Selection Tool and enable MultiTool ***** (which also has a zoom tool). If that happens by accident, just press F1 once to disable the tool you don’t want and re-enable Selection Tool.
As WC says, for most people it’s easier to use the Zoom buttons at the right end of Edit Toolbar:
and leave Selection Tool on all the time.
Gale
Hi Gale and WC,
If I use the Toolbar (magnifying glass with +) to zoom in and then want Zoom Off is there some icon I press on that Toolbar to then turn Zoom off? Or do I just type D to turn Zoom Off at that point? And it must be a capital D not a small case d, correct?
Then, once I can do that I want to try and capture the dead space leading into the beginning of the music.
So, I would press the Play button on the large toolbar and then when I reach the place right before the wave (music) begins I would press the Stop button, is that correct?
Then, I would press the “Home” key on my keyboard. This should take me to the very beginning (time zero), is that correct?
Then, I would hold down the shift key, and while holding it down, click and drag on the waveform to just before the start of the music. Release the mouse button, then release the Shift key, is that correct?
Press the Del key to delete that selected area which should represent the dead air space at the beginning of the recording, is that correct?
Or are there easier steps?
Thank you very much for all your help and patience.
You don’t turn zoom on or off. You Zoom In… or you Zoom out. That’s why there are two magnifying glasses. One with + one with - in it. So if i need to zoom into something, press the + one. Need to go back out? press the - to your desired level. We all have our happy medium, for me I usually only need to zoom in once or twice. Then back out. Couple of clicks.
Then, once I can do that I want to try and capture the dead space leading into the beginning of the music.
So, I would press the Play button on the large toolbar and then when I reach the place right before the wave (music) begins I would press the Stop button, is that correct?
Doing this will cause the cursor to go back to the start. So don’t do that.
Then, I would press the “Home” key on my keyboard. This should take me to the very beginning (time zero), is that correct?
Pressing stop should do that anyway.
Then, I would hold down the shift key, and while holding it down, click and drag on the waveform to just before the start of the music. Release the mouse button, then release the Shift key, is that correct?
Probably but I can’t see why you cant just zoom in to where you want the music to start, click the wave form with the selection tool and go Edit— Select---- Track Start to Cursor. Press Delete.
Might have to do a short video for you…
Damien
I just followed your suggestion. I zoomed in with the all white magbifying glass (not the one with a + in it) to where I want to delete from, I clicked the wave form chose Edit— Select---- Track Start to Cursor. Pressed Delete and it deleted the entire recording.
Good thing I made a copy!
Why don’t the developers program this like other programs where you can turn featues on/off - toggle on/off?
Because after I zoom in I need to delete from right before this wave form begins back to the all zeros and this does not do it.
I disagree.
OK, that’s fine, that is one way to do it.
But you hadn’t changed from the Zoom tool to the Selection tool had you.
To create a selection you need to use the Selection tool (F1 key or select the “I” cursor in the Tools Toolbar as Gale suggested).
If you make a mistake in Audacity, in most cases you can “Undo” the mistake with “Edit menu > Undo ”.
Steve wrote: But you hadn’t changed from the Zoom tool to the Selection tool had you.
- Well, you didn’t make it clear at exactly which point one has to switch from a Zoom tool to a Selection tool, did you?
Pages of e-mails and no one has made his an easy to follow step-by-step process.
This should be easy.
Yet, I’m no closer to simply deleting the dead air space before the music begins on this recording - right where I started.
Those links posted are not helping. They just obfuscate the process with more nomenclature.
Anyone have a YouTube of this?
Well, have you tried my plug-in or not? For me, it is indeed the easiest way because I don’t see the wave forms.
If I do it manually, I let the audio play and press the “set right end of selection” key as I go along - before the start of the music.
I then delete this first portion.
There now may remain half a second of silence which I try to select properly with shift-right (expand selection) and ctrl-shift-left (reduce selection on the right). In order to do this more accurate, I must zoom in (ctrl-1) which decreases the step size for the arrow keys.
I often listen to the current selection and how it continuous (with play and the c-key). Pressing “z” will ensure that the selection ends on a zero crossing. Ctrl-3 lets you zoom out agin and ctrl-2 sets it to the normal zoom state. Again, this all sounds complicated until you’re used to this procedure.
More concise:
- Home key
- select roughly the silence before the start and delete it
- Use shift-right and ctrl-shift-left to select the remaining
- Use ctrl-1 and ctrl-3 to adjust the step size and zoom
- Play the selection; play before and after selection (c)
- Press z to place the boundary on a zero crossing.
- Delete the selection with del
- Do the similar for the end.
It is of course easier to select with the mouse, at least in the beginning. Just remember the 3 zoom keys ctrl-1, >, ctrl-3 < and ctrl-2 back to normal.
From my post: I can’t see why you cant just zoom in to where you want the music to start, click the wave form with the selection tool and go Edit— Select---- Track Start to Cursor. Press Delete.
shrugs
Damien
Here’s a video I made. I uploaded it to youtube and the quality isn’t HD, but hopefully you get the idea.
Damien
The challenge with this task is that everyone has posted a different way of addressing this.
There has been an inordinate amount of talk about zooming. It would be most helpful if the developers could program the zoom so that you right click your mouse on the + magnifying glass icon to zoom in and left click to turn it off. Then right click the -magnifying glass icon to zoom out and left click to turn zooming out off.
Toggling would help a lot rather than grappling with how to go from zooming to selection tool.
Just a thought if the developers ever read suggestions.
Damien - thank you for creating that video. It seems to go so fast (probably not if you’ve completed this task hundreds of times) and the arrow is so small I can hardly see it so by the time I do see it the video is over.
This is what Ive gleaned from that video and your posts.
Deleting dead air space at the beginning:
Step 1: Go to 00h00m0000s by left clicking the mouse on the purple wave until it reaches that starting point
Step 2: Right click on the + magnifying glass icon until you can see separation between when the music starts and where there is just a flat, purple line
Step 3: Press F1 to get out of zoom and into the Selection Tool
Step 4: place the mouse right before the music starts (with a wave greater then a flat line) and drag the grey shading all the way to the left as far as it will go
Step 5: Go up to the Toolbar and choose Edit >Select > Tract Start to Cursor
Step 6: Press the Delete key
Deleting dead air space at the end
Step 1: Grab the little box under the waves with the mouse and slide it all the way to end of the recording. Then, slide that box back to the last of the waves before they go flat.
Step 2: Right click right before the waves go concretely flat
Step 3: Go up to the Toolbar and choose Edit >Select > Tract Start to Cursor - or Cursor to end??
Either way it highlights the entire recording and deletes all the music.
If you can please correct any/all these steps for me l’d appreciate that.
Thank you.
Well in essence there’s only 3 steps. Couldn’t go much slower! You can click full screen on youtube to make it bigger…
This is what Ive gleaned from that video and your posts.
Deleting dead air space at the beginning:
Step 1: Go to 00h00m0000s by left clicking the mouse on the purple wave until it reaches that starting point
Step 2: Right click on the + magnifying glass icon until you can see separation between when the music starts and where there is just a flat, purple line
Step 3: Press F1 to get out of zoom and into the Selection Tool
Step 4: place the mouse right before the music starts (with a wave greater then a flat line) and drag the grey shading all the way to the left as far as it will go
Step 5: Go up to the Toolbar and choose Edit >Select > Tract Start to Cursor
Step 6: Press the Delete key
Step 1: You dont need to click anything. You have your wave form, it has silence at the start. Leave as is. I don’t click anything at 00 in the video.
Step 2: No. Left click the + magnifying glass. This is only to zoom in so you can get a better look at where the silence ends.
Step 3: I never mentioned F1. Why are you getting out of zoom that way? Just go over and left click the selection tool.
Step 4: Click the wave form where the music starts. I never dragged anything in my video.
Step 5: Correct.
Step 6: Correct.
It shouldn’t delete the whole wave form if you follow it. This is a really simple task and i tried to do it as slow as possible. Which is why I repeated it for the silence at the end of the video.
Deleting dead air space at the end
Step 1: Grab the little box under the waves with the mouse and slide it all the way to end of the recording. Then, slide that box back to the last of the waves before they go flat.
Step 2: Right click right before the waves go concretely flat
Step 3: Go up to the Toolbar and choose Edit >Select > Tract Start to Cursor - or Cursor to end??Either way it highlights the entire recording and deletes all the music.
If you can please correct any/all these steps for me l’d appreciate that.
Thank you.
Step 1: The selecting of the wave form is only one way. As i mentioned in the video, you can do it that way OR just click the waveform with the selection tool.
Step 2: Where does this right click come into it? I don’t mention right clicking.
Step 3: Cursor to Track End. If we think about it, we want to delete silence from when the music finished to the END of the actual recording.
Damien
It’s difficult to read just the wave forms to know exactly where the music begins and ends.
Is there a way to edit out the beginning and ending dead air space when listening to the recording so that as soon as you hear music start at the beginning and the music stop at the end you can stop the recoding and edit exactly at that point?
Pressing the stop button seems to throw this editing off kilter bringing it back to 00h00m0000s
And other stop methods seem to require 3 hands - holding down the shift key and pressing other keys while simultaneously watching the wave forms and also while listening to the recording demands a lot of dexterity for anyone but a keyboardist.
Is there a one key-quick way to stop the recording without pressing the Stop key or coordinating other keys while watching and listening all at the same time?
Thank you.
Post a sample that you are trying to edit and I can tailor a video to that.
Damien
There is only one solution - the one that has been repeated many times. Press F1 once.
Are you talking about the zoom buttons in Edit Toolbar? If so it has already been explained to you that those are not buttons that turn a zoom tool (or any other tool) on or off. The buttons either zoom in or zoom out, leaving the Selection Tool selected if you already have it selected. This is what you want to do in order to to zoom in and out while still being able to use Selection Tool.
Then don’t grapple with it. Press F1 now to change to (or remain in) Selection Tool and don’t change it to any other tools, ever again. Choose a point on the blue waves where you want to zoom in, then click there. Press the Zoom + button to zoom in, centered on the point where you clicked.
Press the Zoom - button to zoom out again.
If your suggestion is about the Edit Toolbar buttons, it makes no sense (because the buttons do not turn any tool or type of interaction on or off).
Or are you asking for a button on the vertical scale that turns Zoom Tool on or off?
Would you find it more intuitive to zoom using the mouse? You can do that if your mouse has a scroll wheel or a ball. Try it! Move your mouse pointer to the place in the waveform where you want to zoom in (there is no need to click where you want to zoom in). Hold CTRL on your keyboard then scroll the wheel or the ball upwards. This zooms in, centred at the place where your mouse pointer is.
Hold CTRL on your keyboard them scroll the wheel or the ball downwards. This zooms out at the place where your mouse pointer is.
Gale
Hold SHIFT and press A on your keyboard. This stops playback and sets the cursor at the place you stopped. There is no button to do this, though I have been arguing we need one.
Do you want to stop and set the cursor there, but use a single key to do it? You can do this. Tell us what single key you want to use to do it, that is not used already. Then we will make a file for you that you can load to tell Audacity to change from SHIFT and A to use that single key instead.
Gale
Yes, rather than having to listen to the recording AND watch the waves AND wait for the exact place to stop the recording to create the exact spot from which you wish to delete from (either at the beginning of the recording or at the end) AND then having to also hold down 2 keys (SHIFT AND A) it would be a lot easier just to be able to press one key to stop the recoding for editing.
So, just to double check …when I’m listening to a recording and want to stop it exactly at a certain point the only way to preserve the point at which I wish to stop to edit is by holding down the shift key AND pressing the letter A just at the stop spot?
So, in editing you sit there with the SHIFT KEY held down while listening to the recording and when you find your stop spot you immediately click the A key?
Thank you.