Envelop to control other effects

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

OS X Catalina 10.15.7
Audacity 2.3.3

For years I’ve been wondering if this is possible, but wonderment has turned into an actual technique that I want to apply.

Is it possible to apply an effect according to an envelope over time? Like, “Apply Reverb in a ramp from 0 to 100 over 60 seconds”?

2

That’s not available in Audacity.
“Real-time DAW” applications (such as “Logic”) can do that.

3

I had a feeling. I didn’t want to use a DAW just because of this one feature but I suppose if I’m gonna get all complicated about it, that’s what they do.

Thank you!

4

I once heard someone nearby say you could try these steps:

  1. duplicate your track
  2. apply reverb to the duplicate track only
  3. apply a 60 second fade out to the original track
  4. apply a 60 second fade in to the reverb track
  5. play or export or mix and render

I hope this helps. :smiley:

5

As Jademan says, there are ways to make effects vary over time. For example the “Sliding Stretch” effect can vary over time (https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/sliding_stretch.html), and there’s “duplicate and crossfade” trick that Jademan describes. It really depends on exactly what you want to do.

If you want “controller track automation” (as found in real-time DAW apps), then you need to use a real-time DAW app. If you have one specific task in mind, then there may be ways to accomplish what you want with Audacity.