When I improt clips they go into a new track and placed in timestamp 00:00:00. This makes it very difficult to edit long audio, since it requires me to navigate all the way back to the beginning, then somehow move the clip all the way back to the place I was. If it will be added (even as a new track) at the timestamp I dragged it to it’ll be much easier to edit.
Things appear to be different in the upcoming version 4 of Audacity (I have been testing the alpha-2 and the nightlies).
In this version it imports to just where you place your cursor as you drag&drop.
However this only works for drag&drop - if you use File>Import the it still imports the new track starting at T=0. This seems to me to be an inconsistency so I will consider adding an issue to Muse’s GitHub issues log.
Peter
I’m good with Drag&Drop, but unfortunately version 4 isn’t mature enough for me to use, and I’m doing real simple editing, placing clips on the timeline, some fade effects, some pitch and tempo. Could’t get it to do anything. I run the linux appimage.
Go ahead and import your audio files and don’t worry about where they appear on the timeline. Then…
Click Select, then All to select all the audio.
Click Tracks, then Align Tracks, then Align End To End to spread them out along the timeline so they don’t overlap.
You may have to experiment with moving tracks up and down to get everything aligned in the order you want.
When you export it will mix and render everything into one or two tracks.
1 Like
that’s a nice, elegant solution, that would work if I only had one take per clip, but I have several, and I listen to each, mix and match to get the best result possible, so while I see how this could help, I’m not sure it’ll be much help for me right now, but thanks for the tip!
But this conversation made me think on my workflow: I’m editing single clips of sound, then adding them together to the final product. Is there a way (or would be in version 4) to do this inside the project? define clips from several “takes” in groups with their own timeline, then arrange them on the main timeline? Come to think about it, this could have multi-level hierarchy.
It’s an interesting idea I’ve explored a bit; I’ve come to the conclusion that a first step probably should be a project bin (ie a way to organise files inside a project before adding them to a timeline). Nested timelines make some more sense once they have a place to live in.
1 Like