Hi,
I would like to make sound files with specific frequencies that go on for about 6 minutes. This is not music just certain specific frequencies.
How do I do this? Is there a tutorial maybe?
Thanks in advance,
Alan
Generate > Tone.
If you need two or more tones at the same time, make one, de-select it (click anywhere else) and generate again. It will make two tones one above the other and play (and Export, and Save) both at once.
Note Audacity doesn’t save sound files. If you want a stand-alone sound file (WAV, MP3) you have to Export one. If you need the tones to do other work, use WAV. If you need to post finished work on the internet or send the work to someone for listening, you can use MP3.
Never use MP3 in the middle of production. It creates distortion and you can’t stop it. MP3 is for end-product listening.
Koz
sound files with specific frequencies
You weren’t specific enough about exactly which tones or collections of tones. Audacity will generate “Noise” which is suites or collections of tones. White noise is all tones with equal energy per frequency. This is the one that sounds like sharp, piercing escaping air. Pink Noise is all tones with equal energy per octave. This is the one that sounds like gentle spring rain in the trees. Brown Noise is muted Pink Noise, etc. Google.
If you need anything more complicated than that, you’ll need to create it by hand one tone at a time.
Koz
There is a caution here. If you apply white noise loud enough, it can damage your speaker or headphone system. Normal, natural sounds do not contain that much high pitch energy and speakers aren’t equipped to handle it.
Koz
One more caution. Scientists get into trouble with Audacity all the time because not all Audacity processes are surgically accurate. If there is ever any choice between scientifically accurate and sounding good, Audacity will always choose sounding good.
For example, When Audacity makes a “perfect quality” WAV sound fie, it adds a tiny amount of carefully prepared noise so the final result doesn’t have bit conversion distortion. Audacity works internally at super high quality 32-bit floating. Normal, outside world sound files run at 16-bit. Downgrading Audacity performances to normal sound files can create distortions, so Audacity makes them very, very slightly fuzzy.
You can make sound files at 32-floating with no conversion, but it’s possible nobody else will be able to play them.
Koz
You can also generate custom sounds using Nyquist.
For example, this will create a sound that contains the frequencies 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000 Hz:
;version 4
;type generate
(setf f1 400)
(setf step 100)
(setf duration 6.0) ;duration in seconds
(let ((output (s-rest duration))
tone)
(dotimes (i 7)
(setf tone (stretch duration (hzosc (+ f1 (* step i)))))
(setf tone (mult tone 0.15))
(setf output (sum output tone)))
output)
To run the above code, copy and paste it into the Nyquist Prompt
There’s also a small collection of Nyquist generator plug-ins here: https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Generate_Plugins
Wow! What an amazing welcome to the forum. That is way more than I was expecting and every bit (NPI) is useful. I can now proceed.
Thanks
All the best