I’m new to Audacity and plan to use it to edit hour long interviews so I can get them transcribed into text by a typist.
How can I listen to the interview and mark what I feel are the interesting and boring bits at the first run through.
I reckon I have taught myself the niceties of selecting and deleting from the tutorials. What I have not been able to puzzle out is how to indicate where I feel the good and bad bits probably start/end.
Tony
Thanks Gale,
I make my selection and Space plays it. Fine.
What is this about using C to play the bit before and the bit after the selection. I hit C and it adds text to the label. What am I misunderstanding, please?
Tony
Creating a label and adding text to it are linked. The text can be a carriage return instead of plain text, but I don’t think there’s any way to do nothing—to go around it. You can’t avoid the text step.
Koz
This is what I am talking about:-
Play Cut Preview C Plays by default for two seconds before the current selection and one second after the current selection, as if the current selection had been cut or deleted. This is useful for previewing what the audio will sound like after the cut. The default duration that is played before and after the selection can be changed in the Cut Preview section of Playback Preferences.
Does not work for me.
T
You did not say what version of Audacity you are using (see the pink panel at the top of the page).
Due to a bug, C for Cut Preview does not work in Audacity 2.1.1 unless you press R to record something first.
C for Cut Preview works in the current Audacity 2.1.2 from http://audacityteam.org/download/windows.
Gale
Thanks Gale,
Mine is 2.1.2. I downloaded it yesterday but I can’t remember where from. It was almost certainly the main site as I try to avoid third party download sites.
I installed from the .exe
Tony
If the problem is that “C” types in the label, press ENTER or RETURN on your keyboard to confirm and close the label, then C will Cut Preview.
Alternatively if you want to leave the label open so you can type more into it, press UP arrow on your keyboard to move the yellow focus border into the audio track. With the focus in the audio track you can use C to Cut Preview. After Cut Preview, press DOWN arrow to move focus back into the label track. Then you can continue typing into the label.
Gale
Thanks Gale,
I’ll leave you in peace (for today anyway).
Tony
Moving on …
It would be handy if I could create labels that showed two alternatives such as S(tart) F(inish) or B(eggining) E(end).
I’d do these as my first real time run through of the interview was playing.
You have taught me how to make a label at each change point - can I make two different looking labels?
Tony
CTRL + M does not create a region label while playing. Is that what you want to do?
You can press CTRL + M to mark a “beginning” point and CTRL + M again to mark an “end” point then join the two labels to a region label, but that is fiddly.
Alternatively, click in the waves while playing to mark a “beginning”, drag right, release the mouse when you hear the “end”, then CTRL + B to label the region you created.
Or, press [ (left bracket) when you hear the “beginning” and ] (right bracket) when you hear the end. This creates a region between the “beginning” and “end”. Then use CTRL + B.
It depends whether you prefer mouse or keyboard.
Gale
Three interesting ideas. Thank you Gale.
I have my first interview this afternoon.
I will try all three and see which seems easiest.
Thanks again.
Tony
I’ve just noticed that when I cut a section from my audio track the label track is not cut.
So my labels are now in the wrong place.
Can I lock both panels?
Tony
Either hold SHIFT and press DOWN arrow to extend the selection into the label track, or enable Sync-Locked Track Groups at Tracks > Sync-Lock Tracks.
Gale
Thanks Gale,
Tony