I know this is a pretty basic question I should be passed at this point, but how do I measure or see precise seconds as I’m recording? The marks with the numbers don’t seem to be seconds. I want to make sure I have exactly enough at the beginning and end of the audiobook.
The “Timeline” is usually good enough, and convenient. See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/timeline.html
There’s also the “Audio Position” time in the “Selection Toolbar”.
See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/selection_toolbar.html#position
I want to make sure I have exactly enough at the beginning and end of the audiobook.
Can you talk about that some more? Enough what? I’m not aware of any audiobook specification that has to work out exact.
Are we talking about ACX/Audible publishing?
Are you reading directly into an audiobook submission with no editing or post-production?
Koz
FindAwayVoices requires .5-1 second of room tone at the beginning of each chapter or segment, and 4-5 seconds of it at the end of each also. I believe ACX does as well. That’s what I need to see the seconds for.
Doesn’t Zoom work?
Pause for over a second before you start talking and then pause again for five seconds at the end of the chapter.
Zoom into the beginning and cut off Room Tone over a second. Zoom out full and zoom into the end and cut off any Room Tone over five seconds.
If you zoom in far enough, seconds on the timeline become enormous and you don’t need any tricks to see them.
There are a million Zoom tools, but I only use three.
Drag-select the area at the beginning of a reading. Zoom into it Control+E.
Drag select the amount that the silence misses one second.
Delete.
Zoom all the way out to the whole chapter Control+F
Drag-select and Zoom into the end of the chapter and cut off anything longer than 5 seconds.
If you Zoom in a little too far, back out a little with Control+3. That’s all three zooms I use. You can keep dragging and zooming in until you get where you want to go.
Do you have any trouble seeing those times?
Koz
Got it now, thank you!