Merging Almost Identical Tracks

Hey,

So I don’t even know how to google this properly or whateven the correct words are for what I want so I had to make a forum post.

I’m an absolute newbie at audacity and editing Audio, so if you put in the effort to answer thank you very much and also explain it like I’m an idiot haha.

So what I want to achieve is merging two almost Identical tracks. We’re doing a podcast over Discord (think: gamer skype) and have thus far recorded with audacity twice, because we can only record what everyone else is saying we always have one track with the recorder not being heard. So the goal is to merge up to 6 hour long conversations (with music sometimes playing in the background) so that everyone can be heard. By now we’ve found away to let everyone be heard but we still have over 30 hours of editing material where only ever one voice is missing and cutting and pasting all of that is going to ruin me. Now I’ve already found out how to merge tracks, but is there a way to make it “perfect”? I don’t want the music or the voices becoming asynchronous and have thus far failed at perfecting it.

Kind regards

If you have two different recordings on the same material, you can just time them by knowing the beginning and ending points. Use Effect > Change Speed and resolve one to the other. This is why you occasionally see performers go “one, two, three, CLAP.” Use Change Speed and not either of the other two. Less distortion.

So now you have two recordings of the same show at the same length. Open one on track one and the other on track two. They will play at the same time and merge automatically when you export the posted MP3. Use the Time Shift Tool (two sideways black arrows) to push one back and forth (sooner and later) until they match. See: “One, two, three, CLAP.”

We assume the two tracks are “clean.” That is, each track voice has a clean hole for the other. If you have vocal leakage (the wrong voices leaks across) then it’s going to be a long day. Go into each track and paste silence, by hand, over the leakage.

If the leakage is relatively quiet, you might be able to use a Noise Gate to squash it and not have to do it by hand.

Koz

Does Discord have a recording feature? If you set up your conference on Skype or Zoom, you can get them to record the conference for you and send finished sound files. So far one (1) forum poster has claimed they can record conferences well at home. Everybody else has troubles.

Koz