Merging tracks that are already positionally in the right place

There’s no q&A board so I’ll guess I’ll just post on the board containing the version I’m using.

I wanted to keep the audio that I want to use to replace parts on the first/primary track on separate tracks. Now how do I merge them?

Everytime you delete a segment of the audio,which I did,audacity collapses the track screwing up the placement of the tracks.

I want audacity to calculated the initial distance of between the 2nd and 3rd track and then add that time to the tail end of the audio clip that came from the second track figure out where to add the audio clip of 3rd track and so on.

If I understand what you’re trying to do, Generate → Silence will replace your selected audio with silence. Be sure to select on the zero-crossings or on existing silence to prevent a click/glitch.

I can’t make sense of that sentence.


A couple of options that retain the original timing:

Method 1.

  1. Select the part that you want to delete.
  2. “Edit menu > Remove Special > Split Delete” (Alt+Ctrl+K)

Method 2.

  1. Select the part that you want to delete.
  2. “Edit menu > Remove Special > Silence Audio” (Ctrl+L)

I usually use “Ctrl+L” unless I’m wanting to move the clips around later.

I can’t make sense of that sentence.

I kept the replacement audio on separate tracks but position them on the timeline and the place I wanted them to play, figuring there was probably some kinda tool that could merge them on the spot.

In hindsight I probably did this cause it look tidier to me having these clips on separate tracks to manipulate as novice. However I’m learning that there isn’t much you can’t do with tracks that you can’t do with clips. You can’t freely move clips if they are surrounded by a bunch of other clips though and that should be reason enough for a tool like this to exist

“Merging” tracks together is called “mixing”.
When you export the finished project, all non-muted tracks are mixed together to create the finished audio file. It is not necessary to mix the tracks before exporting, but if you want to, you select the tracks that you want to mix, then “Tracks menu > Mix and Render”.

That’s two different methods that Steve just explained. Try them both. You can select which tracks to mix and go to the Mixing functions for that. Or you can directly export and all unmuted tracks will be in your mix. Make sure you are not using Solo buttons. Your tracks for this type of mix should be either unmuted or muted.

As mentioned before audacity collapses the track when I delete audio meaning that if I were to mix the audio the part of the audio that suppose to come after the track in question will play alongside the track itself.

I don’t understand the question in the OP at all.

This should help visualize what I’m trying to do.

I decided to split the primary track at every location where another track begins. As you can see that start of every track aligns with one black line.

I did this so I could copy and past track at the beginning of each clip with ‘sync-lock Tracks’ on to make sure everytime I copy and past another track onto the primary track that I don’t lose track of where the other tracks are suppose to go.

What is the recording?
How long is that recording?

What are the little clips after the first stereo track? Are those clips all the same?

If you add clips from left to right, then there’s no need for sync-lock, just add the next clip after all previous clips.


This appears to be your only actual question, and I’ve already answered it here: Merging tracks that are already positionally in the right place - #3 by steve

What is the recording?
How long is that recording?

What are the little clips after the first stereo track? Are those clips all the same?

It’s a 30 minute hypnosis recording I’m replacing the subject, not the topic of the file(fear of something). The initial file is about getting over the fear of dogs. -You will feel completely comfortable around 'subject. No the other tracks not all the same, I add a word or two to make more sense with the sentence in question.

I’d suggest that you split it into 5 minute sections and have one Audacity project per section. In each section, work from left to right so that adding / removing new clips in the same track does not disturb other clips. Aim to keep the number of tracks down to 4 or 5 per project.
I think you will find doing this to be more manageable.

When the 6 projects are complete, export each one as a WAV file, then import the 6 WAV files into a new project to reassemble the full 30 minutes.

Thanks Steve that advice is truly appreciated I struggle to make heads or tails working with audacity