Need Help

I read where to much Info is better than not enough. So here goes. Currently I am running a Dell Inspiron M731R Quad Core. I have downloaded Audacity 2.0.5 and Lame MP3 export and FFmpeg import/export, all are installed. I also have managed to get the tracks I want to work with in to a file in Audacity.
Ok hears the to much info. Four and a half years ago I had a subdural hematoma due to which I have a very bad memory. I used to use Audacity all the time before the hemorrhage, now Audacity only seems to confuse me.
Here are my questions.

  1. How do I stretch out the time line to show half second intervals.
  2. How do I work with one track the left and put in a half second of silence at the beginning to cause a delay on that side.

This Is all being done to cause a Lightning Effect through a pair of color organs.
Thank you in advance for all help offered.
farnsworth

  1. How do I stretch out the time line to show half second intervals.

The icon that looks like a magnifying glass is the zoom tool.

Click the zoom tool and move the cursor to the waveform. Left-click to zoom-in. Right-click to zoom out.

  1. How do I work with one track the left and put in a half second of silence at the beginning to cause a delay on that side.

Click the regular icon above the zoom tool to bring back the regular cursor.

To the left of the waveform is a small Window with some information and a volume control, etc. Click the little drop-down arrow in that Window.

Click Split Stereo Track. That will allow you to edit the left & right channels separately.

Just to the right of the zoom tool is the Time Shift Tool. Click it.

Move the cursor to the left (bottom) channel. Click and drag to the right by 1/2 second.

Go to File → Export to create a new audio file with the time-shifted left channel.

I still have a question for you DVDDoug. I have now realized I need to copy the first fifteen minutes and add them on to the end of the tracks to make up the time I need to fill. I need to do this before I do any of the other changes.
I am running Dell Inspiron M731R Quad Core with Windows 8, and Audacity 2.0.5 with Lame MP3 export and FFmpeg import/export.
Thank you for all the answers to the first set of questions I asked. They seem clear and easy to follow in my scrambled mind.

I still have a question for you DVDDoug.

FYI - It’s generally best to “reply” to your original post to ask another related question. If it’s an unrelated new question, go ahead and start a new thread.

And, you don’t need to direct the question to me! :wink: I’m NOT an Audacity expert. If I can answer, I will, but most of the time there is an expert who can give a better answer than me.

I need to do this before I do any of the other changes.

Is that the question? I guess that depend on what other changes you are doing.

I have now realized I need to copy the first fifteen minutes and add them on to the end of the tracks to make up the time I need to fill.

That was 15 seconds, right?

I don’t know if you need to copy the first 15 seconds, or something else… It depends on what you are trying to do… You said this is for a color organ, so are you actually listening to the sound? You are making the left & right channels out of sync, which isn’t something you’d normally want to do to music or a “normal” music or dialog track.

You’ve actually made the overall track longer, so another option would be to chop-off the last 15 seconds (maybe fade-out the “longer” left-channel, or whatever you want to do). That way the left & right channels would end at the same time, and the overall playing time would be the same as the original.

There is a misunderstanding hear. I may not have been clear as to what I was meaning. These tracks are one hour long. Before I do any thing I want to extend them by twenty minuets so the whole thing is eighty minuets.
The tracks at the moment are divided in fifteen minuet intervals. I want to copy the first twenty minuets and add it to the end of the track. then I will extend the time line as you said and add the half second of silence to the left track.
There is sound, the tracks are Thunder and Lightning crashes. The half second delay in the left track feeds the speakers. The right track feeds the two color organs. This starts the Lightning one half second before the Thunder claps this is basically what happens in nature.

So Question, How do I copy the first twenty minutes of the tracks then add them to the end of the tracks so I will have a total of eighty minutes?
At the moment the tracks are only one hour long

I hope this better explains what I am trying to do.
Farnsworth
Again thank you for the all help.

Press Home.

If you can’t see all 20 minutes, CTRL + 3 to zoom out until you can see.

Drag in the blue waves from 20 minutes to the start of the track.

CTRL + C to copy.

K to move to the end of the track.

CTRL + V to paste.


Gale

thank you Gale that was just the information I need to hear.

Ok I followed all these tips and now have an extended track, extra half second on the left track, and every thing saved. When I pull up the tracks to listen through them there is no sound. How do I fix this Problem?

Did you export that as a WAV file?


What do you mean exactly by “pull up the tracks”? What are you trying to listen to and in what application are you doing that?

If you are trying to listen in Audacity, look in Device Toolbar and make sure the output device is set to the correct device. Turn up the Audacity output volume slider where the speaker symbol is.


Gale