Hello,
I’ve already finished my song, added whatever effects I wanted, made sure is good and exported it out of Audacity into my computer.
I’m soon going to Open Mics to perform my song/s. But while performing, i don’t want my vocals on the song/background, I just want the adlibs. I don’t want to go into my original project in Audacity and change the volumes OR start deleting vocals. I want to find a way where I can copy and paste OR duplicate everything that I have in the original project, use the duplicate project of that song and be able to alter it to my liking. Making it easier for me to have my original project untouched. While the duplicate of that project I can delete vocals, put volume down, add OR subtract anything from the duplicate project.
It sounds like you want plain, ordinary overdubbing. Play all the old work you want into your headphones in addition to recording the new work which goes onto its own fresh track.
Repeat.
Traditionally you create a drum or rhythm track and then just keep adding separate tracks to it. Edit and mix down later.
Don’t forget to create a lead-in or countdown track.
At an Open Mic, I don’t want to perform my songs with my full vocals. ((Like me literally singing over the song)). It’s always good when performing, to just have the adlibs on the instrumental and the artist raps the song live.
What I’m asking is. I have a song already done called “Leaving Soon” in Audacity. How can i make a duplicate project of “Leaving Soon”, in which i can change up a few things and make the duplicate project an Open Mic project. That way i can take out the vocals, change the volume, delete anything. Without messing around with the original project of “Leaving Soon”.
If there’s still a misunderstanding from my part. I’ll just settle with taking the original project of “Leaving Soon”, muting the vocals, keeping the adlibs, exporting it out of Audacity as a MP3 and use it to perform at the Open Mic.
Once done exporting the Open Mic audio. I’ll go back to the original project, unmute the vocals and save it back to its original form.
To be safe, make a back-up of the original. Then save-As with a different project name. Now you have 2 projects and you can export one or both as MP3.
A quick note about MP3 - MP3 is lossy compression. If you open/import an MP3 it gets decompressed. If you later re-export as MP3 (or other lossy format) it goes through another generation of lossy compression and some “damage” accumulates.
That doesn’t mean it’s “terrible” but if you want MP3, Ideally you should compress once as the last step. And if you don’t have the uncompressed original, try to minimize the number of times it’s re-compressed.
(WAV is uncompressed and FLAC is lossless compression).
Doug I just became aware of FLAC today. Lossless format much smaller size than WAV. Is there a down side? (Primarily internal use. I can get an MP3 or WAV format out to share in the world if FLAC is not universal.) Primarily interested in storage. Thanks
Ann, I create my own backing tracks and share with other band members. What I do is mute the track for the player I want to play along and export as My Song - No Drums, or a separate file as My Song - No Keyboards etc.
I keep my one Project folder with all of the tracks intact and share and play the WAV file for practicing. Seems like you might be able to do the same? I am assuming your adlibs, vocals etc each have their own track so you can have a backing track without messing inside each track. It took some planning on my part to keep say Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, and Turnarounds and Fills on separate tracks. In a live mode I would tradeoff all three. But it may be worth your while to split tracks so you can control the backing you want live?
@DVDdoug, that’s what I’m having a bit of trouble with. I’m not sure how to duplicate the original project. I tried my best to find a way but can’t. May i get some help with that.
@Grutzbo, thankfully i do have all vocals, adlibs, ETC. in different tracks. So muting OR making changes to one track won’t affect the others. But I’m also being cautions with the amount of space i consume in my computer. Because if i start duplicating every song that i do, my storage will shrink. Probably muting the main vocals from the original project, keeping the adlibs, exporting as a MP3/WAV, But go back to the project and redo everything back to its original form, may work for me too.
I’m also aware that Audacity got a cloud saving platform where musicians can upload their work/project to Audio.Com to save storage on computer and easier for us to access our project anywhere while connected to internet.