Paste (command V) grinds Audacity to a halt

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

I am using an iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) with a 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 processor and 24 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 of memory. In Audacity 3.0.2, I am working with a spoken word audio file about 20 minutes long.

I will copy a half second of room noise and mic self noise from the recording and paste it over breaths, mouth noises and the like. I get about half way through the file and the process of pasting begins to slow down dramatically. Eventually a single paste command will take several minutes to execute. Other things like saving the file and various effects are unaffected and happen quickly. Pasting a half second of audio elsewhere in the file seems to be the only process that slows down so dramatically. My solution was to revert to Audacity 2.4.2 and I have since had no problems.

It may be that other folks use the envelope tool or noise gate to accomplish the same task and I am the only person who finds pasting room noise handy.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has had trouble of this type.

Thanks.

2

So the next time you are on Audacity 3.0.x and are experiencing this same problem, can you post a screenshot of your project? Perhaps someone will try to duplicate the issue.

3

You may find this pair of plug-ins useful: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/punch-copy-paste/28906/1

4

This is cool. Thanks for the tip.

5

I am having the same problem, but only with one file. The paste command worked fine on the file that I recorded right after the one giving me the problem. When you switched back to the older Audacity, could you still access the file that was giving you problems and it worked fine, or did you have to re-record that chapter?

6

It looks like I fixed the problem. :smiley: I exported the problem track into an MP3, and then I imported the MP3 back into Audacity. Now the past command works again!

7

Sorry I stepped away from this thread for a while.

Thanks for posting your solution! I may try the same thing.