Hello guys. Lets say I am recording an audio book and I recorded a chapter. Lets say I am not happy with a few parts of that recording. How can I remove those parts? How can I rerecord those little parts and insert them into the the recording with the full chapter? Thank you in advance 
I’m going to sidestep the editing issue for a second to say this may be harder than you think because of background noise problems. Unless you have a perfectly quiet recording “studio,” there are going to be environment noises and sounds that can be ignored during a continuous recording, but become really obvious when you do an abrupt cut from ten minutes ago until now. It’s why people make or hire studios for critical work or use special close-talking or directional microphones which help with room noise.
All so, people doing this usually require run-in – play the old work – so they get the new and old voices to match in pitch and inflection. Koz
Hey koz, thanks for your reply. I try to record in the evening when noise is minimal and also I got a Samson G Track mic which picks up most of the noise from its front and ignores most of the noise that come from the sides. Anyhow I don’t have a studio and cannot afford to rent one at the moment. With that said I still would really like an answer to my questions
So would I.
I think there’s provision to start recording in the middle of a timeline on a new, fresh track. I think that happened in version 2.0.3. So you would set up for Overdubbing (Sound On Sound) and then play the old work up to the fluff and start talking.
Then use the Envelope tools to fade out one and fade in the other. Audacity automatically plays all tracks into the final output file – so it mixes down for you.
But I have to look for that tool.
You would think cut and paste would work, but that has all kinds of other problems.
Koz
ahhh I did actually hope for something like selecting a part of the track, cutting it out, recording another part and pretty much pasting it in the empty whole I made with my cut but I guess it doesn’t work that way? If possible to explain how to do all that in more detail please. I am really slow with learning new programs… Thank you
Here it is. I thought we had something like this.
Edit > Preferences > Recording > [X] Overdubbing (select).
Open your show. Tracks > New Track (stereo or mono is up to you. It should match the show).
Select the new track by clicking just above the MUTE button. Click somewhere just before the fluff. Press Record. Audacity will play the old track to you while recording the new.
Once you have the correction, you can use the envelope tools (white arrows and bent blue line) and Time Shift Tool (sideways black arrows) to push the correction into place. If they don’t exactly fit, you need to jockey the relative times by inserting or deleting small bits of silence.
Koz
If you think you’re good enough to wing it, you can use Append Record (Shift-R) to start recording the correction at the end of the show. Then drag-select > Copy > Paste at the appropriate place. The correction should push the old work later in time. Then go back in and delete the bad work.
Most people make the correction right then, multiple times and then press Label (Control-B, I think) to know where to go back and cut the bad bits out.
“And it was said unto the Pheeemuyh, Phoughbni, !@#$ (Control-B) Phoenicians that…”
This has the advantage of maintaining the theatrical rhythm of the piece because you’re right there in real time.
Your label may be a different control code than mine. I think it’s Control B. Remember to press Enter afterward to set the label.
Koz
Also, you may find it convenient to operate on one one complete sentence rather than try to cut word by word. Phrase editing can sound very unnatural. Koz
When you start critical editing like this, the Zoom tools become very important. Drag-Select and Control-E to zoom into the selection. Control-3 zooms out a little bit and Control-F zooms out full. I live in those three zoom levels.
Koz
thanks koz! So am I getting it correctly, i remove what I don’t need with an envelope tool. Then I hit record, I listen up to the empty place where i enveloped the sound out and i record correct? Now I think I start to understand what you said about recording in a studio because not that I had any big noise after recording over but the whole recording has not even an echo but just a worse quality after having recorded silence over it… any suggestions? Thanks again!
Also another thing, when I import beats and then click record, music sounds good, but when i close the beats and listen to my recording over it, they sound much worse and faded. Is there a way to make it sound just like it sounds while the track is open originally on the recording that I make over it?
You are wearing headphones, right? You can’t do serious recording with speakers in the room. You also can’t be recording Stereo Mix. That will double record parts of your show and that will sound weird.
The other thing that can make your show sound funny is Windows Enhanced Services. You should turn that off.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#enhancements
All that and there is one more Audacity setting.
Edit > Preferences > Recording > [_] Playthrough (de-select).
You should not have Playthrough and Overdubbing selected at the same time.
Koz