Quickest Way to Copy Selection to Adjacent Track?

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Hi,

Just trying to work out the quickest way to copy a selection from one track to another track and have it line up exactly with the original?

I know I can do this a couple of ways:

  1. Make a note of the selection start value and then reset this when the new track is selected so that the paste point is right.

  2. Mark the selection with a label and then use the boundary guides.

Both these seem a bit slow - is there a quicker way - something like the Duplicate command but that doesn’t create a new track?

Cheers,

Chris

2

the Duplicate command but that doesn’t create a new track?

We were good to right about there.

…What…?

Give us that again but use different words. You want to copy and paste into a new track without creating a new track…?

Koz

3

Sorry I’ll try to be clearer.

Say I have a file containing multiple sections that I need to edit separately (e.g. multiple songs from a radio show I’m editing).

What I’d like to end up with is one track containing the complete original show and a second track containing just the songs aligned to their original positions. The problem with Duplicate is that it puts each song on a new track.

Does that make sense?

4

Why is that a problem?

5

It’s mainly a workflow issue - I tend to lose track of them on the screen!

Also, there are other things that I have to edit out of the original track and group together - it’s simpler if I keep similar items on a dedicated track (e.g. live songs, songs, interviews, stings, etc.)

6

Several tips that may help:

Collapse / Expand tracks
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audio_tracks.html#collapse

Collapse / Expand all tracks
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/view_menu.html#collapse

Any number of tracks may be “mixed down” into a single track at any time, using “Tracks > Mix and Render”. The mixed track appears at the bottom below all other tracks.

A direct answer to your original question. Using keyboard shortcut (really quick when you become familiar with the keys)

  1. Make the selection in one track
  2. Ctrl+C (copy)
  3. ENTER (toggle the selection off)
  4. Down cursor key (move focus down to the track where you want to paste)
  5. ENTER (toggle the selection on)
  6. Ctrl+V (paste)

Also see: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/edit_menu_labeled_audio.html

7

Bingo!

Many thanks!

It’s the use of the Enter command that fixes the problem I was having.

Cheers,

Chris