Repeat Effect Issue

Audacity Version 2.0.3 for windows (I have 8)

When I use the repeat effect, I get about 10 milliseconds of ‘added on’ silence at the beginning of the repeated part.

I’m using audacity with an M-Audio USB preamp
I have an acoustic/electric guitar plugged into Ch.1 set on Mono.

When I record something it works fine, but when I repeat it, it adds milliseconds of delay to the beginning of the new repeated section, so if I repeat x10 there’s silence ten times and then that messes up my timing of what I’m trying to record. I do not have “Snap to” on, and I’m not having latency issues. I’d like to know how to get rid of the silence instead of just manually going in every 4 measures and deleting the added silence again and again.

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Sincerely,

Concerned Citizen

The “Repeat” effect will duplicate, multiple times, the audio that is “selected” (highlighted).
By default, if no audio is selected when you go to apply an effect, Audacity will select everything.

If the selection includes silence at the beginning or end of the audio, then that silence will be included in each repeat. The “trick” is to ensure that the selection starts and ends at precisely the right position before you apply “Repeat”.

See here for advice about making selections: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audacity_selection.html
To make a precise selection you will need to “zoom in”: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zooming.html

I guess you’re not getting what I’m saying. When I select the track and click repeat the milliseconds appear out of thin air. I delete everything precisely to where it stops and starts in tempo, but the milliseconds just are at the beginning of the new repeated part and there is nothing I can do…

Check that you do not have “Snap To” selected (near the bottom of the main Audacity window).

can you explain how snap to affects the repeat effect?

also,

is there a place on this forum where I can hear a song where somebody is using audacity to its full potential just so I can gauge how well I can make music with the program? I have been using audacity for about 5 years now and well, I haven’t delved into it too deeply but would like to see it in action (how a seasoned audacity veteran would use it when recording a band maybe?) I’m not talking about electronica music, but like actual instruments and not synth. Thanks!

“Snap To” is described in the manual here: Audacity Manual
Did that fix the problem?

that did not help me. Even when I turn off snap, it still adds like a few milliseconds to the front of every repeated part including when I just ctrl c ctrl v the part I want to repeat…it adds milliseconds and I don’t know why. Does anybody know how to fix this problem???

This topic has been up on the forum for about 3 weeks now, so I’d guess the answer is no.

The problem is that we don’t know how to create the problem. So let’s try tackling it from the opposite direction. You tell us precisely, step-by-step, what we need to do to create the problem. Start with: 1) Open Audacity.

  1. open audacity
  2. select which inputs or outputs you desire for recording/playback, ensure snap to grid is off
  3. press record (record what you want as long as you want (preferably for less than 20 seconds for this particular test)
  4. effect> repeat (as many times as you like)
  5. zoom out a little bit and you should see black lines at the start of every repeated part (these black lines are the silence that I’m talking about.
  6. Play it back and you’ll see what I’m really talking about.

It also works better if you record something and then delete that recording and then start over and record again; or record something and then record again a new track under it and mute the first track but repeat the second track.

This is what I do every time to duplicate the issue and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried deleting silence at the beginning and end of each track before repeating, but it STILL CREATES A RANDOM FEW MILLISECONDS OF SILENCE! (Sorry for the caps but I’m losing my mind on this one)

Those black lines are known as “Split Lines” they are intentional, clicking on them will remove the,

I can see that if you zoom in at the individual sample level there is a light-gray bar behind the black split line - which looks like silence, but isn’t (I suspect it’s just the graphic display avoiding showing a very fat black band at high magnifying levels).

If you zoom in like that and then click on the black line to remove it you will see that the audio becomes continuous - no silence.

WC

This is the only “gap” that I’m getting:
firsttrack002.png
The “gap” is precisely the space between the last sample of one repeat and the first sample of the next - in other words it is no gap at all.
If you “Select All” (Ctrl+A) then “Join” (Ctrl+J) the last sample of one repeat is “reconnected” to the first sample of the next repeat, There is no gap.

If you are getting more of a gap than that, please send a screenshot to show what you are seeing. (Screenshot tools are in the Help menu).

Yup, that’s exactly like the “gap” I get.

WC