Saving Preferences to default to Spectrogram view [SOLVED]

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Hello,

I am using Audacity to look at Bat data. So very short HF files usually a couple of MB, lasting a couple of seconds. I have thousands of files to look through to determine if there are bat calls in each file. Each time I open up a WAV file in Audacity I have to change the preferences to be able to view the spectrogram in the right way to determine if there is any bat data.
I seem to be unable to save my preferences. I want to be able to open a sound file on spectrogram default rather than wavefile. I have changed this in Edit>Preferences>Spectrogram. Then set the Scale, colours and Algorithm to what I want to be able to look at the files. Then Apply and Ok.
In a previous post I put about this (now closed) it mentions to set the “default view mode”, but I cannot see where to do this exactly.

I have looked in the help files and it suggests to Reset the preferences, but I cannot find them. I am working on Windows 10 now. I have looked in the Program Files Audacity folder but there is no audacity. =cfg file that you mention.

I look forward to your response. Many thanks. Sarah Barry.

2

Please tell us what version of Audacity you are using. Please see the pink panel at the top of the page.

In the current 2.1.2 release, “Default View Mode” can be set to “Spectrogram” at Edit > Preferences…, Tracks section.

Resetting Preferences (for example by deleting the audacity.cfg file that lives at Users<your user name>\AppData\Roaming\Audacity\ ) won’t help at all - that will set the Default View Mode back to “Waveform”.


Gale

3

Hello Gale,

I am using 2.1.2. Thank you. This has sorted it. I did do this before, but I obviously overlooked the tracks section here! Thank you.
Sarah