Split and align tracks based on silence in tracks

I can’t think of a good automated way of doing this, other than spending a lot of time developing a plug-in, but even then it’s not going to be perfect because there are too many “unknowns” to be able to reliably calculate spacing.

To do it semi-manually:

  1. Use the “StretchPause” experimental plug-in from this post (https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/modified-silence-marker-to-insert-more-silence/29449/12) to expand the gaps between words of the first language track
  2. Use “Silence Finder” (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/silence_finder_and_sound_finder.html#silence) to label the gaps of the second language track,
  3. Then use “Edit Menu > Labeled Audio > Split” (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/edit_menu_labeled_audio.html#split) to split the track up
  4. Then repeat for each other language track,
  5. Then use the “Multi-tool” (http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/multi_tool.html) combined with Shift or Ctrl to move the audio clips.
  6. Repeat step 5 for each language track

Step 5 is quite tricky until you get the hang of it:

  1. Click on an empty part of the info panel on the left end of the second track to select the second track
  2. F6 to switch to the Multi-Tool
  3. Move the cursor over the second audio clip (assuming no need to move the first audio clip)
  4. Hold down the Shift key. The cursor becomes a left pointing arrow.
  5. Left click. The left end of the selection jumps to the cursor position.
  6. Release the shift key and the mouse button
  7. Move the mouse pointer over the shaded (selected) area that contains all clips from the 2nd onward.
  8. Hold down the Ctrl button. The cursor becomes a double headed horizontal arrow (for “time shift”)
  9. Left click and drag to the right to line up the word in the second audio clip with the second word in the first track
  10. Repeat steps iii to ix for the rest of the track