Hey all, first time poster here. I’m making this post because I am just experiencing this problem for the first time. I’m using Audacity 2.4.2 on a Windows 10 computer for creating looped versions of BGM tracks that run for 30 minutes to an hour. Problem is, when I highlight the beginning and end of the loop and preview it in the editor with loop play, it stutters at the end instead of making a smooth transition. It’s never done this before and I’m very concerned. Has anyone else experienced this issue?
Zoom out far enough so that Audacity does not need to scroll while playing the loop. Does it still stutter?
Yes, it still stutters.
Try generating a “Tone” (“Generate” menu).
Use the default 440 Hz “Sine” setting.
Select an exact whole number of seconds (use the Selection Toolbar to set the start and end time of the selection).
Loop play.
Does that loop without stuttering?
Surprisingly, no. The loop had a smooth transition when I generated the tone.
Good. That shows that Audacity and your playback system are working correctly.
The problem is most likely that you need to adjust the start / end positions so that the start and end of the loop match up smoothly.
What sort of audio are you trying to loop?
The soundtrack to a videogame.
When you say it “stutters”, is like there’s a skip when it loops?
I’ve attached a sound clip for reference.
Your loop points don’t quite match up rhythmically. Focus on the rhythm. It’s tricky because the rhythm isn’t completely regular.
Here’s a quick remake:
Is there some sort of trick for matching up the rhythm when looping a file?
It can sometimes be easier to see the beats by looking at the track spectrogram view (https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/spectrogram_view.html).
Try to identify the first beat of each bar.
In difficult examples (as shown below) it may be necessary to perform a crossfade: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/crossfade_tracks.html
Try to line the tracks up so that the track that is fading in (the upper track in this example) is fully faded in on a 1-beat, lined up with the 1-beat of the track that is fading out:
This is before the crossfade:
and this is after trimming and crossfading:
This example is tricky because the two songs are not at all similar - different rhythm, different tempo, different key, but nevertheless the result is not too bad:
OK, I think I can try to crossfade the tracks. Thanks so much for your help!