I have a recording that has only 3 verses’ worth of material. Now I want to record another 5 verses and tried using repeat, but there is an obvious stop and start. Sort of like when a record would skip. How can I get the repeats to smoothly flow into each other? Sorry if this sounds really basic. I usually work with video and the limit of my experience with audio was fading in or out. This is the first time I’ve tried to do anything else. Your advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
If you zoom way into a pop… Drag-Select > Control-E > Drag-Select…etc.
…what does it look like? Is there an actual hole in the blue waves? Is there a half-wave chopped off at the transition point? Are you trying to edit audio with DC mixed in? Before you start any editing, apply Effect > Normalize (Remove DC Level). Deselect everything else.
Battery voltage (DC) mixed into the show is pretty common and it can make clean editing a nightmare.
Koz
If you are using 1.3.x then you can try using the Repair effect that was introduced in 1.3.
This will enable you to fix up to 128 samples surrounding the transition, by intepolating from the neighbouring waveforms. You will need to zoom in just as Koz suggests - I would recommend zooming in so far that you can see the individual samples (they will be shown as little dots on the waveform.
See this page from the manual that is unf=der development for 1.3.x and the upcoming 2.0: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Repair
WC
Thanks for your suggestions. I zoomed in and did not see any breaks. Selected the recording but it didn’t really do anything when I tried to click on normalize- it was greyed out. Am using 1.2 not 1.3 since 1.3 was supposedly for more experienced users and I am a novice.
<<>>
If you’re getting clearly audible disturbances in the show, then there should be something wrong with the blue waves.
Anyway. You can put both Audacity 1.3 and 1.2 on your machine as long as you only use one at a time. Audacity 1.3 Projects will not open in 1.2.
Audacity 1.3 is not the Expert version of Audacity. It’s just grown up a little more, its voice got lower, and many of the tools are the same, but either work a lot better, or in some cases work at all. 1.3 is much more convenient than 1.2 with many more speedy shortcuts and time savers.
If you use and like 1.2, you should be OK in 1.3. You can do simple jobs in 1.3 while you get used to it and use 1.2 for the main work until you feel comfortable about permanently moving up.
The latest Macs will not run Audacity 1.2, so the decision to move up was removed from our hands. There is a spirited debate about those “Stable” and “Unstable” labels. Those words mean different things to developers than they do to normal humans.
Koz
Thanks Koz. Since it was the first time I ever used any audio editor, I just went with the “stable” one. After hearing from you I downloaded the beta version. I actually liked it better but it might have been because I went through all the tutorials listed before I did anything else. Anyway, I now have the music edited satisfactorily. I went to record vocals on another track (overdubbing) but when I played it back it was not on the same timeline so I shifted it some. I can’t get them exactly. It is always off. On some parts it matches but in general seems like it is at a slower tempo than the music track. Really strange. Is there something else I need to do? Thanks for any assistance.
Of the three timing errors that computers have, you may have number three. It’s possible to have a sound card inside your machine that’s so cheap that the playback of a music track is a different time, duration, or tempo than when it was recorded.
You sing or play the rhythm track and then play that back and sing the first layer of vocal arrangement to that track. You’re startled to find that after a three minute capture session, the two tracks are a different length.
What.
That’s the sound card. I know of no cure and only one awkward workaround. As long as you always do your work against that one rhythm track, the error will not change and you can compose the entire rest of the song that way. You will never be able to hear tracks two through nine while you’re recording track ten. Everything must be done from that one rhythm track. Or replace the sound card.
Computer timing error number one is Latency and you can tune that out of your shows with the tools in Audacity 1.3. That’s the one where you manage the playback delay against your live voice so they both produce a perfect, correctly timed recording. That’s the one that can be fixed.
Computer timing error number two is where your own voice comes back out of the computer to your headphones late compared to your lips. Most people can’t sing listening to that, and that usually means you can’t use that computer for that kind of composing. Or sing to the existing track without your own voice in your ears.
Small Windows laptop computers are not Digital Audio Workstations and it’s easy to run into problems.
Koz
I checked the soundcard. It is a Realtek High Definition Audio with driver 6.0.1.5636. I have no idea whether it is considered “good” or not. Will check into the latency fix in case that’s it. Thanks a million for the advice.