Audacity Forum

I'm really new to Audacity...and loving everything I'm learning!

I'm trying to create a simple voiceover for our new phone system. I have one track (the music) and a voice over vignettes as the second track. I'd like to place these vignettes every thirty seconds or so as the three-minute song plays. I would like to have a the music section fade evenly to a lower volume just before the voiceover begins, then fade back up to normal volume just after the voiceover ends. All I can find is a Fade In and Fade Out command, then manually decrease the amplification of the music as the voiceover plays. This creates awkward transition points pre- and post-voiceover.

Is there a command that lets you select a portion of a track and say, "Fade down evenly (but not all the way out), stay at a low volume, then fade back up evenly to where you were before?"

Many thanks,
Steven

You can use the envelope tool to customize fade points. It's in the six tools at the extreme upper left of the edit window--after the "I" symbol. It's a rubber band. Click and drag up and down to get various volumes at various points in the tune.

I think you can go into Audacity Preferences, I/O and select one of the Playthrough modes. That will let you hear your original music track playback while you're recording your microphone on a separate track.

Does your microphone record properly without all that craziness? Just open up a plain Audacity and try to record a simple straight voice track? If you start having trouble with the mic later in the process, it will be too complicated to troubleshoot.

Koz