Skip to start / stop... no option in between?

[ceriserowan]

There are options to skip to start or skip to stop.... but is there not a way to advance more quickly forward or backward without having listen to the entire audio recording each time?

I'm completely new at audio recording, and do not really have the time to read through all the instructions before working on my project, gotta say, Audacity is working very well, recorded my material, microphone, cut out a few misread words almost easily....
saved it, had to copy it to a disc to copy to windows media to copy it to itunes to study.... tried to copy from "folder" to itunes, project did no show no matter how I tried to save it but my long method worked.

clearly I have a lot to learn, but, it worked (better than one I had paid for and one a friend had paid for, reason I was unwilling to buy more to this point),

thank you Audacity.

[kozikowski]

Click anywhere on the blue waves in the timeline and SpaceBar will start playing from that point.

Drag Select a portion of the show and you can zoom into it with Control-E. Zoom back out to the full show with Control-F. Control-3 zooms out a little bit. Those are the only three zoom tools I ever use.

Audacity does have a trap or two for the newbie. Audacity will not Save a sound file. You have to File > Export to generate a stand-alone sound file. Pick Microsoft WAV format. Everybody supports that.

Koz

[kozikowski]

And to further upset your process, you really shouldn't be on Audacity 1.2. The earlier Audacity can be a little cantankerous with modern computers. Audacity 1.3.12 is much more stable with better tools.

http://audacityteam.org/download/

You can safely install both, but only use one at a time. Audacity 1.3 Projects will not open in 1.2. WAV files open anywhere.

Koz

[ceriserowan]

So... I can install both? I'm usually cowardly about beta versions and didn't want to uninstall the other to find out, thanks, I'll give it a try... I'm still running XP

I'll try the other suggestion when I record tomorrow and see if I understand what you mean... I had discovered how to piece sections together (stop to edit an error and then cannot continue adding to the same segment, it starts another), dragging to select... I think that is what you are talking about...
lots to learn.

[kozikowski]

Not exactly, but that's another reason to be in Audacity 1.3.12. That version has resume recording without starting a new timeline.

Koz

[ceriserowan]

Thnaks for the advice on advancing, etc. got that down pat and you are right, would be nice to be able to correct and resume without patching it together.

Q, can I "save" and continue working?

Promise, I will read the tutorials some day


I was having a problem finding my audio recording when I tried to copy it to itunes... I saved it as a WAV but when I would look in the folder is should be in nothing showed, looked for it in "my music", it was there, looked for it in Windows Media Player (shows all music copied to the computer), could not find it.

Last night I learned how to save the files as a mp3 (LAME and all), funny though I thought itunes could read WAV files, it seems to prefer mp3s... found the file easily, copied it and installed it on ipod without having to make a CD.

Audacity is very cool, having fun with this... got the beta...

Thanks for the advice!

[kozikowski]

The music on Music CDs is pseudo-wav format. 44100, 16-bit, Stereo. So if you perform and capture your show and export it as MP3 and then make a Music CD inside iTunes, you have created a high quality show and converted the music to a distorted, lossy format (MP3) and then back -- except the distortion never goes away after you create an MP3, no matter what you do afterword.

Change Audacity Preference settings to 44100, 16-bit, Stereo and you will be working in the same basic format itunes is going to use later to make your CD.

If the music is headed for your iPod, it's even worse. You create a crappy MP3 and then iTunes has to create a crappy AAC out of the crappy MP3.

Nothing good can come of this.

Koz