I need some "For dummies" level help, free of jargon

[jacovny]

Thanks for taking the time. I'm new at this, a school teacher recording weekly 15 minute cuts for classroom use. I record my voice, then I import an audio cut via Roxio from a CD and have it playing alongside my voice, for background music. I see the gain control where I can adjust the volume of the audio cut, but I can't figure out how to make the volume of the music stay at the level I set. For example, I want it to get louder when I'm not speaking, and softer when I am. When I play the cut, I can adjust these levels, but if I save and re-open the file, the music levels are back to where they were before. I don't know how to make the background music level stay where I want it and save the changes. I hope that makes sense, and if you respond, please do so as if you're responding to an 8-year-old, because I'm not a "sound guy" and I don't understand a lot of your terminology. I can't thank you enough for your help.

[kozikowski]

Tell your mom to select the music track and then the Envelope Tool (two white arrows and bent blue line). this will produce "guide lines" above and below the music. You can click on the lines and push them around. They're rubber bands. As you push them and select more and more push points, the volume of the music will go up and down -- and stay that way.

Koz

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[waxcylinder]

The other tool you might consider is the Auto Duck effect - see this article in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... =Auto_Duck

IIRC I think you will need the latest Beta 1.3.12 for this tool - as as far as I remember it was introduced as a new feature in one of the early Beta releases (possibly 1.3.3)

You can get 1.3.12 from here: http://audacityteam.org/download/

WC

[kozikowski]

We usually only push you over to 1.3.12 if you're having instability problems -- common with 1.2 on modern computers -- or you're missing tools. Audacity 1.2 projects will open in 1.3, but not the other way 'round.

You can have both 1.2 and 1.3 on your machine, but only open one at a time. Most of the elves gave up on 1.2 quite a bit ago.

Koz