Audacity seems to be embedding audio

[danielmount]

I'm running Audacity 1.2.4 on Windows XP.

I have a track in one Audacity file (one vocal harmony part to a song) that I want to incorporate into another Audacity file (the final mix). When I copy and paste, everything plays fine...until I delete the vocal part file. Then the waves still are visible in my final mix file, but cannot be heard.

It seems as though my copy audio > paste audio is embedding the audio from the source, not actually pasting it into my file. Is this what Audacity does?

Is there a way to do a copy / paste that doesn't embed?

[kozikowski]

I probably wouldn't use 1.2.4. It had memory leak and stability problems. 1.2.6 is good.

Audacity does all of its work in Projects. It doesn't produce a single "sound thing" until you Export As Wav or other format.

Until then, Audacity constantly uses all the components, clips, and files that you introduced. Read that twice.

The silly metaphor is someone building a road right in front of you as you drive and then taking it up again as you pass. You get where you're going and look back...no road, but all the parts to build the road are there in piles ready to do it again.

This kills compulsively neat people. "I cleaned up and moved all those messy clips and files and now my show won't play."

Yes. That's correct. Those clips were the show until you Export to a single, stand-alone sound file.

Koz

[danielmount]

I probably wouldn't use 1.2.4. It had memory leak and stability problems. 1.2.6 is good.

Audacity does all of its work in Projects. It doesn't produce a single "sound thing" until you Export As Wav or other format.

Until then, Audacity constantly uses all the components, clips, and files that you introduced. Read that twice.

The silly metaphor is someone building a road right in front of you as you drive and then taking it up again as you pass. You get where you're going and look back...no road, but all the parts to build the road are there in piles ready to do it again.

This kills compulsively neat people. "I cleaned up and moved all those messy clips and files and now my show won't play."

Yes. That's correct. Those clips were the show until you Export to a single, stand-alone sound file.

Koz

I see. I'll upgrade to 1.2.6 promptly (this afternoon).

Is there a way to convert a WAV to be part of the Audacity project files, so I can delete the original WAV?

[steve]

Edit > Preferences > File Formats

Select "make a copy of the file before editing (safer)"

Don't "delete" the file just yet (in case of any problems, you may need it as a backup). Make a copy on a CD or another drive before you delete it. Unless you are very short of hard drive space, it is best to keep all files that you are using on your hard drive until you have safely exported your finished audio.

See here about how Audacity manages its files: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... ement_Tips

[danielmount]

Edit > Preferences > File Formats

Select "make a copy of the file before editing (safer)"

Don't "delete" the file just yet (in case of any problems, you may need it as a backup). Make a copy on a CD or another drive before you delete it. Unless you are very short of hard drive space, it is best to keep all files that you are using on your hard drive until you have safely exported your finished audio.

See here about how Audacity manages its files: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... ement_Tips

Here's my problem: I record and edit on two different computers. The computer that's higher powered and better for editing makes too much background noise to have on while recording.

If a file is embedded, even if I transfer it with the main Audacity file, the pasted in part doesn't play on the second computer.

Thanks for the tip - I'll give it a try this afternoon.