Editing

[gingerale]

I'm a rank beginner. I wish to record a story which I will then burn to a CD. WhenI started the recording went fine but I began with a hesitation and a cough. I tried to identify and grab the first 10 seconds so that I could re-record it, but I cannot figure out the cut and paste part and how to change just that introduction. Could someone walk me through the steps in a very simple way? Thanks.
gingerale

[kozikowski]

Wrong philosophy. Audacity doesn't do anything in real time. What you are intended to do is capture everything you do, from coughing at the beginning to answering the CellPhone® half-way through to that embarrassing noise you made from the cabbage casserole you had last night. Save everything--or better Export As WAV. Only Export produces a sound file.

That becomes what in Hollywood is known as the Camera Original or Camera Master. Then, if you're as compulsive as I am, you make a copy of that sound file and store it in a safe place.

Then, later, you go in and create your final show from the original capture sessions. Cut off the cough, slice out the CellPhone® and delete the casserole. Although if it's a comedy, you might want to leave the casserole bits in.

Then Export As WAV and you have a show that seems to suggest you have a superhuman ability to not make mistakes. Trust me, even Clint Eastwood makes mistakes. The Editorial Department makes sure none of them ever see light of day by cutting and editing.

Did you see "A Bug's Life," the Pixar Animation movie? If you sat through the credits, you are treated to "The Outtakes," where they string together all the mistakes into a little short film. Flik trips over a microphone cable and Hopper knocks over a camera while it's running. All those mistakes happened during the filming of the movie, but they were cut out of the final show. Like you're going to do.

Even funnier to the Hollywood types, of course, is that A Bug's Life is a cartoon. It has no outtakes. Somebody had to plan, write and draw that whole sequence. It was enormously entertaining and I think they did it on two more movies.


You can go nuts. It's possible, after you get into all the tricks you can do by editing, to overdo it. I heard a comedy bit once where the editor took all the breaths out of a speech. You can't listen to it without turning blue from wanting to take a breath on behalf of the speaker who never seems to run out of air.

Koz

[kozikowski]

http://audacityteam.org/manual-1.2/tutorials.html

Koz

[gingerale]

Thank you for your help.
I've been reviewing the Audacity Manual but can't figure out how to delete a section. I've been practicing using the alphabet. After recording I have tried to select "hijk ". I took the cursor to the beginning of the h. Then I held down the left button and slid to the k. I double checked that I was in the correct place by playing back just that section. When I was satisfied that I had the right section, I used the "delete" in the edit section. Doesn't work. I then used the undo and next tried "cut." Undid again and then I tried "silence".
Question, am I correctly selecting? It seems to work when I want to just play back a short section. Next, what am I doing wrong when I try to eliminate the middle section "hijk"?

Thanks in advance.
gingerale

[stearman65]

To put it simply open your recording in audacity, this should adopt the same size as you last opened it. Go to "View" scroll to zoom, repeat until your recording is spread sufficiently to differentiate between sounds. Play your recording and isolate the first error, stop play, highlight the error, then go to generate, silence then click silence. You have now silenced your error. If the silent delay formed is too long, highlight a short section of the wave line and click delete. The delay is now reduced by the amount deleted. If you make a mistake and delete too much, click edit, undo and your last action is restored.
Try recording a test piece and practise on that before trying it on your actual recording. Good luck, hope this explanation is simple enough.
Stearman65

[kozikowski]

<<<I took the cursor to the beginning of the h. Then I held down the left button and slid to the k. I double checked that I was in the correct place by playing back just that section. When I was satisfied that I had the right section, I used the "delete" in the edit section.>>>

And that didn't work? That's scary. Does the selected portion turn a darker gray than the rest of the timeline?

And this is a clip that you personally recorded on that Audacity on that machine?

Has any of this ever worked?

Koz

[gingerale]

Thank you both for responding. It worked! Once I selected the portion to be removed I found that if I used silence and then delete, it worked. Then with my cursor at the end of the existing part, I then was able to re-record. Two questions:
For this 2nd part, why were there no "audio lines" as there were the first time I recorded? I played back everything and it sounded fine so I want to let sleeping dogs lie but..I'm curious.
Next, I saved the file as a wav and it became a data file. Then I saved it as a MP3 file. I burned both on to separate CD's and they both seemed playable from my walkman as well as the car cd player. What's the difference?

[stearman65]

A WAV file takes up about 30 times as much space as an MP3. The WAV is better quality but if you are over 30 years of age you probably can't tell.
Stearman 65

[gingerale]

But why no "audio lines" when I continued to record?
Are any of you guys locted in Seattle? Any of you know Noah Heller?

[stearman65]

Not sure enough to suggest,

& my location is a bit to far to call around, North Yorkshire in the UK.
Stearman65.