Problems with cutting and splitting

[katekavan]

I wonder if you could help......I'm teaching radio journalism but I'm not a technical person (I'm a former journalist!)and am unfamiliar with Audacity. We chose it as one of the few simple sound editing programmes that is compatible with Macs, as that is what we have here.

Our computer team won't download the 1.3 version - they say we have to stick with the 1.2 for the moment Using the version we've got to move speech clips around to make a report has been very difficult even with the manual....we can highlight clips in the main interview -but the only way of extracting them as seperate entities seems to be to copy and paste onto a seperate track. That would be fine - but when you paste, the clip you've highlighted doesn't reappear where you've clicked, it simply joins on seamlessly to whatever audio is already there!! I need to know how to extract clips from a continuos section and - keeping them as discrete clips - move them to another track.

Can you help please! Many thanks.........

[billw58]

Version 1.2 does not support multiple clips per track. So the behaviour you observe:

but when you paste, the clip you've highlighted doesn't reappear where you've clicked, it simply joins on seamlessly to whatever audio is already there

is correct and there's no way around it in 1.2.

If you paste the clip to a new track without any other audio on it, it will remain as a separate clip and you can move it around. But that means you need a separate track for every clip, which is a royal pain.

You really need 1.3.9. But I can understand your IT team being wary of the "beta" designation. They shouldn't be. Version 2.0 stable will be out in a few weeks, and is based very closely on the 1.3.9 now available from the Audacity site. I regularly run the 1.3.10 alpha versions for Mac and they're even better than 1.3.9 because the developers are now concentrated on fixing bugs in the run-up to releasing 2.0.

So, sign up on the main Audacity site for email notifications of new releases and wait for 2.0, or try to convince your computer team that 1.3.9 beta is really not dangerous (which it isn't).

Also, have a look at the manual for 1.3.9 (which will be the 2.0 manual on release) http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... =Main_Page
Click on "Using Audacity" then "Audacity Tracks and Clips" and you'll be convinced you need 1.3.9/2.0.

-- Bill

[kozikowski]

It's more exciting than that. If you have an Intel machine running OS-X 10.5 or later, there is no stable 1.2 any more. Apple > About This Mac > Processor and Version. Neither of my Intel machines will run 1.2 in any useful manner.

I use Audacity 1.3.7 from here for all my daily chores...

Audacity 1.3.7 -- Mac
http://audacity.googlecode.com/files/au ... -1.3.7.zip

If you continue to use 1.2, you will run into Odd Problems that don't respond to fixes. Some of the Odd Problems will happen at the end of a long edit session when you try to save your work.

You can also use the regular current release from the download site.

Audacity Current Release -- Mac
http://audacityteam.org/download/beta_mac

We had other people under IT department care that basically locked out Audacity for one reason or another. Plenty of blame all around.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Oh, and yes. In 1.3, this is Tracks > Add New > Audio Track.

As many times as you need.

Cut, Copy, and Paste your brains out.

Koz