Audacity Forum

OK, I have researched labels, and I can make a separate track for annotations, and put words in it. This is very useful, but not what I am looking for.

What I AM looking for is is a way to label/mark an individual track, so when it gets split and time-shifted, the label/mark is still marking the track in relation to the tracks content (not in relation to anything on a different track).

Any ideas?


Purpose: We are trying to line up a conversation between voice-track-A and voice-track-B, recorded separately... People read their lines, but were not able to space in relation to the others, who were recording elsewhere, and with different speech patterns. I need to be able to mark the beginning of each sentence so that the beginning of the sentence can be identified, regardless of split/time-shift. We are going on the 36th hour of awake and desperately attempting to meet an (already past) deadline... the lines have run together, and seem to be making dreadlocks that would have impressed Bob Marley! We need to be able to find the individual hairs so we can finish untangling!

<<Any ideas?>>
Yes, you need Audacity 1.3.13, but it's not been released yet.
Audacity 1.3.13 has a "Sync-lock" feature that locks the label track to all audio tracks above it up to the next label track (if there is one).
For example, with Sync-lock enabled and the following tracks:

Audio 1
Audio 2
Label track (a)
Audio 3
Label (b)

Audio 1, Audio 2 and Label track (a) will be Sync-locked, and
Audio 3 and Label (b) will be Sync-locked.

There is a bit about this in the manual here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Labe ... #sync-lock

Although 1.3.13 has not been released yet, if you are desperate for this feature you could try 1.3.13 alpha (nightly build), which is available from here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php? ... tly_Builds

@Steve: I thought of that, but I don't think that's what he wants. He wants a label on each clip that stays with the clip. Sync-lock in 1.3.13 just keeps all labels synced with all audio, and if you move one clip on a track, the entire track and the label track move.

@BearDrummer: Is this the kind of thing you'd like?
-- Bill

Hmm, yes, you could be right - but that's more of a problem because Audacity does not have that, and as far as I'm aware there's no simple way to emulate the behaviour.
Hopefully BearDrummer can clarify what he is wanting to do - there may be a workaround using cut and paste.

Yes, the "label stuck to a clip" would work quite nicely... If you know how to do that, please let me know...

Now, in a PERFECT world, it would look like this -
http://beardrummer.co.cc/audacitypics.html

Currently the closest you can get is this:
In Audacity 1.3.13 with Sync-Lock enabled, you can select a section and the label, then cut and paste both of them elsewhere. The paste location must have the same number of tracks - in this case, one audio and one label track to paste the section "Samantha 2" along with its label.
To cut the selection without making the "hole" close up, use "Split Cut".

steve wrote: Currently the closest you can get is this:

hmm... we finished the piece... turned it in. but preparing for the next one...

I see that I can make a separate label track per voice line... better...

Is there a way to "split" the label line and make all the following labels keep their same distance while moving? That effect would work...

BearDrummer wrote: Is there a way to "split" the label line and make all the following labels keep their same distance while moving? That effect would work...

In a word, "no". If one label in a label track moves, all labels move. That's why Steve suggests using cut and paste.

BearDrummer wrote:Yes, the "label stuck to a clip" would work quite nicely... If you know how to do that, please let me know...

Sorry, that was just a mock-up in photoshop.

BTW, nice mock-up on your page!

-- Bill

BearDrummer wrote: ... I see that I can make a separate label track per voice line... better...

You can do more than that if needed, you can have mutiplle label tracks per audio track.

I sometimes do this for LP transcriptions where I will have one track to mark the song breakpoints and a second track to mark annotations for edits.

WC