Recording - prevent new tracks everytime i hit record

[matanood]

Is there a way to prevent a new track from creating itself everytime i hit record?

I would like to use audacity to record some of my speeches by hitting record -> and then sometimes "rewinding" in the middle of the track in case i make a mistake, and then record over my mistake without it creating a new track. I tried append record but that only starts recording from the end of the track. any insight would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Matt

[kozikowski]

In Audacity 1.3, you can press Shift-R to get "Append Record" to add stuff to an existing track. You can create a new "end" by selecting everything wrong and delete.

Koz

[matanood]

Thanks Koz but shift + R just adds to the end. I want to be able to overwrite my audio in the middle of the track without audacity creating a new track. I can select audio in the middle of the track and delete the audio from that part of the track but i want to continue recording from the middle of the track without having to create a new track....i dont think audacity has the option to do this so i have been looking for others. thanks for the feedback though.

[waxcylinder]

No you're right - Audacitity doesn't record like a tape recorder - it is more sophisticated than that in that it is a multi-track recorder.

What you can do to achieve what you want is to identify the portion you want to replace, you may find it helps to identify the offending part by creating a label track to mark it.

Then move your cursor to the beginning of the part to be replaced and press record - and recording will start in a new track from that cursor position - record your revised audio.

Then you will need to remove the wrong audio in the original track - do this by selecting it and typing CTRL+L to overwrite it with "silence"

You should now have two tracks, something like this (where the = are audio and the dots are silence)

============== .....============
....................====

Playing the project will play both tracks together, so your revised recording will cut in where the revision started. And if you Export the project it will be automatically mixed and rendered to a single stereo pair (assuming you are working in stereo that is).

You may need to pay attention to the "joins" as you may get noticeable clicks - you can either try using the Repair effect at the join - or you can slightly extend the second track recording so you get overlaps with the first track and the use fades in/out to cross fade between the tracks.

WC

[matanood]

Thanks for the replies. Waxy I would use your suggestion personally but this is for a "dummy" computer user that really doesnt know anything about computers and im trying to make it as simple as possible so i found a program that will do it but its $50. its called Express Dictate Digital Dictation Software by NCH Software