Audacity Forum

Questions regarding saving work with Audacity:

After saving the file, I'm guessing that the editing I've done will be there when I open the file back up with the proper name. You think that's a good guess? Does the original extracted file still exist and should I delete it?

Also, you think it's OK to do edit several songs, some 'remastering' of some old CDs to make them sound better, etc, say 12 songs, and then burn them to CD? Is sending them to iTunes (or Windows Media Player, if that's even possible) a better choice? And is there something I need to do/get to burn them to CD?

I looked around in the tips etc and didn't see anything - unless I missed it - about this strictly in regard to burning to CD.

Sorry about this, I'm sure you get these kind of questions all the time. After looking and searching through a lot of it it does get bewildering.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. And if not, well, I understand! I'll keep looking to see if I can find these answers. I have a HP something or other with Windows XP (I think).

Audacity does not save files, it saves "Projects" (see here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Projects )

Audacity Projects are easily broken if you delete or manually change any part of the project - be careful not to make manual changes to any of the files or folders used in the project.

Audacity can produce standard audio files by "Exporting".
For making CDs it is best to Export as "16 bit 44100 Hz WAV".

Personally I recommend CDBurnerXP for making audio CDs on Windows (it's free and very good) http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home
See the tutorials on this page for more information http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tuto ... iscs_to_CD
(particularly "Splitting a recording into separate tracks" and "Burning music files to a CD")

TommyMacLuckie wrote:After saving the file, I'm guessing that the editing I've done will be there when I open the file back up with the proper name. You think that's a good guess?

Usually yes - but not always. It depends on how your Audacity Preferences are set and whether or not you have moved the orginal file.
Audacity by default should be set to actually import a full copy of the file into Audacity (the "safer" setting), it can be reset to the "faster" setting whereby Audacity only references the the external file and keeps the edits only within the project. If you use the "faster" method and you move/rename/delete the original source file that there are likely to be gaps in your project.

TommyMacLuckie wrote: Does the original extracted file still exist and should I delete it?

Yes it should still exist (unless you export over the original file - BAD practice) - and yes it's a good idea to remove unwanted files so as not to clutter up your disk. But possibly not if you are using the "faster" method and want to go back and re-edit the project.

This is all explained in the "Audacity Projects" link that Steve supplied to you.

WC