pasting a clip into a track?

[JeffB]

Hello,

I've been using Audacity to record little clips to be inserted into an Open Office "Impress" presentation. It's pretty simple stuff, just "sight words" for my daughter who's in kindergarten. It's a fun way for my kids to read the words for her. The first slide will show the word, after she says what she thinks the word is she can advance to the next slide which will give one of the kids saying the word (the kindergartner does some of the voice clips as well). I recommend it for anyone in the same situation. It makes it a game and she's "playing" with it a lot and learning the words much faster than just going over lists of words.

But, I'm trying to figure out how to edit a clip where I would like to delete a little section in the middle and insert a "redo" in that same spot.

I can copy the new clip, and thought I could "paste" it into the place where I deleted the portion I wasn't too happy with. Is there a way to do that? I can't find any "paste" option on the edit drop down menu.

Or would I need to split it into a new track at that point, time shift them and then merge them again and export as an mp3 file?

Thanks for any help anyone can give.

[kozikowski]

I don't think Audacity will do a video-style "Overlay Edit." You could try putting the new snippet on a second timeline under the first. Use the time offset tools to scooch it over to the right place, and then selectively mute the original snippet.

Like carefully select the wrong snippet and Edit > Silence (or wherever it is in 1.3).

Koz

[JeffB]

Thank you.

I hadn't noticed that "silence" option in the Edit drop down menu. I had been using a little more complicated attempt at that by using the "Effect" menu > Amplify & then dragging the slider down to zero.

It does look like I'm getting the same minor problem, however, of getting a little click at each end of the silence. The sound waves look like they're either slightly above the center line when using the "microphone" input or below center when I use the "stereo mix" input option. The "silence" seems to put a line connecting the waves from the clip to that center line resulting in the little click, even when I try to use the "zero crossing" option from the edit menu.

I did try to use "control V" on a whim to see if I could paste the selection copied to my clipboard and was surprised to find that it actually inserted it directly into the relevant track! I had aligned the tracks up as you recommended and added some silence to make the original at least as big as the clip on the added track, but I don't remember if I needed that after inserting the new clip.

Whatever, it all worked out great.

Thanks for the new tips. It's always nice to learn new easier ways of doing things. Hopefully this will be another little trick in the goodie bag that someone else might be able to use.

[steve]

I'm trying to figure out how to edit a clip where I would like to delete a little section in the middle and insert a "redo" in that same spot.

There is no need to paste into the original track, just make your "redo" on separate track, delete the bit from the original (use "Split Cut"), line all the bits up nicely, and if you want smooth joins, use either an effect to fade in/out the ends of each audio clip, or use the Envelope tool to make a cross fade.

When you Export your audio, the clips will all be mixed together into a single file.

Below are a couple of pictures to illustrate the process (I have used the Envelope tool to create the cross fade).

overdub.png (55.36 KiB) Viewed 2443 times

split-cut_and_crossfade.png (56.03 KiB) Viewed 2444 times

[JeffB]

Thanks stevethefiddle.

I've never used the split-cut, nor the envelope or cross fader before. That looks like a useful set of tools and I'll check that out tomorrow.

I appreciate the tips.

[steve]

I've never used the split-cut, nor the envelope or cross fader before. That looks like a useful set of tools and I'll check that out tomorrow.

The Envelope tool is extremely useful, but rather irritating in that it is rather fiddle to use. When you have tried it out and discovered both how useful, and how fiddly it is, you may want to consider adding your vote to one of the feature requests for improving the Envelope tool.

See here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... e_Requests and search the page (Ctrl+F in most browsers) for "Envelope Tool:"

[alboy]

This is interesting. Always wondered what cross-fade did. I might have to experiment with this. As when I want to extend a track I go round the houses by:

1) changing track from mono to stereo
2) copying part of the track and adding it to 2nd channel
3) spend ages lining up part on 2nd channel to end of 1st channel
4) changing track from stereo back to mono
5) adding compression (as the crossover part is always louder than rest of track).

I do love using Audacity (dont get me wrong) but it does seem to take me ages getting all tracks in time and copying and pasting tracks together. I guess thats the fun/frustration of it?

[steve]

when I want to extend a track I go round the houses

You certainly do

There is no need to change from mono to stereo to mono, you can do it all in mono or stereo, depending on which type your original is.

Use Ctrl+D to duplicate the part that you want.

Lining up the beats exactly can take a bit of time, but you will get quicker at that with practice - having the two parts on separate tracks makes it quite easy to make incremental adjustments with the time shift tool, and if you have a wheel mouse, then Ctrl+Wheel is a great aid to zooming in/out.

There are two versions of "fade" available in Audacity 1.3. The ordinary "fade" effect will show up as a linear reduction/increase, whereas the "crossfade" will show up as a curve. The crossfade will generally work better if you are cross-fading over a short time period, but the normal fade effect may work better for longer cross fades.

[alboy]

when I want to extend a track I go round the houses

You certainly do

There is no need to change from mono to stereo to mono, you can do it all in mono or stereo, depending on which type your original is.

Use Ctrl+D to duplicate the part that you want.

Lining up the beats exactly can take a bit of time, but you will get quicker at that with practice - having the two parts on separate tracks makes it quite easy to make incremental adjustments with the time shift tool, and if you have a wheel mouse, then Ctrl+Wheel is a great aid to zooming in/out.

There are two versions of "fade" available in Audacity 1.3. The ordinary "fade" effect will show up as a linear reduction/increase, whereas the "crossfade" will show up as a curve. The crossfade will generally work better if you are cross-fading over a short time period, but the normal fade effect may work better for longer cross fades.

Cheers Steve. YOu know your stuff!

So after i lined up the two tracks, I just highlight them and then select "crossfade" and it will merge it all into one track? Fantastic, that should save some time.

I find the lining everything up the bit that really takes time. It is so hard to keep things running in time with each other, throughout a song. I guess if it doesnt sound right, then its not right and further tweaking is needed.

[steve]

So after i lined up the two tracks, I just highlight them and then select "crossfade" and it will merge it all into one track?

Not exactly.

After you have lined them up you will probably have a bit of an overlap between the first part and the second part.

Trim down the overlap - for music that has a heavy beat, you can often just trim it down so that the first track ends immediately before a beat and the second track also starts immediately before the beat without any need for a cross fade.

For music that does not have a heavy beat you will probably need to use a cross fade, so trim down the overlap to allow a smooth transition (exactly how long the fade needs to be will depend on the kind of music/sound. Sometimes a slow gradual transition works best, sometimes a short transition).

Select the region of the first part that overlaps the second part and apply a "fade out" (either the "fade" or "cross fade" effect). The select the beginning region of the second part that overlaps the first part and select a "fade in". (Use the same kind of fade for both first and second parts - either the normal "fade in/fade out" or the "Cross fade in/Cross fade out").

Sorry I can't post screen shots at the moment as I am in the middle of installing a new version of Audacity.