How to make Audacity "CoolEdit like"

[petersett]

Sorry for my English,

I am a radio journalist, i make many auditions in multitrack, but Audacity is a diferent than Cool Edit Pro.

Now i must at work use ONLY Audacity, how can i make that tracks would be on the left side and than the timeline similar to
Cool Edit Pro.

Please help
Peter

[Gale Andrews]

Audacity is a diferent than Cool Edit Pro.

This is because CoolEdit is a different program, nothing to do with Audacity.

Now i must at work use ONLY Audacity, how can i make that tracks would be on the left side and than the timeline similar to Cool Edit Pro.

Audacity's track control panels are already on the left side.

If you want minimal height tracks, View > Collapse All Tracks.


Gale

[petersett]

thank you for answer

collapse all tracks makes all tracks small but what i want is to have this view like in Cool Edit Pro

on the lefs side i have the names of all my tracks is project, and than, i choose which i want to add in multitrack

so it is simple and the best way to work,

in Audacity i mus DELETE all tracks from the program and leave only those who will be in the multitrack - it is a not comfortable at all.

[Trebor]

in Audacity i mus DELETE all tracks from the program and leave only those who will be in the multitrack - it is a not comfortable at all.

You can mute any tracks rather than delete them ...

collapse-mute-expand demo.gif (154.64 KiB) Viewed 2102 times

[Gale Andrews]

I don't completely understand yet what you want, but it is a feature request so I moved this topic to "Adding Features".

on the lefs side i have the names of all my tracks is project, and than, i choose which i want to add in multitrack

so it is simple and the best way to work

Please say why. There is wasted space with empty tracks unless you use the green slider to only view the upper tracks.

in Audacity i mus DELETE all tracks from the program and leave only those who will be in the multitrack - it is a not comfortable at all.

Audacity could possibly have a Track Tree of some sort but you can't add this yourself unless you are developer. One way it might work is to allow Track Groups. You could collapse the Groups you are not interested in or mute them which would exclude them from being exported. See: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Space ... ack_Groups .

Are you talking about something else? Do you want a list of files which you can drag into the project? Audacity has File > Recent Files although it is not specific to any particular project and it only opens those files in new project windows. So at the moment it can't be used to import files into a project.

The only way you could keep a "file list" at the moment is to have a project window whose only purpose is to contains tracks from imported files for dragging into other projects. You could double-click on this "file project" so that you always opened this project when you launched Audacity.


Gale

[petersett]

thanks but it seams than in this program it is just not possible to make a "folder" like in Cool Edit.

When we are working we have 20-30 files in WAV from recorded, than we are copying them to program (it was so far Cool Edit Pro)
than we had a list like on the screen in my post. From this list I can simply choose what i want to edit, then when it is ready (3,4,5 files chosen) insert it
to a timeline and make a multitrack audition export on mp3 and ready.

So we are working in radio since 90's Making it the way you show me makes in our work no sense, becouse we have plenty of files with diferent people recorder. We are making news, so it is important to work fast and comfortable. Audacity is a good program, but this particular function dooesnt have.

Thanks. Peter

[Gale Andrews]

thanks but it seams than in this program it is just not possible to make a "folder" like in Cool Edit.

So you want as I suggested at the bottom of my last post, a "file list"?

If so, the nearest method is to make a project for those files then that is your file list. Drag tracks from that project into the project you want to work on.

But you could do the same by making a folder in Windows Explorer. The only difference is that the folder is not part of a project.


Gale

[petersett]

If so, the nearest method is to make a project for those files then that is your file list. Drag tracks from that project into the project you want to work on.

this is extremly not comfortable, inserting all in timeline is not a resolution so i wrote. only way is to insert all files in one audacity, than open second audacity and than i can make it similar to cool edit pro multitrack.

the second suggestion - is it possible to edit colors of program? this option is in Adobe Audition

[Gale Andrews]

If so, the nearest method is to make a project for those files then that is your file list. Drag tracks from that project into the project you want to work on.

this is extremly not comfortable, inserting all in timeline is not a resolution so i wrote. only way is to insert all files in one audacity, than open second audacity and than i can make it similar to cool edit pro multitrack.

Isn't that exactly the same as what I suggested? You cannot run two instances of the Audacity program, only one instance with multiple project windows.

It is only a suggestion. We can add your vote for a "File folder" that is part of a saved project.
It isn't going to happen tomorrow, and may not happen at all, unless you code it yourself. Audacity is open source, so you can modify it.

is it possible to edit colors of program?

Please be specific - colours of what? Do you want each track or each clip in a track to have a separate colour?

If so there was an unapproved patch for that, but you can apply the patch if you can compile Audacity .


Gale

[steve]

how can i make that tracks would be on the left side and than the timeline similar to
Cool Edit Pro.

As Gale wrote, that feature is not available in Audacity.

I also used to use Cool Edit Pro (a long time ago) and more recently have used Adobe Audition. While I did find that feature useful I don't find the lack of it to be much of a problem. What I do when working on large complex projects is to put all of my source files in one folder (or one directory tree with sub-folders if it is a very large and complex project. I can then keep a file browser window open with all of the source files showing, then just drag and drop them into the project when I need them. In some ways I find this method of working to be even more convenient.