Can I somehow tell the time the sounds were recorded?

[d-spitz]

Hi! I'm a new user of Audacity and I am still figuring out how to use it. I tried to search the answer for my question in FAQ and manual but could not find it. The question is, can I somehow tell the time when the sounds were recorded when I use Sound Activated Recording?

I have Audacity 2.0.1, which I only downloaded this morning. I used it to monitor my dog during the day while I was at work. Luckily she was very quiet, except for a couple of barks when I came home. But I can't see how I can tell at what time the sounds on the file were recorded. You see, I'd like to know, for example if there are some bangs or barks on the file, can I see if they were recorded just as I turn the key on the lock or if the dog has barked during the day. Is there any way to see that either afterwards or maybe with some setting I have to do before I start the recording...?

[kozikowski]

It's not a setting. It doesn't exist. You can buy an expensive SMPTE timecode generator and put that on one of the two sound channels. Play through a reader and it will tell you the exact time in real time or event time. You can also record the shortwave broadcasts of CHU Canada or WWV in the US on one side. Those announce the correct time once a minute. In the case of CHU, in French and English.

Koz

[steve]

If you have enough free disk space you could record the entire day (mono and a low sample rate should be good enough for the described purpose).
Making very long recordings is not without problems, but is possible.
You must have more than enough free disk space on the machine.
An 8 hour mono recording at 16 bit with a sample rate of 8000 Hz will use about half a Gigabyte.
(see "Quality" and "Devices" settings in "Preferences": http://manual.audacityteam.org/manual/h ... ences.html)

All operations on a very long recording will be slow, including zooming out to see the full waveform (Ctrl+F).
Sounds will show up as "blips" along the otherwise flat blue line.

[d-spitz]

Thanks for the replies! Too bad this feature does not exist. It's not like I really need it right now but it would have been a nice addition. It's good to know it's impossible to do, unless you record all day long and not with sound-activated recording. At least I won't spend half the day trying to find a feature that does not exist.