need tips for using Audacity

[johnkthedj]

hello. I am a dj. I was using Music Editing Master to edit my mp3 files. I recently upgraded to windows 8 (and got a new computer!). The Music Editing Master program keeps freezing up on me, so I searched for something new to use. I found Audacity; but am struggling a bit to figure out how to do the things I need to do (MEM was very simple compared to Audacity). I need to edit the into & outro, adjust the volume level, and do a little editing. I also want to learn how to do the EQ. Some questions: when I zoom in on a section, how can I make it only play that section and not continue on? I need to do this especially for the editing; I only want to see and listen to the section I select - I sometimes have to go over and over to determine what I want to do. The same question for the intro edit and fade. How do I get just the end/beginning to play so that I can edit it? also, how does the bulk issue work? Can you bulk EQ several files at once? Can you bulk adjust volume levels? I have a lot of music I need to edit, and I would like to edit the intro/outro, adjust the volume, and standardize the EQ as quickly as possible.

[steve]

Lots of question
Switching from one editing program to another can be a bit confusing until you become familiar with the new program, so I'll concentrate on the basics.

When a region is "Selected" and you press "Play", playback will automatically stop when it gets to the end of the selection. See here for more information about Selections: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/au ... ction.html

Audacity includes several convenient ways to zoom in and out so that you can see the relevant section of the waveform: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/zooming.html

There are additional tips for navigating around the recording: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/NavigationTips

When possible, use WAV format rather than MP3 format. MP3 produces smaller files, but there is always some loss of sound quality that cannot be recovered. The sound quality loss occurs when encoding the MP3 and each time the audio is encoded there will be additional loss of quality.

Audacity has some ability for batch processing by creating "Chain" commands (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/ba ... ssing.html), but I'd suggest that you leave this until you are a bit more familiar with Audacity. Get the basics first and then the rest will be much easier.

A really important aspect of Audacity is the difference between "projects" and "audio files". This page is not much fun, but it is well worth a read and can save tears and frustration later on: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/au ... jects.html

[trew]

9/10 questions are answered in the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

You are right, I ahd a similar doub and your post fix it but actually I discovered that FAQ was going to clarify to me too.

I know what i have to read during the week-end.