Audacity Forum

Hello I am new to Audacity and new member here and I've been reading the manual for editing and I have a couple of questions and I am running Windows 10 and using a Focusrite Scarlett as my USB interface as I am converting old open reel tapes to wav files.
I just recorded my first of many 52 year old band concerts and we have no notation nor program title information. My former classmates have asked that I take 2 minutes of each selection and render the result as a single, short file and upload it to the internet so that all may listen and help try to identify the music titles.
I have "exported"/saved my complete concert audio file in two different file folders for safe keeping and the original capture still open in the timeline of Audacity. Am I "getting it" that I would start a clip point end of 2 minutes of song one to end of song 1 and delete? Then go to end of two minutes of song two and remove from their to end of song two and so forth to the end of the concert and then export the string of short clips as one audio wav file to my harddrive? OR is there a better and easier way to excerpt each selection to string them together as a sort of preview audio file?? Thank You - the Audacity Graphic Interface is confusing to me but I am trying to learn.
Thanks Again

I think I would select small segments of the concert and File > Export Selected Audio.

You can use Labels to help you identify the beginning and end of each segment. You can put a label anywhere and they're sticky/magnetic. You can drag-select over a label and the select will stick to it.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/label_tracks.html

You can "go into" the blue waves with the Zoom tools to help you identify the ends of each selection.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/zooming.html

You can go nuts with the Zoom tools, but I only use three.

Zoom (Windows)
-- Drag-select something on the timeline and zoom into it. Control-E
-- Zoom out a little bit. Control-3
-- Zoom out full. Control-F

-- Shift-ScrollWheel or Shift-TouchPadScrub will shift the timeline view left and right (sooner and later).

Change the timeline so it doesn't shift by itself:
-- Edit > Preferences > Tracks > [_] Update display while playing. (de-select)
Note: Update Display is good during recording.


You can also speed things up a little by knowing Spacebar will start and stop playback.

Koz

I figured it out and should have waited before asking for help. Audacity is perfect so far for my analog music capture needs. Now I'll just patiently settle in and get more familiar with this app.