Audacity Forum

I forgot Audacity did this. I wanted to add noise to a track, so I mounted the music track as the top track and selected Generate > Noise expecting a second track with the noise in it. Of all the possibilities, I got the worse one. Noise wiped out my music track.

I know why it does that. I want it to stop.

Koz

If all generators created a new track, how would one add noise/tone/silence to an existing track? Generate then cut-and-paste I suppose, but generating into an existing track seems easier. It's not as if you lost your work - Undo then create new track and generate.

-- Bill

Sense when the entire track is selected? I know this is a juggling act between Auto Select when an effect is selected (a traditional complaint) and Non Auto Select when a generator is selected. A Generator is not an Effect. Koz

I just tried this with 2.0.1 and even with "Select all audio in project if none selected" checked, running a generator with the cursor at the start of a track generates at the start of the track and does not overwrite the track. Are you sure you didn't have whole track selected?

-- Bill

I'm not sure I'm in 2.0.
Koz

billw58 wrote:I just tried this with 2.0.1 and even with "Select all audio in project if none selected" checked, running a generator with the cursor at the start of a track generates at the start of the track and does not overwrite the track

I get the same result as this on Win XP SP3 with Audacity 2.0.

The generators will overwrite whatever is selected (regardless of the length of selection)

So if you want to add generated track stuff to an existing track just place your cursor at the required position in the required track and then use the generator. The existing audio to the right of your cursor will be slid along by the length of the generated sound.

If you want to overwrite part of an existing track the click and drag to make the selection and then use the generator. If you click and drag across multiple tracks and then use a generator Audacity will created the generated sound in each of the tracks.

If you want it to generate in a new track you need to create a new track, place your cursor at the required start position in that new track and then use a generator.

My understanding is that all this is intended behaviour. It may be that it is not documented adequately - I'll have a look at that once the 2.0.1 freeze is over.

So I'm not sure what your feature request is Koz. Are you asking for an extra check box in every generator for "Generate xxx in a new track" with default setting "off" ?

I would not support changed behavior so that generators always created the sound in a new track - it is useful then way it is now, particularly for adding silence when required.

Peter.

waxcylinder wrote:My understanding is that all this is intended behaviour.

It has always been this way as far as I'm aware.

kozikowski wrote:I forgot Audacity did this. I wanted to add noise to a track, so I mounted the music track as the top track and selected Generate > Noise expecting a second track with the noise in it. Of all the possibilities, I got the worse one. Noise wiped out my music track.

If by the word "mounted" you mean "imported" then that would explain the behaviour. New tracks remain selected after import. 90% of the time this is useful because you can immediately process the track, even if the project contains other tracks (Audacity is a multi-track audio editor).

There needs to be a way to generate into an existing track. The only sensible way that I can think of accomplishing that is for generated audio to replace the selection. Is there a better way?

kozikowski wrote: I want it to stop.

Could you be a bit more specific about what behaviour you want?

• Generated audio always goes into a new track? (to insert silence you would then need to generate silence into a new track, copy it, paste it, delete the silent track)
• Tracks not selected after import (would that be useful? Would it break Chains?)
• A pop-up warning dialogue when generating into an existing track?
• A better memory so that you don't forget that Audacity does this?
• Generated audio to be inserted at the beginning or end of a selection rather than replacing the selection? (I think most users would find such behaviour weird)
• Something else?

or can we put this feature request down to "user error"?

steve wrote: ... or can we put this feature request down to "user error"?

or even RTFM http://manual.audacityteam.org/help/man ... _menu.html

Seems clear enough in there

Peter

BUMP @Koz: you haven't yet responded to Steve's request of how you want to proceed with this.

Thanks,
Peter.