What am I missing?

What am I missing?

For some time now I have had a way of adding silence to the beginning of a track.

If there were only 2 seconds of silence at the beginning of a track and I wanted 5 seconds I would,

  1. Place my cursor at the start of the audio.
  2. Set the time box to “Length and End of Selection”.
  3. Add the amount of length time I wanted in the first box, 5 seconds. This would highlight the track from the cursor back to zero.
  4. Click Generate > Silence, then OK.
  5. Then, Tracks > Align Tracks > Start to Zero.

That would bring the added silence into view and give me 5 seconds from Zero to the start of the audio.

This is currently working for Audacity Version 2.4.2. I have downloaded the Release Candidate RC06 to test. When I try to perform the same task as above, instead of extending past zero, it will highlight to zero and forward (into the audio) for 3 seconds to give me the 5 seconds. Here, if I click add silence it blanks (silences) the audio in the highlighted area.

I know in Preferences > Track Behaviors, there is a check box for “Enable Scrolling Left of Zero”. This box is not checked in the 2.4.2 version, so it has no effect on the behavior that I am looking for.

So back to my original question, What am I missing? Is there another item I need to check to activate this behavior or is it something to do with the new Release Candidate version?


Windows 10 Pro Version 20H2

You can get the result you want by:

  1. Click at the start of the track (start and end of selection both zero - empty selection)
  2. Generate->Silence
  3. Enter 5 seconds in that dialog.

Silence is generated at the start of the track

  1. Click on the black line at 5 seconds to join the silence clip to the audio.

2.4.2 would allow you to select before zero. 3.0.0 does not. That is a change. We hope it is more benefit to more people than it is loss to others. Though we can maybe review it, as the selection actually made in the example you give does not seem useful.

Thanks for the quick response James,

Well, I am sorry to see you are eliminating this feature. It was very helpful to me and the amount of editing I do weekly. Part of that was to make sure each file has the proper amount of intro and exiting silence.

You can get the result you want by:

  1. Click at the start of the track (start and end of selection both zero - empty selection)
  2. Generate->Silence
  3. Enter 5 seconds in that dialog.

Silence is generated at the start of the track

  1. Click on the black line at 5 seconds to join the silence clip to the audio.

Yeah, that is the way I was doing it before discovering the above method. The above method coupled with the use of macros made the task quick and simple.

Couple of question on the Silence plug-in.

Why can’t you change the default duration screen that opens? Rather than opening to hh:mm:ss + samples each time it is opened, why not be able to set it to what you use the most like, hh:mm:ss + milliseconds.

If you can save user presets in the Silence plug-in, why can’t you specify a duration in the user defined preset(s). Then you could set different presets and couple them with macros to expedite a few tasks.

Either one or both of those options would be useful.

@FL Coast

This would highlight the track from the cursor back to zero.

No, it doesn’t. It highlights back to zero and three seconds beyond. You can reveal this extra magic area with the Time Shift Tool.

I can well imagine the developer discussions about what to do about that weird area. You just generated a highlighted area before you generated the highlight? It violates the timeline metaphor. It makes my head hurt. You started singing the song before you started singing?

I would not want to be the writer tasked with explaining that for the manual.

So I think you discovered a handy editing technique using odd Audacity coding that’s being “cleaned up.”

If you find this a very handy, time-saving feature and Audacity is doing everything you want, don’t update. I know the digital angels are going to smite me for this, but if a software package fails to do what you want, don’t use it.

There are also techniques to have both Audacity versions on your machine, just so you don’t use them both at once.

Koz

There is another example of this problem in the Audacity tools.

There are two ways to identify individual musical tones in a performance. You can tell the timeline to display the work in rainbows with the colors representing different tones. This instead of traditional timeline blue waves. You can actually edit that way, too.

The other way is Analyze > Plot Spectrum. That tool can give you enormously more detailed information about tonal relationships, volumes, and qualities, but I’m the only one in this hemisphere that uses it because it doesn’t have a timeline. You can’t use the time metaphor to directly compare the information display with your show. If you try and explain it, everyone’s eyes glaze over.

So that timeline is a big deal and its metaphor should be stable and easily understood.

Koz

FL Coast,

I have a Macro below and two examples of setting 5 seconds at the beginning of the track. One starting with less than 5 seconds and the other starting with more than 5 seconds. The Macro could probably use some cleaning up, but all that is required is that you place your cursor just before the audio and run the Macro (quickest way is with a keyboard shortcut). See what you think. I think the worst is that you will need to delete a clip boundary, but maybe you could re-work the Macro to get rid of it.

FiveSeconds.JPG


Increase to 5 Seconds
AddTime.gif

Decrease to 5 Seconds
SubTime.gif

FL Coast,

I was tinkering with the Macro and this seems to work much better as it gets gets rid of the clip boundary and gets rid of a few steps in the Macro too.

FiveSeconds2.JPG

I noticed that if you have multiple tracks in the project, the Macro, as written, switches the process from the current track up to Track 0 - the first track - at Step 07. So I think you should replace Step 07 with “Cursor to Track Start” to keep the process on the current track.

Mike

I have a Macro below and two examples of setting 5 seconds at the beginning of the track. One starting with less than 5 seconds and the other starting with more than 5 seconds.

Thank You mafg1953. That was exactly what I was trying to do. I had started trying to build a macro to do just that, but was hung up on the fact that the silence plugin would not allow presets to maintain the time I inserted. Now I will take your start and try to build a macro for the end of track.

Again mafg1953, Thank You. This is going to save a ton of seconds. :laughing:

FL Coast,

Steve wrote a Nyquist script to step through each command in a Macro to help with troubleshooting (MacroStepThrough.NY). The post is here:

https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/enhancement-for-macros/59223/1

It may come in handy.

Mike