Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Help for Audacity on Windows.
Forum rules
ImageThis forum is for Audacity on Windows.
Please state which version of Windows you are using,
and the exact three-section version number of Audacity from "Help menu > About Audacity".


Audacity 1.2.x and 1.3.x are obsolete and no longer supported. If you still have those versions, please upgrade at https://www.audacityteam.org/download/.
The old forums for those versions are now closed, but you can still read the archives of the 1.2.x and 1.3.x forums.
waxcylinder
Forum Staff
Posts: 14685
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:03 am
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Post by waxcylinder » Mon Jul 30, 2018 10:22 am

Emerogork wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 10:02 am
Unless it can be developed to start and stop hourly, and maybe with the capability to name tracks automatically, it is just a novelty for me and not of much use.
What you really need is this proposal (that I wrote a long time ago) implementing:
https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Prop ... mer_Record

Peter
________________________________________FOR INSTANT HELP: (Click on Link below)
* * * * * FAQ * * * * * Tutorials * * * * * Audacity Manual * * * * *

Emerogork
Posts: 315
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 11:56 pm
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Post by Emerogork » Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:09 pm

A noble request it is but I might propose a much simpler approach and a smaller step. I suggest to add an option in the pull down menu for "After Recording Completes" which says "Restart Timer" and then ask how many times to repeat. All the code needs do is activate the OK button for the given number of times entered.

I am sure that the rest of the proposal, already in place, would require much more work as it appears to require a data base to implement.

waxcylinder
Forum Staff
Posts: 14685
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:03 am
Operating System: Windows 10

Re: Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Post by waxcylinder » Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:57 pm

Emerogork wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:09 pm
A noble request it is but I might propose a much simpler approach and a smaller step...
hahaha ;)

Peter.
________________________________________FOR INSTANT HELP: (Click on Link below)
* * * * * FAQ * * * * * Tutorials * * * * * Audacity Manual * * * * *

steve
Site Admin
Posts: 81627
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:43 am
Operating System: Linux *buntu

Re: Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Post by steve » Mon Jul 30, 2018 5:10 pm

Emerogork wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:09 pm
I suggest to add an option in the pull down menu for "After Recording Completes" which says "Restart Timer" and then ask how many times to repeat. All the code needs do is activate the OK button for the given number of times entered.
I'm a big believer in using the right tool for the job. In this case (as described above), I don't think that Audacity is the right tool.
For the case of making a sequence of consecutive recordings, it would be much better for the app to stream the file direct to disk. Audacity does not do that. Audacity writes thousands of little data files in 32-bit float format. To save a file, the data needs to be read back from the disk, encoded in the appropriate format, written back to disk as an audio file, then clean up the thousands of data files - all before it can continue with the next recording.

The way that I would approach the task on Linux (my preferred operating system), would be to use a simple command line recorder, such as arecord or SoX, and a crontab script (similar to Windows scheduler) to start the job, name the files and close. The tasks could ovelap a little so as to avoid missing any of the recording between tasks (Audacity cannot do that).

I'm sure that a similar approach could be taken on Windows and Mac, but it's also likely that searching Google could bring up a ready made app designed specifically for this task (try searching for "surveillance voice recorder" or similar terms).
9/10 questions are answered in the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

steve
Site Admin
Posts: 81627
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:43 am
Operating System: Linux *buntu

Re: Getting into serious editing audio as I have with video

Post by steve » Mon Jul 30, 2018 5:18 pm

Emerogork wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 12:09 pm
I suggest to add an option in the pull down menu for "After Recording Completes" which says "Restart Timer" and then ask how many times to repeat. All the code needs do is activate the OK button for the given number of times entered.
Pyaudio could be worth looking at: https://people.csail.mit.edu/hubert/pyaudio/docs/
9/10 questions are answered in the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

Post Reply