Multitracking and "dropping in"

[rossmcm]

Hi,

I have a stereo track pair and I want to record a third track to accompany it while listening to the stereo track, but the third track can't be done necessarily in one take.

When I click on record, Audacity creates a new track and begins recording onto it. Great. But say I want to redo only a portion of my accompanying track - I think this is called "dropping in".

I can pause, and then resume a recording from where I paused it, but can I:

- click on record and record a portion
- click on pause
- review what I have recorded
- go to a specific part of the track
- start playing (NOT recording)
- at a particular point where I want to start "dropping in", resume recording for a short period onto the third track
- click on pause
- review
- go to another specific part of the track...

etc. You get the idea. I have a Korg recorder where this is a breeze to do. Can Audacity do this somehow?

TIA,
Ross

[Gale Andrews]

I have a stereo track pair and I want to record a third track to accompany it while listening to the stereo track, but the third track can't be done necessarily in one take.

When I click on record, Audacity creates a new track and begins recording onto it. Great. But say I want to redo only a portion of my accompanying track - I think this is called "dropping in".

I can pause, and then resume a recording from where I paused it, but can I:

- click on record and record a portion
- click on pause
- review what I have recorded
- go to a specific part of the track
- start playing (NOT recording)
- at a particular point where I want to start "dropping in", resume recording for a short period onto the third track
- click on pause
- review
- go to another specific part of the track...

etc. You get the idea. I have a Korg recorder where this is a breeze to do. Can Audacity do this somehow?

Audacity doesn't do punch-in recordings on the same track, though there are many requests that it should. You cannot start playing after having paused a recording without stopping the recording, but selecting a region and hitting Space twice will work.

So if you want to replace sections recorded on the third track, you have to select them, record them to a new track below then replace the bad section with the new one below. There are several ways to do that, the simplest being to silence the section in the third track so that the section in the fourth track replaces it. If you get too many tracks by doing this you can select the tracks you want to mix together and Tracks > Mix and Render.

Unfortunately if you have Transport > Overdub unchecked (meaning you don't hear the other tracks while you are recording), the recording will carry on past the selection until you stop it. Otherwise, the recording will stop at the end of the selection and will be slightly shifted back to try and keep it in synchronisation with the track above. If it isn't in sync, you can hit F5 and use Time Shift Tool to make it blend correctly (something that can't be done so easily if the punch-in is in the same track).


Gale

[rossmcm]

Thanks for the reply, Gale. I should be able to do what I want with what you describe.

Audacity doesn't do punch-in recordings on the same track, though there are many requests that it should. You cannot start playing after having paused a recording without stopping the recording, but selecting a region and hitting Space twice will work.

Note sure what you mean by "selecting a region and hitting Space twice will work"?

OK, I've done a few experiments. I can record onto an arbitrary position on the third track by clicking on the third track to set the cursor position and then clicking the record button with the shift key held down. Trouble is, this seems to be restricted to starting the recording from a point after the last recorded portion of the third track. It would be nice if you could do that anywhere in an existing track.

Thanks,
Ross

[kozikowski]

It's really difficult to get Audacity to do production in real time. A very common request is to apply filters while recording, but Punch-In and Scrubbing are right up there on the Feature Request list.

Koz

[steve]

I can record onto an arbitrary position on the third track by clicking on the third track to set the cursor position and then clicking the record button with the shift key held down. Trouble is, this seems to be restricted to starting the recording from a point after the last recorded portion of the third track. It would be nice if you could do that anywhere in an existing track.

To record at an arbitrary position, create a new (empty) track and use SHIFT + R to record from the cursor position.

[Gale Andrews]

I can record onto an arbitrary position on the third track by clicking on the third track to set the cursor position and then clicking the record button with the shift key held down. Trouble is, this seems to be restricted to starting the recording from a point after the last recorded portion of the third track. It would be nice if you could do that anywhere in an existing track.

To record at an arbitrary position, create a new (empty) track and use SHIFT + R to record from the cursor position.

I'm not sure of the advantage of that over just placing the cursor or the selection and hitting R to record from the cursor or from the start of the selection in a new track. Append recording in an empty track will insert silence before the recording position.

One of the problems with clicking in the middle of a track to insert a recording is that the following audio then has to be pushed out of the way. Some people want to do that as an alternative to replacing the recording in that track.



Gale

[Gale Andrews]

Note sure what you mean by "selecting a region and hitting Space twice will work"?

If for example you cough when you are recording and you can see the resultant spike in the waveform when you have paused the recording, you can select over it (or place the cursor before it) then hit Space twice. The first Space stops the recording allowing the second Space to play from the cursor or play the region. Of course you can also click the Stop button then the Play button, but many would find double Space more efficient.


Gale

[steve]

I'm not sure of the advantage of that over just placing the cursor or the selection and hitting R to record from the cursor or from the start of the selection in a new track.

There's not much of an "advantage" - The main advantage is probably that you can specify whether the recording occurs on a mono or stereo track without going into Preferences to change it, though I guess that there's situations where that is more of a hindrance than a help. The other "advantage" is as you have described that silence is inserted before the record position, which is useful if the tracks are to be exported for use in other multi-track programs.

The "point" that I was making is just that audio can be recorded at an arbitrary position in a track, but that to do so it needs to be an empty track.

I would agree that placing the cursor (or selection) and hitting R to record from the cursor (start of the selection) in a new track is usually the better method.

[Gale Andrews]

I'm not sure of the advantage of that over just placing the cursor or the selection and hitting R to record from the cursor or from the start of the selection in a new track.

The other "advantage" is as you have described that silence is inserted before the record position, which is useful if the tracks are to be exported for use in other multi-track programs.

I think that's an excellent advantage actually , though not relevant to this situation.

In case anyone doesn't follow the reason why, Audacity exports from the start of the first "audio" clip (which can include silence) so ignores white space preceding the first clip. That's a nuisance if you want to export multiple tracks for mixing in another editor because the audio will not be in the correct place. However when you do export multiple of a single track with preceding white space, split files based on labels and include the audio before the first label, you *do* get the white space converted to silence.

If you want to convert white space in tracks to silence before exporting, Tracks > Mix and Render.



Gale