A Newbie would like some advice

[mdubin]

Hi:

I just downoaded Audacity 1.3.x (Beta) the other day because I was hoping it would help me solve a nagging problem.

I do a lot of MP3 downloads and convert them to WAV. But sometimes where the music is continuous between tracks, I hear a slight click or pop at the point where one track ends and the other begins, even when the tracks are combined into one longer track.

I tried to zoom in on the spot where this glitch occured and used effect > repair. But it did not work, maybe because this was not the same as a pop or tick from an LP source.

I even tried to load in the original MP3 files but had difficulty figuring out what to do.

Is there any other way someone here might know of to remove that annoying click.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

mdubin

[steve]

Zoom in close on the beginning of the track.
Left click on the vertical track scale to zoom in vertically
Right click on it to zoom out again.
Use the magnifier buttons to zoom in or out horizontally.

This will cause a click:

firsttrack000.png (11.19 KiB) Viewed 681 times

and this will cause a click:

firsttrack001.png (11.31 KiB) Viewed 681 times

If you see either of these effects, apply a short fade-in so that there isn't a sudden jump.
You may also need to apply a short fade-out to the ends of the tracks.

[mdubin]

Steve:

Thanks for the reply.

I worked with the horizontal zoom yesterday in my unsuccessful attempt to do the repair on the joined WAV file.

I will attempt to zoom vertically this evening.

But I did try the fade-in and fade-out but did not know what I was doing and the effect was way too long.

How can I apply the fade-in and fade-out to just a very small piece of audio? If I see what you indicated might be a click, should I use the selection tool to isolate just that small section and then apply the fade-in?

mdubin

[kozikowski]

There are some very graceful ways of getting around this, but they don't work well on MP3 or other compressed files.

The Fade In and Fade Out effects work on drag-selected material. Drag-select the end of the song and pick Fade Out and it will use that entire selection to fade. You want to make sure you're close to the pop point with your selection or the pop might survive the fades.

Wasn't there a package with butterfly fades pre-built? I can't find it, but I know I've seen it.

Koz

[mdubin]

Steve and kozikowski:

Thanks for all your help. It just took a little bit of a learning curve to understand what to do.

It was much easier for me to combine the two mp3 files into one WAV with a joining software I had purchased a while ago. After importing in the WAV, I was able to zoom in on the spot where the audible glitch occurred. What I really like was the ability to cut a small section of audio, check the result out, and if it was not to my liking I was able to undo the cut and try another spot. After a bit of trial and error, I managed to edit out the glitch to my liking.

mdubin

[mdubin]

Just to follow up on how pleased I am to have found this great software.

Several months ago, I downloaded some mp3 files which had a few loud clicks. These clicks were within the track and originated from the source itself. Being a perfectionist, I never converted these to WAV and just forgot about it.

But now with my discovery of Audacity, I revisited and converted these mp3s to a single WAV file, zoomed in on the clicks, and remove them seamlessly.

There is so much more that Audacity can do which I will not have the need for. But I am happy that I got over the learning curve so I am able to edit out audio glitches in WAV files derived from downloaded MP3s.

Fantastick product!

mdubin