new user help??

[drubarlow]

Hey guys, I am completely new to Audacity and sound editing in general, though I have always wanted to know how. I figured since Audacity came so highly rated and it was FREE I would give it a whirl and create some custom ringtones for my new Blackberry Curve, but my first night has been quite frustrating.

I spent some time reading through the user manual and such and I believe I was able to successfully import an audio file and have a general understanding of how to cut, copy, paste, and save, but when I try to listen to the file, it sounds like it is set on hyper-fast forward. I cannot find a setting for slower playback (or maybe there's something else wrong??), but I figured I could fish something out of the knowledge pool here in the forums. Any ideas?? Thanks in advance for your help and have a great day.

- Andrew Barlow

[waxcylinder]

You are almos certainly trying to import a filetype that is not supported by Audacity. Audacity supports WAV, MP3, OGG and FLAC in 1.3.

WC

[alatham]

WC may be right. But you didn't mention how fast it was playing back. Is it just a very short (1/10th second) sound, or is it playing back twice as fast (e.g. "alvin and the the chipmunks" sound)?

If it's very short, then WC is right.

If the clip is playing like the Chipmunks, then you've got a sample rate problem. That's harder to fix, let us know if this is the case.

[drubarlow]

It squeals through the track very quickly; fast enough it is not recognizable as "music." The file was a track ripped with iTunes that I thought was .mp3 format, but apparently not (.aiff??). I'm at work now and don't quite remember what I did, so I'll have to wait until I arrive home and see if I can replicate the problem. If this is the problem, is there a way to convert iTunes files to something that Audacity would recognize?? Thanks again in advance for your help and have a great day.

- Andrew Barlow

[waxcylinder]

Andrew

is there a way to convert iTunes files to something that Audacity would recognize?? - Andrew Barlow

What I do is to play the song in iTunes and record it at the same time in Audacity. This gives me an Audacity project that can be exported as MP3 - and without the tiresome Digital Rights Managment. To do this I connect the outputs of my external souncard looped back to its inputs - works a treat. Though you should be able to record using your on-board soundcard if that's all you have.

You may also be able to find software somewhere on t'interweb that will allow you to convert directly to WAV or MP3 - but I have no experience of this.

WC

[alatham]

iTunes default format is AAC, which is not supported by Audacity. I think there is a way to get iTunes to convert your entire library to MP3 format, but I'm not sure how it works with DRM files.

Waxcylinder's advice about using Audacity to re-record files will take forever, but it is a fool-proof way around DRM.

[dougXN]

So how about just :

creating a playlist
set burn option to data disk mp3
burn a cd
then read it off the disk?

[kozikowski]

<<<then read it off the disk?>>>

That takes even more time, but that is the classic "Super Secret Way To Get Around Apple Copy Protection"--that everybody knows about. I suspect that's allowed because you can't easily create bulk copies like that. The price of the music was chosen so it's a lot easier to just download and pay for another copy.

"You mean I have to burn a disk I can't play in my iPod and then sit through ripping it just to get a copy? Here's $2 go buy your own copy."

That's why Apple is dead set against raising the rates, they're built into the music distribution system.

Koz

[DrAW]

Since this discussion seems to be running the gamut on new user issues... let me ask, ... I am looking for a small free program that will record just about anything coming through my computer sound card... will Audacity fit this bill? If not does anyone have suggestions for me. I would love to have a scheduler on it as welll but that is a desire not a necessity. I can seem to get Audacity to record the sound of an online TV tutuorial which I am guessing is using Adobe Flash. Help!!

Thanks,
DrAW

[kozikowski]

Thread Hijack!

I use Total Recorder for the PC and WireTap Pro for the Mac. Both record anything you can hear with minimum or no damage and both have timed recording tools.

Koz