Questions about labels and saving

[alexius]

Do that while the labelled region is selected. As long as you are using a region label the selection will follow the label.

As soon as you click on the label to drag it, you've lost the precise spot where you want to move the label to.

[alexius]

If for example the sound is recorded properly in the right channel but rather weak in the left channel, all I do is highlight the sound in the right channel and paste it in the left channel.

I don't understand why you want to do that. What you achieve is two-channel mono, ie, waste of disk space and processor cycles. Either, (a) stereo matters, in which case you should normalize each channel individually (you can do that in SS, but I don't think you can do it in Audacity); or, (b) stereo doesn't matter, in which case you should mix down to mono (Audio > Resample), which takes half the space and half the time to process.

The other thing is that in Sound Studio when I want to save an aiff file as for example an mp3 file, I go to file save as and then select MP3 option and save. The save is pretty quick for a 2 hour aiff file.

It may say "save", but you don't actually save an AIFF file as MP3. What you do is encode a lossless audio format into a different, lossy audio format. In version 2, SS uses QuickTime to encode in MP3, ie, the same encoder iTunes uses. It is indeed fast, but I believe connoisseurs argue the quality leaves much to be desired. Audacity uses LAME http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME, which can be much slower. On my machine, LAME 3.97 is roughly an order of magnitude slower than QuickTime.

[steve]

Do that while the labelled region is selected. As long as you are using a region label the selection will follow the label.

As soon as you click on the label to drag it, you've lost the precise spot where you want to move the label to.

It sounds like you are trying to adjust the selection, then move the label to the selection. You don't need to do that. Just select the label region then move the label - the selection will follow.

[waxcylinder]

... Either, (a) stereo matters, in which case you should normalize each channel individually (you can do that in SS, but I don't think you can do it in Audacity) ...

Actually all versions of Audacity up to and including 1.3.13 the latest Beta do do precisely that.

This changes from 1.3.14 (latest Alpha) onwards where with Normalize you now get the option to treat the stero pair as a propr pair and amplify them both by the same anount (default behaviour) - or you can optionally get it to treat the channels independently.

It has long been a bugbear for many of us that up to now Normalize would only work with the channels independently, leading many of us to use Amplify in preference to Normalize.

See the 1.3 manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Normalize

WC

[rmcellig]

Yes. That was a 2 hour aiff file I recorded on Wednesday. I can try it again and post back if you like.

[steve]

Yes. That was a 2 hour aiff file I recorded on Wednesday. I can try it again and post back if you like.

The thing that is confusing me is that the image says: "192 kbps" which must surely be a compressed format, whereas the standard AIFF export format in Audacity is uncompressed PCM encoded, which should have a bit rate in the order of 700 kbps for mono or 1400 for stereo. How exactly are you exporting?

[rmcellig]

Sorry about that. The file is aiff and is saved as MP3 192 format. Is it better for me to save as aiff and then use conversion software to convert to mp3 or whatever format I want to save in? I like to do the conversion part at the very end of the editing process because as you are well aware of, it is important to keep the file uncompressed in eith wav or aiff format while working on it and then once you are satisfied, save in whatever format you like.

[steve]

Ah, that makes more sense.
As alexius wrote, Lame is not the fastest MP3 encoder, but it is a high quality encoder (one of the very best).
20 minutes to encode a 2 hour show still seems a bit slow even for Lame. It takes less than half that on my cheap Linux laptop with 192 kbps CBR, and about 7 minutes using Preset: standard. (Preset: standard will usually produce files that are about the same size as 192 kbps CBR but generally sound a bit better).

[rmcellig]

Just out of curiosity, I am going to try it on my cheap Linux laptop as well. I'm using my iMac which I find somewhat slower than my Linux laptop. I'll post back.

[rmcellig]

... Either, (a) stereo matters, in which case you should normalize each channel individually (you can do that in SS, but I don't think you can do it in Audacity) ...

Actually all versions of Audacity up to and including 1.3.13 the latest Beta do do precisely that.

This changes from 1.3.14 (latest Alpha) onwards where with Normalize you now get the option to treat the stero pair as a propr pair and amplify them both by the same anount (default behaviour) - or you can optionally get it to treat the channels independently.

It has long been a bugbear for many of us that up to now Normalize would only work with the channels independently, leading many of us to use Amplify in preference to Normalize.

See the 1.3 manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Normalize

WC

Where can I download the version of Audacity that will allow me to normalize both channels so that they are the same. I am using 1.3.13 at the moment.