Questions about labels and saving

[waxcylinder]

You should be able to get the latest nightly Alpha build from Gale's site: http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/audacity.html

or from the Wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nightly_Builds

I've been running various 1.3.14 Alphas over the past couple of months and they seem remarkably stable in daily use - just be aware that with Alphas the devs can sometimes break stuff every now and then -so for a critical unrepeatable capture I would advise against using an alpha version.

WC

[rmcellig]

Thanks for the info.So for the time being, is my only option the mixer plugin?

[steve]

If you are wanting to amplify the two channels so that both end up with the same peak level, then the Normalize effect in 1.3.13 does that.
What Normalize in the alpha version has is the additional ability to amplify both channels by the same amount, so any difference between peak levels is maintained.

[rmcellig]

It took only 3 minutes to normalize the 2 hour file on my Linux laptop. Much faster than on my iMac.

[Gale Andrews]

Steve's been dealt with most of this I think, but just to add the following.

they aren't intended to be "markers on the waveform" although people use them like that

My point precisely.

There is no reason we can't add a formal vote for "markers on the waveform" and being able to select between them. Other people have asked for this. But when you do that in Sound Studio and choose File > Save Selection As, it seems your workflow is different; unless you can mark that selection in some way you then must export the segments one at a time, whereas Audacity lets you label all the segments first and then export multiple files. In that case Audacity is saving you all those individual export operations.

I don't see why what you want could not be an extension of the labels feature. I think it much more likely it will be, unless we can think of new features for such markers (for example if we add support for cue points in exports).

We could have a preference to have labels add a permanent marker in the waveform, but double-clicking in the waveform to select between labels or some other marker conflicts with double-clicking in clips to select them. We intend to have a feature to select multiple labels in future, so I think we could be more flexible than what you suggest by having a way to select from/to any label in the track, possibly by some kind of button or right-click menu (obviously without having to be zoomed out enough to see all the labels).

And definitely we could double-click to left of a label to select to the previous label (and to right to select to the next label) with a SHIFT + double-click creating a new label as well. Or, double-click selects to the previous label and labels that selection, SHIFT + double-click additionally converts the whole selection to a single label. I think there should be a way to make the selection into a single label.

I can't convert splits to labels

Command - B?

OK. I've split my 12 hrs file into 12 segments. How do I convert the splits into label with cmd-B -- without having to do the same operation a dozen times?

You stated you can't convert splits to labels which had to be corrected for the benefit of others reading this topic.

Also, note another counter-intuitive behaviour. Double-click between splits selects the whole clip; so I would expect shift-double-clicking in the adjacent clip would extend the selection to the whole adjacent clip; but it only extends the selection to the click point (same thing as shift-click).

How many adjacent clips? In which direction?

you can click in one label, then drag in the waveform or in the label track to the next label; release when the yellow snap guide appears.

I've already explained above that this doesn't work at low resolution.

I re-read your first two posts. If "low resolution" means zoomed out, please explain what you mean, as I thought the issue was with zooming in and then having to zoom out.

To clarify for others, if you are zoomed in at your end point label you can drag back to the start point label and the screen will scroll. I agree this is a pain if your segment is an hour long, and otherwise you must zoom out.



Gale

[alexius]

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

Thank you. Back in 2006 (Audacity was then at v1.2.4) I exchanged a few emails with someone from the team on this and other topics. I must have misunderstood him, because I acquired the impression that Audacity couldn't do it. Sound Studio 2, by contrast, offered a choice from the beginning.

[alexius]

Lame is not the fastest MP3 encoder, but it is a high quality encoder (one of the very best).

I don't use it with Audacity (as I wrote, I find few uses for the latter), but with iTunes, thanks to an app called iTunes-LAME. I encode with iT when I need speed and with LAME when I need quality, and the contrast in encoding speed is quite striking.

[alexius]

unless you can mark that selection in some way you then must export the segments one at a time, whereas Audacity lets you label all the segments first and then export multiple files.

I don't understand how you acquired that impression. Of course you can the same thing in SS. I wrote quite clearly that

Sound Studio does all that easily, and with just one type of marker instead of three.

The only difference in this respect is that SS calls it "Split by Markers", whereas Audacity calls it "Export Multiple".

You stated you can't convert splits to labels which had to be corrected for the benefit of others reading this topic.

Mea culpa. I should've said, "you can't batch-convert", or, "you can only convert them pair by pair".

How many adjacent clips?

However many there are between the selected clip and the clip within which you double click.

In which direction?

The direction between the selected clip and the clip within which you double click.

[Gale Andrews]

unless you can mark that selection in some way you then must export the segments one at a time, whereas Audacity lets you label all the segments first and then export multiple files.

I don't understand how you acquired that impression.
Of course you can the same thing in SS. I wrote quite clearly that

Sound Studio does all that easily, and with just one type of marker instead of three.

Because I am not on Mac, and don't know what SS does. "All that" at the end of a string of sentences was not completely unambiguous for someone that does not know the program.

Does SS let you split and pull apart tracks into clips independent of the selection?

Double-click between splits selects the whole clip; so I would expect shift-double-clicking in the adjacent clip would extend the selection to the whole adjacent clip; but it only extends the selection to the click point (same thing as shift-click).

How many adjacent clips?

However many there are between the selected clip and the clip within which you double click.

In which direction?

The direction between the selected clip and the clip within which you double click.

I suppose it's OK if it extends the selection in both directions if necessary to fill all the clips (you didn't make it clear if that is what you meant). Trouble is if there are no separate clips, what alternative action does SHIFT + double-click have?


Gale

[alexius]

Does SS let you split and pull apart tracks into clips independent of the selection?

No.

Let's be clear about this. I'm talking about a version which is 10 years old. SS 2 is plain 2-channel single track; it does not do multi-track nor a lot of other things (eg, VST). I'm not saying it is more powerful than Audacity. But I am saying that it does selecting and marking quite a bit better than Audacity.

I suppose it's OK if it extends the selection in both directions if necessary to fill all the clips (you didn't make it clear if that is what you meant).

It should work like this.

Click (nothing selected) -> shift-click: all samples between click and shift-click are selected.

Double-click (clip defined by the first marker to the left of the location and the first marker to the right of the location is selected) -> shift-click: all samples between the selected clip and shift-click are selected.

Double-click (as above) -> shift-double-click: selection is extended from the selected clip to the current clip (ie, the clip within which the shift-double-click was made), inclusive. It doesn't matter if no marker has been inserted, because, for this purpose, a track always has two markers, start and end, so the principle is the same.