How do I export tracks in sync?

[waltercruz]

a screenshot from my audacity project
http://i.imgur.com/RF3Ikhz.png

when i do a export multiple and import the tracks in another daw, they don't keep in sync.

http://i.imgur.com/wmhe94t.png

I want to export the ful tracks, with silences, empty space, everything.

Thanks on advance!

[kozikowski]

Create a silent track longer than the longest part of the show. Select that track and your target track > Export Selected.

Koz

[steve]

This is how I do it. The Mac version of the keyboard shortcuts are usually the same but with "Command" replacing "Ctrl".

1. Ctrl+A (select all)
2. Shift + Home (move start of the selection to "time=0")
3. Ctrl+T (trims off any sound outside of the selection - specifically, removes any audio that is before time=0)
4. Home {possibly "Fn+Left Cursor" on Mac} (move cursor to start of project
5. Generate menu -> Generate a small amount of silence

All tracks now start at exactly time=0, so when you Export Multiple, and import into another multi-track application, they will all line up correctly.

[@koz: this would be a good post to bookmark. Perhaps you could translate this into Mac shortcuts?]

[kozikowski]

Is there such a thing as having a patch of "nothing" in the middle of a line?

Koz

[steve]

Is there such a thing as having a patch of "nothing" in the middle of a line?

You mean an "empty" gap in a track?
Yes you can have empty space in an Audacity track, but no you can't have "empty" space in an audio file. When exporting, empty space needs to be converted into "silence". Silence is valid audio with zero amplitude.

[kozikowski]

I see steps 1 thru 4 are graceful housekeeping, but I don't understand how step 5 solves the problem of exporting a correct track of a multi-track show if musical sync was achieved by Time Shifting the desired track, for example, several seconds to the right (later in time).

The global long silent track solves that problem in addition to 'gaps in the middle,' 'making a mistake' and 'changing your mind.'

Koz

[steve]

If you record one track, then record a second track without doing anything else, the second track is shifted a little to the left to compensate for latency, thus it is very common in multi-track projects to have some tracks extend to the left of zero.

When exporting (or Export Multiple), tracks are exported starting from the beginning of the audio to the end of the audio. If the track audio starts before zero, the audio before zero is included in the exported file. This will throw out the timing when the track is imported into another DAW (or into another Audacity project). What we want, is a common start time for all tracks, so the first thing we do is to delete any audio that is before zero. Steps 1 to 3 do that.

Step 4 moves the cursor to time zero, and note that when following the steps all tracks are selected, so when we generate a bit of silence in step 5, it generates the same amount of silence at the start of all tracks, This gives us the common start time for all tracks.

[steve]

The global long silent track solves that problem

Yes that will work, but I'd not want to export a 30 track project that way.

[kozikowski]

a little to the left to compensate for latency

We assume it does that when the Overdubbing option is selected.

If you don't select it?

We may be solving different problems, but correct me, that suite won't help at all this this show.

Screen Shot 2017-06-22 at 13.59.00.png (45.2 KiB) Viewed 1722 times

The poster did mention exporting empty spaces.

Koz

[steve]

correct me, that suite won't help at all this this show.

In that show, steps 1 to 3 will do nothing except select all the tracks.
Step 4 puts the cursor position at the start (of all tracks)
Step 5 inserts a couple of seconds of silence at the start of all tracks. All tracks now have a start time of 0.000.
The empty space between the inserted silence and the start of the 'real' audio will be rendered as silence on export because it comes between the start and end of the audio in the track.

tracks000.png (26.33 KiB) Viewed 1720 times