AV News 190 - Novembert 2012
Audacity
Peter Appleton
Following on from Howard Bagshaw's item in AV News 189 (p.18) about a
'problem' that had been encountered using Audacity v2, I raised the concern on
the 'Audacity Forum.' There then followed a lengthy discussion, which turned into
a debate that became quite heated and ended up as a full blown argument. We
even had one of the Eds joining in with his two-pennorth from time to time. (I
wonder who can that have been??) When the dust had settled and everybody
(especially me) had calmed down, the full facts had become clear.
Audacity is not a simple 'what you hear is what you get' sound editor, although
that is what it appears to be to the novice user on their first meeting with it. It has
a degree of sophistication that can rival that of some hardware mixing consoles.
In particular, there are two different sound mixes available.
The first mix, the most obvious and, perhaps, the most important one, is the
Export Mix which is what is being presented at the stereo output when you do
File > Export or File > Export Selection.
The second is what might best be termed the Monitor Mix. This might, or
might not, be the same as the Export Mix. It depends entirely on what you have
done with Audacity's controls. Note that these terms 'Export Mix' and 'Monitor Mix'
are not official Audacity terminology. They are terms which evolved through the
Forum discussions to describe what we understood to be happening.
From the point of view of the 'average user' (is there such a thing?) the relevant
controls are the Mute and Solo buttons in the Track Details panel (below left).
The effect of using these is dependent upon a choice of Solo Button options
under Edit > Preferences > Tracks (below right).
If the user chooses Solo Button = Simple, then only one track can be
solo-ed at a time. A track is solo-ed by pressing its Solo button 'in'.
Solo-ing a second track causes the solo button on the first track to be
'popped out' automatically. All the other tracks are muted automatically.
If an export is done, only the solo-ed track will be exported.
If the user chooses Solo Button = Standard, (the default setting), then
any number of tracks can have their Solo buttons 'in' at the same time.
All the unsolo-ed tracks are muted but only in the Monitor mix.
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