AV News 177 - August 2009
To the left of the transport buttons we have the
appropriately named Tools toolbar! On it are:
Selection Tool - Click to select a start point for audio
playback, or click and drag to select a range of audio
to play or edit. You can also create a selection area between two points
by clicking at one point, then holding down SHIFT while clicking the other point.
Envelope Tool - Allows smooth volume changes to be made over the
length of a track. Click in the track to create a control point, then set the
volume of that point by dragging one of its four vertically arranged
"handles". When you create other control points at different levels, a
smooth curve is interpolated between them.
The other important one is the Time Shift tool. Selecting this tool lets you
synchronize audio in a project by dragging individual or multiple tracks
or clips left or right along the timeline. To use Time Shift Tool, click in
the audio you want to move, then drag in the required direction.
Below the Tools and the Transport Toolbar is the mixer toolbar:
The Output Volume Slider sets the playback volume and the Input Volume
Slider sets the recording volume. The drop down Input Device Selector
allows selection of different inputs such as microphone or line-in (for devices
such as record players or cassette decks). Above and to the right are the
level meters. The green
bar shows the playback
level, and the red bar
shows recording level. The meter toolbar can also be undocked and
displayed as a window in its own right. It can be resized, giving longer scales
for the meters and hence a more accurate view of the volume levels.
Below the meters is the edit toolbar, although a lot of these actions can be
done by normal windows actions. Cut - Delete, Copy - Ctrl+C, Paste - Ctrl+V
and of course there is multiple undo and redo with the two arrows.
Finally at the bottom of the screen is a box showing the project sample rate.
This is where Audacity scores over the other software in
that it has more than one sample rate converter which
enables it to play tracks that have been recorded at different
sample rates side by side. It allows you to retain all the
original sample rates and then lets you select the final mixdown sample rate for
the project before exporting it out as either .wav or .mp3.
This has of necessity had to be a really brief overview of what Audacity can
do and what each bit of it does - so if I have whetted your appetite (or totally
confused you!!!) there are a great number who are using Audacity - why not
ask them to demonstrate it to you ....or maybe catch one of our lectures.
Page 19