Audacity - How to's

[Strungup]

Todays experiment was to see how well Audacity's Data Embedding works .

For Mac users : I recorded a Vinyl Album with Final Vinyl ( dont edit with right now it is crashing alot )

After recording ( which it does very well ) Save the file as ( Name of Album Side 1 or 2 )

Then Open Audacity , and import the file and get ready to edit and clean noise , Pops , Crackles etc

First Song , Zoom in real tight at the beginning of the song ( Look on the toolbar for a pair of maginfying glasses one with a + , one with a -

Highlight fro the first par of the song backwards to the beginning of the file , Go to the top menu bar Klik "Edit "

Select either Silence audio ( if you want a little space at the beginning ) or Delete Which can be done just by using the Delete key on your keyboard , If you dont want any space at the beginning .

Still in first song , but Zoom out , so you can see the end of that song , klik that area , and zoom in on it so you can see the fade out or end of the song ( Some songs end suddenly some fade out )

For songs that Fade out , zoom in fairly close on the waveform , and watch very carefully while listening very carefully to the very last audible part of the song itself ( at some point the noise of your record will overtake the sound of the song ) at that point Highlight backwards about 10 seconds or maybe more , into the song , go up to "Effects " select "Fade out " What this will do is create another fade out that will end with NO Noise at all , And from exactly that point to the beginning of the next song , Highlight -> Edit -> Silence Audio

What you will now have is a smooth noiseless transition between song 1 and song 2 .

Follow that same process for the other songs . So that all transitions are Clean and Snappy .

Then , If you wish to Change the sound quality you can highlight , and work on just 1 song at a time , as they will be easier to select .

EQ , Reverb , Limiters , Compressors , will all require some experimenting to get use to , as well as a Plethora of downloadable , AU effects , that Audacity is easily able to use . Tube Simulators , Stereo Expanders , or M/S ( Mid Side Processors for those of you who use M/S mics and are on Mac PM me and I can send you and effect or two for just that purpose .

After everything sounds good playing all the way thru one time , Then we can separate the individual songs as AIFF or WAV files to burn to CD .

So Highlight Song 1 , from where you want it to begin , to either the exact end of audio , or just a hair over if you want same space , between tracks on your CD .

With it highlighted , Go up to " File " select ... " Export Selection " and a window will popup .

Here you enter the MetaData for the Song , Album , Artist , Track number , etc ( Take the time to actually do this , you wont regret it )

Do that for each song , export all of them to the same place ( Desktop is best , unless you have a really cluttered desktop) Then make a folder , with the name of the Album .

I use a program called " Burn " for Mac , it is FREE for one thing , it is Open source for another , and thirdly it is Rock Solid , and I have never had a Failed disc .

Open Burn . Select Audio CD , from the menu , Then Name the CD , after that , Import the songs in the order that you want them to show ( One at a time , Burn registers that order for the CD .)

Then Burn your Audio CD , I use the slowest settings , just for safety's sake . Then here comes the good part , eject the CD , Close Burn . Put the CD back in and open iTunes And import the CD into iTunes , iTunes will ask you to select the Closest Match to a CD Database , you select it , then it imports it with all the metadata , and you can then grab Artwork for the Album into iTunes as well .( Several methods for that , but that is a different topic )

Enjoy .

This process is not that much different for Importing files from MD's , so have fun with it .

Update : Also , the Wav files you originally exported from Audacity , can be Drop directly to HiMd , with the Metadata , and you will have song titles and all on your screen ! ( At least it does for me as that when I export I also name each individual file as the same as the Meta Data )

Edited June 21, 2009 by Guitarfxr

[Richard]

* Moved to Software Discussion section.

[Strungup]

* Moved to Software Discussion section.

Rich ..... That was lame , It was put in Technical tips and tricks , because that is exactly what it was . Tips and Tricks , or a " How To Do " something , it isnt about the software as much as it is about How To Use it or the Process of doing something , I placed it where it needed to go . it at least should be a sticky , We always get these questions on the board ...............

Edited June 21, 2009 by Guitarfxr

[Strungup]

A Couple of Plugins that work very well , for Getting Old records or Recordings to sound way better

Voxengo has several freebies one is called " Stereo Touch " I have used this on older records (1970's and earlier) that dont exactly have a great recording quality to them and sound " Boxy " for lack of a better term

With the Stereo Touch , Try setting the Side delay to about 50 -60 milliseconds , then turn the Delay Gain down to about -3 db or -4 db ( 0 db will actually raise the overall levels of your audio file)

Then you have two very cool extras The HPF , and LPF filters , For Rumble and Low freqs that are unwanted enable the HPF and select the cutoff freq , also if there is a lot of hi frequency hiss , then use the LPF and select a cutoff around 17.2 khz .

The recording will clean up very nicely .

And instead of an Oldy Moldy sound , the Stereo Enhancement is JUST enough .. to add life to the record .

Try it ! works very well .

http://www.voxengo.com/downloads/?sortBy=date&group=11