Audacity

This Term we are first starting off with exploring audacity. Mr Lennon explained the basic tools to us and told us to explore with the program. Mr Lennon showed us how to record our voice using microphones and also how to lower the volume when talking.


Here is more about the tools

Audacity Is based around six basic tools, which are located in 2 rows to the left of the play buttons.

Selection Tool:

This is used to highlite audio selections using by clicking and dragging across the audio wave form. The grayed area you selected is now ready to receive any number of editing tools or effects applied to the highlighted sample. After selecting a portion of the waveform, you can click the Play button to play just the selected portion of the audio. You can deselect by clicking once inside your audio track.





Envelope Tool:

The Envelope tool is used to increase and decrease volume levels at various locations in your wave form. It is non-destructive which means that it will not effect the original audio file. Envelopes are useful for fading music into the background and for editing interviews or recording with two voices where one might be louder than the other. To use the Envelope tool, create envelope "handle" points around the portions of the wave form where you want to raise or lower the volume level. After turning the Envelope tool on, blue borders will surround your audio sample. When you click on any point on the blue line to add a handle (a square white point). You can widen the blue border to increase the volume between those points; narrow the blue border to decrease the volume.

Draw Tool:

To use this tool you will have to zoom in closely until you can see all the individual samples like this:

Then you will have to click on the drawing tool and click one of the dots, as soon as you click on it you will see that the dots moved into a different direction. Just like the Besizer tool in Inkscape.

Zoom Tool:

Timeshift Tool:

This Timeshift tool is a good way to cut and past or move an entire track. After selecting the Timeshift tool you can select a track and click on the wave form and drag it left or right to move it earlier or later in the timeline.



Multitool:

The Multi-tool button lets you perform multiple editing actions with your mouse. It's like having all of the editing tools turned on at once. With the multi-tool selected you can adjust volumes up and down by adding envelope handles and you can select portions of the audio with the I-beam selection cursor. You can also zoom in on your selection by right clicking and dragging to select the sample you wish to see.

The Zoom tool in indicated by the magnifying glass. You can use it to zoom in and out on specific parts of your wave form. Left click once to zoom in on a selection, or right click to zoom out. To zoom in on a specific portion of your wave form, left click and drag across a portion of your audio file. The section you've selected will no completely fill the window.