Children of teh Atom

Ninjadmin · Last edited by Ninjadmin on Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:20 pm; edited 1 time in total

worth a thread on it's own i reckon

follow these simple steps and you could be the next whispering brizzle krs

1: use audacity as an audio recorder

- open audacity & open a new project window

- plug mic in, make sure preferences are set to the appropriate settings

- press record

- read out a short, scripted monologue (eg a 'welcome to the show' type speech)

- when finished press stop

- file > save project as [name project] BINGO! your first audacity piece!

- now you can (depending on how you configured your system to deal with mp3s) export the project as a .wav file, or an .mp3, or as an .aiff if you are on a mac... all will now play in itunes...

2: importing audio in audacity

- having recorded the first piece as above, and saved it as a project, now reopen that project

- now import the first song of your show (project > import audio)(on a mac the quick keys are 'apple-i', so i guess on a pc it's going to be 'control-i' or whatever) - you need to navigate through your music library folders: it may be wise to have selected all your songs into one itunes playlist, then highlight the song, file>show in finder (whilst in itunes not audacity!) ('apple-r' or pc equivalent) to more easily locate where it is first

- both your intro (the bit you recorded into your microphone in exercise 1) and this newly-imported song will start at zero seconds, so you need to move the song along

- highlight the whole song (either by making sure you have the 'select' button selected and physically dragging the cursor across the whole of the song - be careful that you are only doing this across the song track - from left to right or vice versa; or by clicking the box to the left of the actually track - that is the box that looks like the bit outlined in red in the screenshot below - click in the blank area indicated with the 'x' to avoid accidentally hitting one of the controls above!)

- note that clicking the box to the left of a track highlights all of the audio in that track, from beginning to end; note also that the highlighted bit is a darker grey. whatever you now do will be done only to the dark grey bits.

- (if you only want to highlight part of a track, do it manually with the 'select' button clicked)

- click the 'move' button and notice how the cursor changes to double arrowhead; with the cursor over the piece of audio you wish to move, click your mouse and drag the audio to the right until it's roughly in position after the first audio track ends

- you now have a sequence of speech recorded into audacity edited into a section of pre-recorded music! you may refine the space between the two tracks, you may apply effects (off the 'effect' menu) to all your audio, to a single audio track, or to specific parts of an audio track - but effectively this is all there is to learn...

- when you are happy with this section and the spacing etc, save your project! file>save, 'apple-s' or pc equivalent

congratulations!

you have now mastered all the skills necessary to operate audacity.

everything beyond this is simply the same techniques aggregated in different sequences to achieve slightly different goals, or else to specifically manipulate your audio in ways which will, through experimentation, become clear.

those techniques you have learned:

* recording audio using audacity
* importing pre-existing audio files into audacity
* highlighting sections of audio
* effecting change to highlighted sections of audio
* moving sections of audio
* saving your audacity project (.aup)
* exporting you audacity project (.aup) into universal audio formats (.wav, .aiff, .mp3)

other handy info

audacity allows you to be bold in trying out new stuff, because edit>undo lets you go back through all of the things you have done - even past the point you last saved the project! similarly edit>redo allows you to trace forward.

(ps when you are definitely happy with something, save it! audacity can sometimes crash, usually if you have too many tracks on the go at the same time. i generally don't work with more than five or six tracks at any one time, for this reason and because it makes it harder to keep track of where everything is, given the vertical display limitations)

pressing the 'mute' button in the grey box to the left of a track means you don't have to move that track out of the way whilst listening to other tracks until you are ready to.

Ninjadmin · Posted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject:

these are the only controls you really need to think about to start with:

1: this is the 'select' button, and it puts your cursor where you want it - imagine you've recorded something, or imported something, and you want to tweak something 2 minutes in; you make sure this button is pressed, and then highlight the specific section you want to play about with.

you treat audio much the same as you would text in a word processing document - it runs from left to right, you can cut+paste+copy (use the same keyboard controls as with word processing, or the menu options off the 'edit' menu, as with word processing).

2: this is your 'move' button - imagine you have imported two songs, and you want one to come after the other; well, you click this button and move the piece of audio you want to run second along to the right until it's where you want it.

you can also cut up a piece of audio and move the individual elements - you would highlight the bit you want to move with the 'select' button (1), then choose the 'split' option in the 'edit' menu. this splits off the section you highlighted and puts it in its own audio track beneath the audio track you split it from. you can then click the 'move' button (2) and, well, move it.

3: back to beginning, play, record, pause, stop, skip to end - exactly the same sort of controls you use on a stereo.

when you are recording audio, simply press 'play'. when finished press 'stop' (or 'pause'). when you want to play back what you are working with press 'play'. simple innit!

4: these are your levels, both output and input. you want to make sure neither 'clips' - ie if it's constantly peaking, or touching the far right of the indicator (or top, if that's how your display is configured), it's likely to sound crap. similarly you need to make sure your input levels don't stay too quiet (ie the bars are really far to the left, or the bottom).

5: output and input controls - here you can tweak how loud it comes out as, and how loud shizzle going in is. fiddle about with these and watch the level indicators at (4).

6: these along you to zoom in, zoom out, fit the whole project you are working on in your screen etc. note also the menu controls and key controls indicated on the 'view' menu.

other things to consider:

the 'project' menu allows you to import audio (ie from folders/music libraries etc on your computer - that is, you have a song in mp3 format in itunes; you import the audio directly into audacity using 'import audio' and navigating through your file hierarchies to the specific mp3); to create new tracks to then record audio direct (via microphone, or from any external source - tape player, md etc - through line-in); and to 'quick mix' selected tracks.

'quick mix'? what that?

tracks? what they?

basically audacity allows you to build layers of audio. you manage your audio chronologically; we only go one way, we can't time travel yet. so time moves in one direction - from left to right. from start to finish.

however, we can layer our audio. we might have twenty different pieces of audio on the go at any one time; not all necessarily starting and ending at the same point, but all moving in the same direction, left to right.

but these different pieces of audio - 'tracks' - have to be managed somehow; and the logical, intuitive way is to have them running top to bottom, up and down.

so time runs left to right; tracks run up and down. this allows us to visually understand where we are at any one moment. a vertical line down your screen would capture audio which would play at the exact same moment across all the tracks you are working with.

naturally, the limitations of the screen mean you wouldn't be able to see twenty different tracks running top to bottom very easily, if at all. so when you are happy with a particular sequence, it's worth highlighting specific tracks involved and 'quickmixing' them - thus combining them all into one audio track.

NOTE all this is stuff explained in the audacity help notes! THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN IS TO EXPLORE THE TOOLS!

strung out · Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:13 am Post subject:

oooh, 'ark at 'e

bristle-krs · Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 6:33 pm Post subject:

To clean up and beef up a 'muddy' sounding track...

1. Import your sound file (mp3, aiff, wav etc) into Audacity

2. Duplicate the track ( Edit > Duplicate ) - this puts the exact same track below the one you've opened, at exactly the same start and finish points

3. Mute your original track (press the 'Mute' button to the left of the track)

4. Select all of your duplicate track (either drag the cursor across the whole track, or - easier - click the grey space to the left of the track, beneath the -/+ and L/R controls, so that the whole track is highlighted in a darker grey)

5. Now highlight the whole track (as at stage 4) and Normalize the track ( Effect > Normalize)

6. Remove inaudible sounds on your duplicate track using the Subsonic Filter ( Effect > Subsonic Filter ) - this gives you more space to add audible sounds (well, that's my entirely inexpert understanding, and if it's not true who cares, because it does something); I tend to do this a couple of times, at settings around Frequenz 70 & 50 and at Steilheit 4

7. De-amplify the track ( Effect > Amplify... then move the slider along to the left so you are amplifying in the minus numbers - about -5 should do it, you can always go back)

8. Add some bass ( Effect > Bass Boost... - I'd boost once around 80Hz and then again at around 100-120Hz, between around 8 and 20 dB, as much as I could get away with without clipping - if it does clip, simply Undo ( Edit > Undo ) and try again but slightly less; or go back and reduce the amplification as at stage 7... It's all trial and error to start with)

9. Now highlight the whole track (as at stage 4) and Normalize the track ( Effect > Normalize)

10. Repeat stage 9 for your original track, and click the mute button a second time; now you can play the whole project and hear how it sounds, and make adjustments as necessary (you may wish to amplify the whole project; add other effects; apply effects to specific parts of either or both tracks; retrace your steps backward ( Edit > Undo ) to tweak something etc...

11. Once you are happy with the whole thing, you can select both (or all, if you are working with more than two tracks) by highlighting one track then another whilst holding down the Shift key, or by using the keyboard shortcut for All (on a Mac: Apple-A), and then mix them into one ( Project > Quick Mix )

12. ...Or you can simply export to a single mp3 track, or wav, or aiff etc ( File > Export As )

13. You're all done!

Tips:

* If at any time the sound waves 'clip' the top or the bottom, trace your steps back and amend your trickery so it doesn't happen

* Mp3s are compressed files, so always try to use the highest bitrate mp3 you can, otherwise you will constantly be losing information from your file by recompressing the file smaller and smaller, which will make it sound flatter and duller

* 128kbps is about the lowest quality worth working with for stereo music - and if at all possible work with aiff or wav files in preference

* If the track you are working with is something you've imported onto your computer from tape or vinyl, DON'T convert to mp3 before working on it; work it as an Audacity aup project file, or as a high quality aiff or wav

* If the track you are working on has come from a CD, make sure that your preferences in iTunes (or whatever else you are using to import the track to your computer) allow for a high bitrate ( in iTunes see Preferences > Advanced > Importing: then choose 'Import Using' aiff or wav, or choose the highest custom mp3 bitrate on 'Setting')...

* Similarly, when you have finished cleaning up your music file, if you export it as an mp3 (as no doubt you will), be sure to check that you are exporting it at an appropriate bitrate (see Preferences > File Formats in Audacity)

* Save your Audacity project regularly - and when you first start, do a 'Save As' ( File > Save As ) to give it a name to distinguish it from your original file and to save it somewhere where you can easily find it

This all sounds a tad complicated, but honestly it's not, and once you get used to it it's a breeze!

===================
PS

The Subsonic Filter effect is a plug-in you need to install - get it from:

http://audacity.fuchsi.de/download/edgar/plugins/subsonic/Subsonic.ny

For more info on this plug-in, see here:

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Reducing_noise

J · Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 1:05 pm Post subject:

crikey! cheers for that krs