Book Image

Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Book Image

Getting started with Audacity 1.3

Overview of this book

Using the Audacity software as the starting off point, we discuss what the software is, what it can do, how you can use it, and where you go to get started installing it. All of this information is grounded in some basic audio editing terminology and background for those that aren't so technology inclined.Then we'll start digging into a sample project! You'll learn about how to set up a project, create a voice track, record an interview with Skype, and basic audio editing techniques. All of this done in an easy to follow, task based approach with lots of examples. Here, we plan to go a step further, we teach how to wrap all of these steps together and create a podcast that can be posted on your own website or blog.There's always more you can do with Audacity! The last portion of the book is dedicated to just that - discussing more advanced editing and mixing techniques, using affects, adding music, adding additional plug-ins to the software. All still incorporating examples and easy to follow tasks you can try on your own audio projects.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Getting started with Audacity 1.3
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
9
Giving Your Audio Some Depth: Applying Effects
Toolbar, Menu, and Keyboard Shortcut Reference
Glossary of Terms
Index

Normalizing


This is a great setting if you just want to make all of your audio tracks (in our example we are only using one track, but you can add more!) as loud as possible. Basically, you are forcing them all to be at the same volume level, and as loud as they can be. Use the following steps to set this up:

  1. Open your project.

  2. Go to the main menu and click on Effect, and then select Normalize.

  3. Use the defaults on this screen, and then click on OK.

  4. If you are satisfied with the noise removal results, save the project so that all of your changes are saved. From the main menu, select File and then Save Project.

This is a safe effect, in that it will never make your sample so loud as to introduce distortion. This is one of the easiest ways to increase your volume, but it is equally important that you watch out for over-compression—specifically with music tracks. It is okay that your audio track has areas where the sound is quiet and then loud with distinct differences between them. This gives a...