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capturing spoken word, rearranging and combining audio, esp. music
creating and editing voice, music, beats and tracks
Adobe's Audition is installed on the middle eight PC's in H215 and on a couple of PC's in H209, the open computer lab.
Audacity - A Free, Cross-Platform Audio Editor - on the H215 and NMI computers
I recommend that you download Audacity for Windows to your own laptop or PC -- it's free of charge -- install it, and use it yourself. Use the Download links below. It's a professional tool at an unbeatable price.
Wikipedia's Audacity
list of features
Free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder:
Record live audio.
Convert tapes and records into digital
recordings or CDs.
Edit MP3, and WAV sound files.
Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
Audacity documentation | quick reference guide | tutorials
online tutorials on basics, for beginners
online tutorial on cutting and basic effects
online tutorial on mixing tracks and adjusting to match the beats
Two MP3s
and a Microphone
by Eliot Van Buskirk| Also by this reporter
Wired, August 7, 2006
media: where to get audio
featured site: ccMixter - sample packs
Sampling, Mashing, Sharing
This is a community music site featuring remixes licensed under Creative
Commons, where you can listen to, sample, mash-up, or interact with music in
whatever way you want.
Remixers If you're into sampling, remixing and mash-ups grab the sample packs
and a cappellas for download and you can upload your version back into ccMixter,
for others to enjoy and re-sample. All legal.
Podcasters, directors and music lovers If you're into music, browse this site to
hear some of the great remixes people have built from sampling music on this
site.
Sound includes music, voice, and sound effects, either recorded from life or created/manipulated with the computer.
The most common editing tasks:
selecting parts of sound clips
cutting, copying, and pasting sound clips
combining music and voice clips
filtering clips
To produce an edited .mp3 file that adds a voice-over to parts of two different music files.
One music clip will cross-fade into the next. During the cross-fade, the music volume will go down and the voice over it will be clearly heard.
Two music clips and a written script available on the T:\Anderson drive on the network.
In the six phases of this process, you will:
1) prepare the project
2)
record the voice
3) edit the music
4)
combine the files
5) enhance the voice
6) finish and deliver your edited .mp3 file.
Folders are marked in blue, files in brown.
1) Make sure your PC's sound is turned on. Check the knob on the monitor (lower right edge) as well as the sound icon in your system tray (bottom right of your screen).
2) In the T:\Anderson folder, select and copy the audacity/ folder.
3) Paste the audacity folder into your My Documents section on your F:\ drive. Remember where you put it!
We are going to take 5 seconds out of the middle of both .mp3 files and cross-fade them in a new file. Then we are going to add the 5-second script that you are going to record next in phase 2.
1) Plug the microphone into your PC. Make sure it is snug.
2) Open Audacity. Start | Programs | Class apps | Audacity.
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Note the cluster of six tools in the upper left corner. Hover over them to display the tooltips that have their names: Selection, Envelope, Zoom, and Time Shift are the tools you will use most often. |
3) Pull down the file menu. Select Save Project As.... Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents.
4) Save the project as voice.aup.
5) Click the round red button to start recording.
6) Speak the script's text. "Welcome to [title of your project]. This project was conceived and produced by [your name]."
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As you speak, the volume level should be displaying as a red bar and the waveform should be displaying as a blue track. If that is not happening, you should adjust your system's recording settings in the control panel (at home) or notify me (during class). |
7) Click the square orange button to stop recording.
To save the project and create an .mp3 file:
8) Pull down Edit | Save Project. Save your voice.aup file.
9) Pull down Edit | Export As MP3....
10) Browse to the audacity/ folder in My Documents.
11) Save the file as voice.mp3 to your audacity/ folder. You will fill in the ID3 meta-information during phase 6, so just close that window for now.
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Note that the voice.aup instructions file is tiny, 1 KB, compared to the voice.mp3 playable media file made from it. |
You should now have five folders in your audacity/ folder, the three from before, as well as the voice.aup instructions file and the voice.mp3 file that you made from the instructions file.
12) Close Audacity (File | Exit or just x out in the top right corner).
1) Open Audacity and pull down the file menu. Select Save
Project As....
2) Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents. Save the project as newguitar.aup.
3) Pull down the Project menu and select Import Audio ... Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents. Select newguitar.mp3 and open it.
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Note that the clip is 45 seconds long. It has a two tracks and, on the left, basic audio controls that can emphasize the tracks separately and raise and lower the volume with the - + slider. |
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Practice using the controls: skip to start, play, record, pause, stop, and skip to end. |
4) With the Selection tool (the I-bar) active, click on one of the tracks and drag in either direction to include any 5 seconds in the shaded area. Click the green triangle to hear what you have selected.
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It doesn't matter which 5 seconds is shaded. |
5) With the Time Shift tool (the <-->) active, move the waveform in either direction until you have shaded the 5 seconds you want. Click the green triangle to play.
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I slid the music underneath the shaded area in order to shade an earlier part of the clip. |
6) Pull down the Edit menu and select Trim. That should delete everything except the shaded area.
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In this screen shot, after I trimmed the clip, I used the Move tool to shift the trimmed clip to the beginning of the timeline. This is not necessary because Exporting as an MP3 will trim it. |
7) Pull down Edit | Save Project. Save the file, the small instructions file, as newguitar.aup.
8) Pull down Edit | Export As MP3....
9) Browse to the audacity/ folder in My Documents.
10) Save the file as newguitar1.mp3 to your audacity/ folder. You will fill in the ID3 meta-information during phase 6, so just close that window for now.
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Note that the newguitar.aup file is again very small and that the 5-second newguitar1.mp3 file is about a tenth the size of the 45-second newguitar.mp3 file |
You should now have seven folders in your audacity/ folder, the five from before, as well as the newguitar.aup instructions file and the newguitar1.mp3 file that you made from the instructions file.
11) Close Audacity (File | Exit or just x out in the top right corner).
Select, trim, move, and export 5 seconds from oldguitar.mp3.
Repeat the 12 steps above for editing newguitar.mp3, substituting oldguitar for newguitar.
1) Open Audacity and pull down the file menu. Select Save Project As.... Navigate to the audacity folder in My Documents.
2) Save the project as oldguitar.aup. ...
By step 10), you should have nine folders in your audacity/ folder, the seven from before, as well as the oldguitar.aup instructions file and the oldguitar1.mp3 file that you made from the instructions file.
11) Close Audacity (File | Exit or just x out in the top right corner).
1) Start a new audacity project.
Open Audacity and pull down the file menu. Select
Save Project As.... Navigate to the
audacity/ folder in My Documents.
2) Save the project as homework.aup.
3) Import the three audio files that you made, the voice recording and the two trimmed guitar clips. Import them in any order, but separately. Pull down the Project menu and select Import Audio ... Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents. Select voice.mp3 and open it.
4) Pull down the Project menu and select Import Audio ... Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents. Select oldguitar1.mp3 and open it.
5) Pull down the Project menu and select Import Audio ... Navigate to the audacity/ folder in My Documents. Select newguitar1.mp3 and open it.
6) With the Zoom tool (magnifying glass) selected as in the screen shot below, right-click once on any of the tracks. That should double the length of the timeline to 10 or 15 seconds, at least. That will give you some room to work. Practice with the play, pause, stop, and skip to start controls.
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To keep the screen shots smaller, I have reduced the height of each track. To see all of your tracks, you will need to scroll or to open the Audacity window until it fills your screen. You can reduce the height by grabbing the upper or lower edge of a track and dragging the edge in the direction you want. |
7) Next, we will cross-fade the two music clips. With the Time Shift (the <-->) tool active, move the clips until one overlaps the other by about a second. Play the whole track to see how the end of one track interferes with the beginning of the other track.
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I slid the newguitar waveform to the right with the Time Shift tool. |
8) With the Selection tool active, select the end part of first clip where it overlaps the second clip. Pull down the Effect menu and select Fade Out.
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The Effect menu obscures the track selection, so here are two screen shots. |
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9) With the Selection tool active, select the beginning part of second clip where it overlaps the first clip. Pull down the Effect menu and select Fade In.
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You can see by the height of the blue waveforms -- and as you can probably see and hear on your screen -- the voice is too soft and the music is too loud. |
To adjust the relative volumes:
10) With the Envelope tool (
) active, select each track and manipulate the points separately. It
can take a little practice to figure out how to manipulate the tracks
to lower the volume (squeeze the waveforms). Learn more at the
Sourceforge link below the screen shot or google < audacity envelope
>.
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Editing the amplitude envelope lets you change the
volume of a track gradually over time by adding a number of
control points to the track. Each control point sets the
amplitude (volume) at that point in time, which can be as low as
zero, and as high as 150% of the normal maximum volume, and the
volume is interpolated smoothly between the points. |
11) With the Time Shift (the <-->) tool active, position the voice clip, voice.mp3, over the cross-fade section. Play the whole timeline. Experiment and test until you are happy with the mix.
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12) Pull down Edit | Save Project.
Save the file, the small instructions file, as
homework.aup.
13) Pull down Edit | Export As MP3....
14) Browse to the audacity/ folder in My Documents.
15) Save the file as homework.mp3 to your audacity/ folder. You will fill in the ID3 meta-information during phase 6, so just close that window for now.
You should now have nine folders in your audacity/ folder, the seven from before, as well as the homework.aup instructions file and the homework.mp3 file that you made from the instructions file.
With homework.aup open in Audacity:
1) Pull down the Effect menu (screen shot on left) to see a list of filters to enhance the audio. Note the first item on the menu is a repeat of the previous effect.
2) Deepen the bass. Pull down the Effect menu and select BassBoost.
3) Add reverb. Pull down the Effect menu and select Echo.
4) Keep using the preview and the green play control to test these effects. Experiment with others, too. Have fun!
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You will have to experiment to see which settings work best for you. The Preview option will play only a few seconds. To better test, apply the effect by clicking OK and then re-play the whole timeline. |
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1) To save the project, pull down Edit | Save Project. This will save the homework.aup instructions file.
2) To export as an .mp3 file into the audacity/ folder, pull down the File menu and select Export As MP3....
3) Browse to the audacity/ folder in My Documents.
4) Save the file as homework.mp3 to your audacity/ folder.
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5) Now, you will fill in the
ID3
meta-information. Referring to the screen shot on the right, for Title, type in
your project's title. For Artist, type your name. For Album, type
GEN 230 Fall 2007. Add Track Number 1 and Year 2007. When you are
finished (you can always edit the information later), click OK.
6) In Windows Explorer, copy your audacity/ folder.
7) Paste it onto your desktop.
8) Rename it with your last name.
9) To zip it (compress it), right-click on the folder icon and select Send To or WinZip or whatever your menu shows. A new icon named lastname.zip will appear on your desktop.
10) Attach your lastname.zip file to an email to Doug at toLearn.net.
You have produced an edited .mp3 file that adds a voice-over to parts of two different music files. One music clip cross-fades into the next. During the cross-fade, the music volume goes down and the voice speaking over it is clearly heard.
You now can do the basic editing tasks to produce the audio track for your video project: trim, mix, cross-fade, and enhance with filters.
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If your Audacity
window is wider than the window shown here, the tools may display in a different position.
The word "microphone" may be displayed.
