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[SOLVED] Punch and roll not working in Audacity

Posted: March 15th, 2020, 10:07 am
by ptfleischman
Hitting Shift + D doesn't start punch and roll for me. I haven't made any changes to keyboard shortcuts. If I click on Transport / Recording / Punch and Roll Record I get a message asking me to select a track, which I've done via the Select button to the left of the waveform, without success. Is there a setting for latency or something else that needs tweaking? I'm using 2.3.3 and Windows 10. All suggestions welcome!

~Paul

Re: Punch and roll not working in Audacity

Posted: March 16th, 2020, 7:57 am
by audiomike
I just tried a punch and roll with Shift-D and it worked perfectly. That being said, I think there is some confusion about how all this works.
There are two kinds of punch operations, punch and roll, and punch in (also called punch in repair).

The scenario for using punch and roll is:
Your reading and make a mistake. You stop recording. Move the cursor line to just before the mistake, press Shift-D. Audacity backs up a bit then starts playing the original recording. At the cursor position it goes into record mode. You start reading again recording over the mistake and continuing on your way.
The instructions are here:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/punch_and_roll_record.html

The scenario for using punch in repair is:
Your listening to your full recording and notice a mistake. You highlight the mistake and remove it. You then punch in a new bit on a new track to copy into the space left from removing the mistake.
The instructions are here:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_punch_in_repair_of_recordings.html

If you're using a USB mic and have latency problems you need to go here:
https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/latency_test.html
It's not an easy task but you only have to do it once. Alternatively, you could just go to Preferences/Devices and play with the Latency setting until it sounds right.

Hope this helps.

Re: Punch and roll not working in Audacity

Posted: March 16th, 2020, 11:21 am
by ptfleischman
Solved! I'd mistakenly thought Shift + D stopped the recording. Works fine when I stop it. Many thanks.

~Paul