I absolutely hate Audacity

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » September 19th, 2008, 5:17 pm

Expand your audacity window? There is also a scroll bar on the side. Try that. It starts a new track below the first one every time you stop and start.

I don't recomend stopping each time you make a mistake. It will take forever to record like that. Just read all through and repeat any mistakes (correctly) and edit out later. All your recording will be in one track.

Esther

Post by **chocoholic** » September 19th, 2008, 5:18 pm

That sounds weird and it's not what happens with me in Audacity. Hmm. So you are stopping the recording to snip something out as soon as you've said it, correct? If you stop and then restart Audacity, it'll start the new recording in a second track under the first. Or third or fourth or whatever, if you've stopped a few times. This may sound dumb, but how big is your window for Audacity? Can you enlarge it to see if there is another track below your first?

When I'm recording, I make lots of errors (or imagined errors) but like most people here, I make a sharp noise to mark them (I use a tongue click) and keep right on recording. After I'm finished I stop the recording, save, then go back through and snip out all the errors.

edit -- I type slower than Esther. Wordier, too.

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » September 19th, 2008, 5:47 pm

Anarchessist wrote: Well, it takes forever to record anyway when I'm going back and repeating the whole thing from the top, which is what I had been doing.

No no don't record THE WHOLE thing from the top. Just record ONE sentence!

Esther

Starlite · Post by **Starlite** » September 19th, 2008, 6:00 pm

Lots of practise my friend. None of us started out 'good at this'.

Esther

Post by **Leni** » September 19th, 2008, 6:35 pm

In the beginning, I did exactly the same: I stopped the recording, and ended up with 1 gazillion tracks to paste, which was annoying. I learned, by reading what the more experienced people had to say here in the forums, that it was a bad way of doing it. So, whenever I make a mistake, I simply restart from wherever I feel comfortable - be it the sentence, or the entire paragraph.

I just keep the track going for most of the times. When I feel like getting a drink, or when I'm just too annoyed at my mistakes, I pause, but that doesn't happen often. Sometimes I end up with a 45 minute track. Then, when I get to the end of it, I listen to everything again, simply cutting out what was wrong and keeping the correct parts. Sometimes I end up with less than 30mins of the long track I had, but it's much easier to go on simply selecting the mistakes and deleting than it would be dealing with a lot of pieces of tracks.

Personally, I was mad at myself many times because of my mistakes and, before noticing, I had stopped the track. But now I simply live with the fact I make mistakes and, even when it takes me a few minutes to recover, I just leave it on. I noticed also that I've been stumbling less, and getting less mad at the mistakes. Probably practice, as Esther said.

Violet · Post by **Violet** » September 19th, 2008, 6:49 pm

Anarchessist,

It took me ages to get my head around Audacity too, and just all the general issues involved in learning to make a decent recording. Audacity isn't ideally designed, but also I think it's normal to expect a learning curve and a certain amount of frustrating stuff while you're trying to get it all figured out. If you enjoy reading, please don't be discouraged by all this and think you ought to give up! It's normal

. And all this stuff does get easier.

I find when I record, I make a fair number of slips - I just repeat the phrase I stumbled on another time, or two, or three, sometimes even four, with an annoyed pause of several seconds in between, lol - and then I keep on going. When listening through later on, I'll hear myself say 'ohhh, cuddlepie! please don't leave me!!!' (or whatever it is) four times over, usually the last one was the 'right' one, and then it's pretty easy to make note of the time when I started saying the first one, and cut everything out in between there and the good version. Just another idea to add to your options, anyway.

Violet

PaulW · Post by **PaulW** » September 19th, 2008, 6:59 pm

When I was recording my section of Ambrose Bierce's Write it Right, I ended up having to repeat one sentence about 8 times before I had it just the way I wanted it. That was my first long (is 17 minutes long? It is to me!) section, and it started out with about 32 minutes of raw recording before editing. I've also seen posts from experienced readers in the fora where they had a word that they just couldn't get their tangue untoungled to say it correctly, and ended up repeating themselves at least that many times, if not more.

I'd recommend doing as Leni suggests...use the pause key, take a moment to collect yourself, un-pause and repeat the sentence.

If you absolutely have to stop, edit, and re-start, consider using Audacity 1.3.5. It has a new feature, "Record at end of track". Hold down the shift key when you click the record button, and it starts recording at the end of your current track.

Another feature of Audacity you'll probably want to use in your editing is the "Find zero crossings" edit function. Highlight the bit you want to delete, select Edit=>Find zero crossings (or hit the z key), and Audacity will adjust the ends of the selection to where the waveform crosses the zero line, so that when you delete the section, the two ends will match up at the zero line instead of being off slightly (which, if off by a significant amount, can cause a click in the audio).

kristin · Post by **kristin** » September 19th, 2008, 7:01 pm

I've been doing this a while. You will learn to ignore the mistakes, reread the sentence and keep going. An example of a pretty typical recording for me:

Edited file (3min): http://www.mediafire.com/?mukmindjnzj

The evil beast that spawned the above edited file (5min):
http://www.mediafire.com/?e9zzqtj1d5t

Yes, I find posting this mildly mortifying but I've been doing this long enough to realize, for me, this is as good as it gets and I hope it will help you and anyone else who may be frustrated and discouraged with the recording process.

Post by **aradlaw** » September 19th, 2008, 9:49 pm

PaulW wrote: If you absolutely have to stop, edit, and re-start, consider using Audacity 1.3.5. It has a new feature, "Record at end of track". Hold down the shift key when you click the record button, and it starts recording at the end of your current track.

Paul mentioned this hint a while ago and I have found it a lifesaver.

Also if you need to record a sentence or two over, I usually start a new session of Audacity - File/New, record and then copy / paste (and delete the mistake) into your main Audacity project. I find this easier than dealing with multiple tracks in the one Audacity window.

I keep on reading and pencil in repeats and mistakes in the 'script' and edit the whole thing afterwords.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » September 20th, 2008, 12:44 am

kristin wrote:The evil beast that spawned the above edited file (5min):
http://www.mediafire.com/?e9zzqtj1d5t

Yes, I find posting this mildly mortifying

Bravo, Kristin! This is a perfect example, because until you actually SAY the words, you can't be sure that it is exactly the way you want to say them. And, by doing it this way, you end up with fine recordings. Although the editing takes probably twice as long as the recording, it is most definitely worth it.

Anarchessist, what I am trying to say is that, once you have got the hang of it,
AUDACITY IS YOUR FRIEND!

I am old -- I have to be patient, because I rarely get things right first time. You are young -- and impatient. There's nothing WRONG with being impatient, 'cos it usually means you get lots of things done quickly. It's just that, in this case, you have to slow down, take a deep breath and get used to how Audacity works. Once you have done this, you will be much, MUCH happier with the recording process, and with the results that you achieve.

Ruth

Sibella · Post by **Sibella** » September 20th, 2008, 3:59 am

No way, guys.

Get Sony SoundForge. SO MUCH BETTER! More stable, easier to use, and doesn't do any of the weird, weird things that Audacity does.

kristin · Post by **kristin** » September 20th, 2008, 5:24 am

RuthieG wrote: AUDACITY IS YOUR FRIEND!

Well, I don't know if I'd go quite that far.

I prefer WavePad as I find it more intuitive than audacity.

But editing is definitely your friend. As far as my "mistakes" go, about half of them are me tripping over my tongue and losing my place, but the other half are deliberate repeats because I either wasn't sure I liked the way I read it or wasn't sure if it came out right the first time. I don't remember if there were any in this recording but sometimes I'll hit a sentence and read it 5 or 6 times with the intention of choosing the one I like best at editing. I also try to keep going without sighing or making noises to mark my mistakes as I find I have less variance in vocal quality that way and the parts sound more natural when edited together. And yes, the editing takes me forever but the results are usually to my liking.

The way we make recordings, with the ability to edit, is very freeing. You can pick and choose, rerecord a part if you don't like the sound of it, remove your mistakes... all of this in an effort to create the best sounding recording possible. You aren't reading for an audience, you're editing for them and no one will know how many times you need to repeat something to get it right. (Unless of course you share the unedited beast.

)