1.
ISBAT UNIVERSITY
Kampala, UGANDA
Audio Editing in AUDACITY
By: RP YADAV
(MULTIMEDIA & ANIMATION Dept.)
ISBAT UNIVERSITY
KAMPALA, UG, EAST AFRICA

2.
RP YADAV
Sr. Lecturer Multimedia and Animation Dept. at ISBAT University.
RANDHIR PRASAD YADAV
Multimedia, Animation and ITC Dept.
B.Sc. and M.Sc. In Multimedia & Animation Technology
BFA in Fine Art, Advanced Diploma in 3Ds Animation
10 Years of Experience (INDIA,MAURITIUS & UGANDA)
(Students from INDIA, Mauritius , Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya,
Nigeria ,Madagascar, Tanzania, Nepal, France, UK)
Email: rpyadav@africamail.com, Mob & WhatsApp : +256 706207727 , 702606786

3.
AUDACITY User Interface
1 Menu Bar
2 Transport Toolbar
3 Tools Toolbar
4 Recording Meter Toolbar
5 Playback Meter Toolbar
6 Mixer Toolbar
7 Edit Toolbar
8 Transcription Toolbar
9 Device Toolbar
10 Timeline
11 Track Control Panel
12 Audio Track
13 Label Track
14 Selection Toolbar
15 Status Bar

4.
Menu What you'll find there
File
Working with Audacity project files and other audio
files.
Edit Altering the audio in your project.
View
Change Zoom levels. Show clipping, Undo History,
Mixer Board, Toolbars.
Transport Control recording and playback.
Tracks Adding, aligning and labeling audio tracks.
Generate
Creating new audio in your project. Audio generating
plug-ins will also appear here.
Effect
Processing the audio in your project. External Effects
plug-ins will also appear in this menu.
Analyze
Analyzing the audio in your project. External plug-ins
that act on audio but don't produce audio output will
appear here, as well as tools like Silence Finder and
spectrograms.
AUDACITY Menu

5.
Transport Toolbar
Pause Temporarily pauses playing or recording without losing your place. Click Pause a second time to resume.
Play If an area of track is selected, only that selection will be played. Otherwise, playback begins wherever
the editing cursor is.
Stops playing or recording immediately, and releases Pause if depressed. You must stop playback or recording
before you can use the "Skip" buttons below and before you can edit any audio.
Skip to Start Move the cursor to the beginning of the project. This is useful if you want to play everything,
or record a new track starting from the beginning.
Skip to End Move the cursor to the end of the project.
Record Clicking Record or using the R shortcut always begins recording in a new track at either the
current cursor position or at the beginning of the current selection.

6.
Tools Toolbar
Tools Toolbar
allows you to choose various tools for selection, volume adjustment, zooming and time-shifting of audio.
Click on the toolbar image below to see this toolbar displayed in context of the default upper tooldock layout.
Selection F1
Click to select a start point for audio playback, or click and drag to select a range of audio to play or edit.
You can also create a selection region between two points by clicking at one point, then holding down
SHIFT while left-clicking at the other point.
Envelope F2
Allows smooth volume changes to be made over the length of a track by means of embedded volume
"control points". Click in the track to create a control point, then set the volume of that point by dragging
one of its four vertically arranged "handles". When you create other control points at different levels,
a smooth curve is interpolated between them.

7.
Tools Toolbar
Draw F3
Draw Tool enables you to manually redraw the waveform; it can thus be used to make volume changes
to individual samples or to effect repairs to clicks/noise.
Zoom F4
•Left-click zooms in one step.
•Click and drag zooms in to the dragged region.
•Shift and left-click or right-click zooms out one step.
•Shift and drag zooms out based on the dragged region.
Time Shift F5
Selecting this tool lets you synchronize audio in a project by dragging individual or
multiple audio tracks, note tracks or audio clips left or right along the Timeline.
Multi-Tool F6 Combines all five tools in one. One tool is available at a time.

8.
Recording Meter Toolbar
Recording Meter Toolbar in use
The bars remain green until the signal reaches -12 dB then merge to yellow as the signal approaches -6 dB
(which is a good maximum signal level to aim for). If the signal exceeds -6 dB the bars merge from yellow to red.
The red color warns that the signal is becoming too "hot" (approaching 0 dB) and that clipping may occur.

9.
Playback Meter
Playback Meter Toolbar in use
The Playback Meter will activate when you start playback, or if you start Recording with
Software Play through turned on in the Transport menu.
The red color displayed here in the left channel warns that the signal was too "hot"
or becoming too "hot" (approaching 0 dB).
The red bar at the right of both channels indicates that clipping has occurred while playing.

10.
Mixer Toolbar
Mixer Toolbar
is where you adjust Recording Volume (the amplitude at which recordings will be made)
and Playback Volume (how loud the project's audio sounds, not affecting the volume of exported audio).
Click on the toolbar image below to see this toolbar displayed in context of the default upper tooldock layout.
Recording Volume Slider: Sets the recording volume.
Playback Volume Slider: Sets the playback volume.

11.
Edit Toolbar
Edit Toolbar
These tools perform the same functions as those accessible through the Edit Menu, View Menu,
Tracks Menu and keyboard shortcuts.
Cut Edit > Cut or CTRL + X Copy Edit > Copy or CTRL + C Paste Edit > Paste or CTRL + V
Trim Audio Edit > Remove Special > Trim Audio or CTRL + T
Silence Audio Edit > Remove Special > Silence Audio or CTRL + L
Undo Edit > Undo and CTRL + Z Redo Edit > Redo or CTRL + Y (on Mac SHIFT + CTRL + Z)

12.
Edit Toolbar
Sync-Lock Tracks
Enables the Sync-Locked Track Groups feature. This ensures that length changes occurring
anywhere in a defined group of tracks also take place in all audio or label tracks in that group
even if those tracks were not selected.
Zoom In View > Zoom In or CTRL + 1
Zooms in to a higher magnification level.
You can continue to zoom in until you reach the level of displaying individual audio samples.
Zoom Out View > Zoom Out or CTRL + 3
Zooms out to a lower magnification level. You can zoom out so far as to fit 228 hours of audio .
Zoom Selection View > Zoom to Selection or CTRL + E
Zooms a selection region in or out so that it fits in the available horizontal window area.
Fit Project View > Fit in Window or CTRL + F
Zooms in or out so that the entire audio of the project fits in the available horizontal window area.

13.
Transcription Toolbar
Transcription Toolbar
Transcription Toolbar lets you play or loop-play audio at a slower or faster speed than normal,
also affecting pitch. Slower than normal speeds can make it easier to transcribe speech or song lyrics.
Device Toolbar
Device Toolbar provides an easy way to select your required combination of audio host,
recording device, recording channels and playback device, without having to open Devices Preferences.
Note ** Device Toolbar grays out when playing, recording or paused.
You cannot change device choices while the device is in use.

14.
Timeline
Timeline
The Timeline displays a horizontal ruler above the tracks measuring time from zero (the start of the
track). Depending on zooming the ruler may span minutes of audio or give a "close up" view of a few
seconds or fractions of a second. The Timeline is not merely an indicator of audio position but can
also be used to effect Quick-Play.
A particularly powerful use of the Timeline is in the creation of seamless loops.

15.
Track Control Panel
The Track Control Panel at the left of the audio track has controls and
status indicators for this track. Left-clicking other than on a control
performs track selection and move as follows. Clicking selects all this
track's audio, deselecting all other tracks.
•Holding SHIFT while clicking selects all this track's audio, keeping already
selected tracks selected.
• (keyboard: use UP or DOWN to give the track focus, then ENTER to
select it; hold SHIFT then use UP or DOWN to extend selection into
another track)

16.
Audio Tracks
A track is like one instrument in your symphony, or one voice in your podcast. You can add more tracks, and
all of them will be mixed together to create your final output, but during editing you can manipulate each
track independently. If you have an interview recorded with two microphones, each one can go in a
separate track. If you have background music, that could go in a third track. You can move the whole track
along the Timeline so that it plays at a different point in time in the mix, but until it is split into clips you
cannot move individual parts of it around.

17.
Label Tracks
A Label Track is an additional track that can be created in your project. The labels in the label
track can be used to reference points or regions in the project's audio tracks but the label track
itself does not contain audio.

18.
Selection Toolbar
Selection Toolbar includes controls for Project Rate, Snap To and for manipulating units of time or
other selection formats. Using the "Start" and "End/Length" boxes, you can precisely place the cursor
point or selection region without using a mouse to click or drag in the waveform, and without zooming
in first to find the exact spot. If you change the Snap To option or selection format, all subsequent
project windows you open will respect that change.

19.
Status Bar
Status Bar
The Audacity Status Bar is to be found at the bottom of the Audacity window. It cannot be
relocated or floated. Its function is to display messages about recording or playback, to
indicate parts of Audacity that are being hovered over by the mouse, and to provide hints
about how to use Audacity.

20.
Thanks
ISBAT UNIVERSITY
Kampala, UGANDA
Web: www.isbat.ac.ug, mail: rpyadav@africamail.com