For upcoming artists and producers, the process of starting to make music in and of itself can be a bit of a debacle. Where do I start? What do these buttons do? How do I make this sound?
Well, we here at Nefarious Supply are here with some help! How to Navigate Your Software is a segment where we will discuss the functions of popular editing software in order to give a comprehensive and easy-to-follow guide on how to traverse them with at the very least, a basic understanding of what you need to get started on your music journey!
We’ll start with one of our favorites, good old Audacity:
Playback Control
The Playback Control Toolbar is probably the easiest section of Audacity to use. The toolbar features six buttons. From left to right respectively, they are the Pause, Play, Stop, Skip to Start, Skip to End, and Record buttons.
These buttons do exactly as is expected of them and are the most straightforward buttons on the software. Hook up your microphone to your computer via USB port and you should be recording in no time!
Edit Toolbar
The Edit Toolbar is a bit more complex, consisting of 13 different utilities. The first is the Grabber, which simply drags the entire toolbar around, allowing it to be placed in different areas. The second is the Cut button. It allows the user to remove a selected piece of audio from the recording. When this is done, any remaining audio is automatically shifted to the left. Next is the Copy and Paste buttons, which are pretty self-explanatory.
The first copies the piece of recorded audio that is selected by the user in order to be placed somewhere else on the same track window (we’ll get to this soon) or a different one. The Paste button however, placed onto the track window whatever was copied to the clipboard, no matter what piece of audio it may be.
After that is the Trim button, which, instead of the Cut button, deletes all the audio except for the selected audio. Note, if there are any other separate clips on the track window they will not be shifted to the left. The one right next to the Trim button is the Silence button. This replaces the selected audio with complete silence, pretty straightforward as well.
Next we have the Undo and Redo buttons! These guys do exactly as they’re expected, turning back to a change that was made or undoing one. After the those two buttons we come across Zoom In and Zoom Out. Zoom In The first provides a higher magnification level for the user, in order to make surgical edits to a piece of audio. The latter lowers the magnification level in order to see the recorded audio as a whole.
Fit Selection zooms in on a selected region of audio so that it fits within the parameters of the horizontal window area. Fit Project zooms both in and out so that the entire audio project fits within the same track area. The last button is the Zoom Toggle which zooms to between two pre-defined preset levels.
Meter Toolbar
The Meter Toolbar is divided into two, the Recording Meter Toolbar, and the Playback Meter Toolbar:
Recording Meter Toolbar
Inactive
When the Recording Meter Toolbar is inactive, any input recording being done will not be registered until the Record button is pressed. “Click to Start Monitoring” will be displayed. Clicking the meter itself can also start recordings. When the recording is stopped or playback is in play, the “Click to Start Monitoring” button will return.
Active
When in use, the Recording Meter will remain green until you reach -12 dB (decibels). It will change to a yellow hue as you reach -6 dB. If it goes past -6 dB the bar will merge into red. Normally -6 dB is a good range to stop, else you worry about the audio “Clipping” or distortion to the audio’s sound due to it being too loud.
Playback Meter Toolbar
When recording is finished and you wanna play the audio recording back, the Playback Meter will activate. It basically depicts the same thing as the Recording Meter, and is pretty much just a rerun of the audio that was a recorded. This allows you to see exactly where you may have went to high or too low when recording.
Mixer Toolbar
The Mixer Toolbar is where you go to toggle with the Recording and Playback volumes.
Recording Slider
The Recording Slider is the one with microphone icon. It simply adjusts the volume of the device you are using to record at the time. If you want to choose a different input you can by choosing “Recording Device” in Device Preferences.
Playback Slider
The Playback Slider has the loudspeaker icon and adjusts the volume of the playback audio. This is only to monitor your audio as it does not factor into the mixing and exporting of the audio.
Device Toolbar
The Device Toolbar is a section that allows you to easily choose your audio host, recording device, and playback device without having to put in much effort.
Audio Host
Audio Host
The Audio Host is there to let you pick what interface that you want Audacity to use in order to communicate with your recording and playback devices.
Recording Device
Recording Device Menu
The Recording Device is pretty self-explanatory. It’s simply where you go to select the device you will be using to record audio, whether this be a built-in mic or one that’s attached.
Recording Channels
Recording Device Menu
Recording Channels, usually 1 (Mono), or 2 (Stereo) are just the number of channels that are available to you through the drivers of your sound device.
Playback Device
Playback Device Menu
The Playback Device section picks the device that you will be using to enact playback options. You can also choose whether between a built-in or attached device.
Play-at-Speed Toolbar
The Play-at-Speed Toolbar has two sections. The first is the Play-at-Speed button, which plays the audio at the designated speed that has been selected. The Playback Speed button helps you pinpoint how sped up or slowed down you want the audio in question to be.
Playback is able to be paused and resumed at the chosen speed via the Pause button, which is located in the Transport Toolbar.
Selection Toolbar
The Selection Toolbar is used to control the Project Rate, Snap-To, and the manipulating measurements of time. Project Rate changes affect the sample rate at which existing tracks will play, render, and export.
Snap-To is useful for snapping to whole seconds, which will in turn allow you to export a selection that needs to be a whole number of seconds. Audio Position simply shows the current position of the audio while it’s playing or being recorded.
For the Selection Type Chooser, there are four settings to choose from:
Start and End of Selection: The start time and the end time of your selection. This is usually the default setting.
Start and Length of Selection: The start time and the length of your selection.
Length and Center of Selection: The length and the time at the center of your selection.
Length and End of Selection: The length and the end time of your selection.
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Most if not all of the information listed above is taken from the Audacity Manual. Please take a look for more information.
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