[audacity4blind] Re: Creating Multiple Tracks

  • From: "Dang Manh Cuong" <dangmanhcuong@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 14:08:58 +0700

Hi
If you just want to here 1 track in the project, press s while focus standing 
on that track. You should hear jaws says: track number solo on, where number 
your track currently have focus.
Cuong.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rick Boggess 
  To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 12:08 PM
  Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: Creating Multiple Tracks


  Thanks.  I have done some experimenting and  I'm beginning to understand what 
is going on.  I typed r to record the first track and press space.  When I 
pressed r again I heard what I had recorded.  I then pressed space and then r 
and was able to record a second track.  When I press enter to select any of the 
tracks and try to listen I must listen to all the tracks I've recorded although 
they show up as 1, 2, 3, etc. 

   

  Rick

   

  From: audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gary Campbell
  Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 12:48 PM
  To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: Creating Multiple Tracks

   

  Hi Rick,

  You want to generate a separate file for each track.  You could record each 
track and save it to a file, as suggested, then record the next track and save 
it.  Or you could record each topic, after each topic press space to stop, then 
r to record the next track.  Audacity starts recording a new track at the 
current cursor position, so the second track will start at the end of the first 
track.  If you press HOME (i.e. by accident, or to review what you did, the new 
track might start somewhere else, like at time 0, but that's okay.  If that 
happens select all the tracks and do Tracks > Align end-to-end.  This isn't 
important for the export, but it will make it easier to listen to what you've 
done and understand how your content will fit together, also you can more 
easily tell the total length of your project.

  This idea of tracks starting at somewhere other than time 0 might seem a bit 
odd, but it will become clear with a bit of experimentation. Open a new 
Audacity project, press r and record a bit, say 30 seconds, then press SPACE to 
stop.
  Now, without doing anything else, press r again and record a second track, 
then press space to stop.  Just for fun, press HOME, then r and record a third 
track, and press space to stop.
  Now press HOME and listen to what you did.  You will hear the first and third 
track playing together.  When the first track finishes you will hear the second 
track.
  Press CTRL+SHIFT+a to deselect everything.
  Move to the second track and press ENTER.  Your screen reader will indicate 
it is selected.
  Now press j.  j and k are for the selected tracks what HOME and END are for 
the whole project.  
  Press space-- the second track will start playing.  Press space again to stop.
  Now check your position.  If your first track was 30 seconds long, track 2 
will start at 30 seconds.
  Now press ENTER to deselect the second track, downarrow to move to the 3rd 
track, and ENTER to select it.
  Press j and check your position.  It is at 0.

  There are several ways to deal with the first and 3rd tracks playing on top 
of each other.  The first way is to align the tracks end-to-end.  This might be 
the best thing to do for your job.  Press CTRL+a to select everything, then 
press ALT+t,a to move to the align submenu of the Tracks menu.  The first item 
is align end-to-end, so press ENTER.
  Now play your project and you will find that the 3rd track starts at the end 
of the 2nd.
  Press CTRL+SHIFT+a to deselect everything, move to track 3 and press ENTER to 
select it, then j.  You are at the start of track 3.  Check your position and 
you will find it starts at the time of the end of track 2.
  You can now edit any of the tracks by making sure only the tracks you are 
editing are selected.  If you do something to change the length of one of the 
tracks, you will have to realign them.  For example, assuming your first track 
was 30 seconds long, move to it and select ENTER.  Position the cursor at 25 
seconds by either playing it, or go to the selection toolbar and set the start 
of the selection to 25 seconds.  From the track, press SHIFT+k, which will 
select from the 25-second point to the end of track 1.  You now should have the 
start and end times at 25sec and 30sec, respectively.  Press DEL to delete.
  Now press HOME and play your project.  There will now be 5 seconds of silence 
between the end of the first track and the start of track 2.  Since you are 
going to put each track in a separate file, this doesn't really matter much.  
However it would probably be easiest to work with if you fixed this.  Select 
all the tracks and do Align end-to-end again and the gap is gone.

  The second way is to not align the tracks and mute the tracks you don't want 
to hear or put the ones you do in Solo mode.  Since the first 2 tracks are 
aligned and the 3rd track is the only problem track, we'll mute it.  Move to 
track 3 and press SHIFT+u.  Now the track will identify as "mute on", and when 
you play, you won't hear track 3.  (Sometimes you have to switch to another 
track and back for the screen reader to be aware of this change.)  Instead of 
muting track 3, you could put track 1 in Solo mode.  To do this move to track 1 
and press Shift+s.  The track will now identify as Solo on.  Which you use will 
depend on what you are doing and your personal taste, but remember that muted 
tracks aren't exported.  If you are using mute, CTRL+Shift+u (unmute all) and 
CTRL+u (mute all) are handy keystrokes when working this way.

  When you are done and want to save the files, use File > Export Multiple 
(CTRL+Shift+L).  You can export to MP3, but WAV files would retain more 
quality.  This might not matter for what you are doing, but if you were doing 
something you want to be good quality this would be better, the files will be 
bigger though.  I use FLAC for my masters.  It's bigger than MP3, but smaller 
than WAV.  

  In the Export Multiple dialog you first choose the file format.  Then you 
choose a folder to place the files in.  There is a Choose button to browse for 
it, and a Create button to create it if it doesn't exist.  Then you have a set 
of radio buttons that determine how to split the project into files.  In this 
case we want to use tracks.  Then is the Name Files group.  I think all tracks 
are called "audio track" if you haven't renamed them, so I would pick one of 
the options that add numbers.  Once these are set up, choose Export and it 
happens.  I think the metadata editor opens for each file.  There you can set 
things like the track title that might appear on the CD player display when the 
CD is played.  I say might, because I can't get Media Player to write the info 
(called CD text) to the CD.  It shows it in the burn list, but it doesn't show 
up on the CD.  Since Microsoft bothers to show the information in the burn 
list, I can't imagine that they wouldn't write the CD text, so maybe it's my CD 
drive-- but it can write CD text because it does work with the CDRecord 
program, a command line program that's a port from UNIX and a lot of work to 
use.  I also don't get CD text with EAC or Winamp.  I could probably solve this 
by buying a burning program, but I haven't yet.  XP came with this capability, 
and I just have a hard time getting my head around the idea that a later 
operating system (8.1) can't do something for free that one of its ancestors 
could.

  Whatever program you use to burn your CDs will probably take care of this for 
you, but CDs expect a 16-bit 44100 stereo WAV file.  If you can burn MP3s, that 
means it is doing the conversion.  When I use CDRecord, I have to make sure 
they are converted to this format.

  This all sounds complicated, but I think you will find it not hard if you 
play with it for a bit.  Good luck!

  Hope this helps. 

  Gary

  On 11/28/2014 6:33 AM, Gene wrote:

    That is not what the person wants to do.  He wants completely separate 
files, one for each track.  He would then burn the separate files on cd and the 
audio format should be used when burning.  

     

    Here is one way to do this.  Depending on what you are recording, it may be 
suitable.  Let's say you are recording something you wrote such as the minutes 
of a meeting.  there are five separate topics, each topic taking a few minutes 
to read.

    Record the first topic.  

     Export it as an mp3 file with the name 01.  .  

    Close Audacity and reopen it.

    Record the second topic.  Save it as 02.mp3

    Continue until all topics have been recorded.  

    Then burn the cd using the audio format.

     

    There is probably a new command that would probably save you a bit of time 
but it isn't necessary to use and I won't discuss it here.  

     

    Gene

     From

    : Robbie 

    Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 12:49 AM

    To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

    Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: Creating Multiple Tracks

     

    Hi Rick!

    You need to align each track to its start position to have them play in a 
certain order. Since you're creating a CD you probably want to play one after 
the other. The simplest way of doing this is to use the Align End to End 
command in the Tracks menu. Press ctrl-A and alt-T-A-A to do this.

     

    Cheers! Robbie

    From: audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rick Boggess
    Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 4:56 AM
    To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Subject: [audacity4blind] Creating Multiple Tracks

     

    I am in a support group and prepare print and recorded CD information 
(about 5-10 minutes ) each month.  I produce an audio CD since most members are 
older and do not have access to a daisy player.  However, I would like to make 
the information more navigable.  Someone suggested that I record each item on a 
separate track.  I have tried creating multiple tracks using Audacity but they 
are on top of each other.  I need some guidance on how to create the separate 
tracks.  Should I label each track and what is the best way to accomplish this. 
 I must admit that I am a novice when it comes to editing and producing digital 
audio.  Your help is greatly appreciated.  By the way I am using JAWS 16.

     

    Rick Boggess

     

     

   


--------------
Dang Manh Cuong
The Assistive technology specialist
Sao Mai Vocational and assistive center for the blind 
74/17 Bui Quang La, ward 12, Go Vap Dst, HCMC, Vietnam
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