Saving Your Wrist -- Keyboard Shortcuts for Common Functions

Using a keyboard shortcut for common functions, such as zooming and undoing, will wind up saving you a significant amount of time in the long run. Many of Audacity's built-in keyboard shortcuts mirror those of other common software programs such as Microsoft Word -- for instance, Control-Z to undo, Control-X to cut, Control-V to paste, etc. You can find a comprehensive list of built-in keyboard shortcuts here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/keyboard_shortcuts.html

If those aren't good enough for you, there's also a method for creating your own keyboard shortcuts (especially attractive to anyone who's created macros to automate common tasks in other software programs):

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/keyboard_shortcuts_create.html

Souping Up Your Audacity

While it seems (at least to me) that Audacity comes with more than enough built-in effects to satisfy the most particular podcaster, you can add even more audio effects by downloading and installing plug-ins. Here's a short list of resources for more plug-ins you can experiment with (or incorporate):

You can start with Audacity’s own plug-in page:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/plugins

If there is one effect that should come with Audacity but doesn't (aside from the mp3 LAME encoder, of course), it's a plug-in to create a reverb effect. Here's where you can download one:

Here’s one good free plug-in for reverb effects:

http://www.sonicspot.com/freeverb/freeverb.html

And if you really want to trick out your Audacity, here’s a site that describes itself as “…the Internet's number one news and information resource for open standard audio plugins.” (I haven't yet downloaded any plug-ins from this site, however, and can't vouch for their quality or utility):

http://www.kvraudio.com/

Profile of a Sound Pioneer

For a deeper understanding of just what you're working with when you use Audacity to mold sound, I can recommend no better resource than this profile of Walter Murch.

Walter Much is an Oscar-winning sound editor and film director who began his career on George Lucas' THX 1138. Here's a very lengthy and detailed but fascinating interview with Mr. Murch, which spans not just his decades-long career in film and film sound production, but also the topic of sound in depth – its neurophysiology, psychology, cultural power, etc.

http://www.transom.org/guests/review/200504.review.murch.html#

Getting Help on Audacity's Home Page

Since Audacity isn’t a commercially-released product you won’t find books about it on Amazon or the shelves of your local bookstore, and online documentation is a bit thin as well. But help in a variety of forms does exist. What follows is a breakdown of the links and resources available via Audacity’s main site.

Here you’ll find HTML versions of the online help (which on this page is called the Audacity reference) and the more comprehensive users manual, as well as downloadable/printable versions of both. There’s also a link to the Audacity WIKI, a FAQ, several online tutorials of varying usefulness, and, for the more adventurous, a link to a page describing how you can create some of your own Audacity plug-ins.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/documentation

Audacity’s online help, in its own discrete HTML file. Does an excellent job of breaking down Audacity into its component parts and explaining them, but not so good a job in helping you understand how to use it actually to assemble a podcast:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/onlinehelp-1.2/reference.html

The Audacity WIKI is a wonderful resource, where the complete novice and the hard-core audio techie can both find answers to their different questions. (Even better, since it’s a WIKI, they can post their own answers!) You’ll find information here on subjects as wide-ranging as an Audacity interface for the sight-impaired and links to Audacity help in Swedish, Czech, and Brazilian Portuguese.

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

The Audacity Team forum is where you can post questions that will be (relatively) promptly answered by one of Audacity’s developers. Please be sure to read the different categories, and post your question to the right forum; for most of us, that category will be Audacity 1.3.x (the latest stable version), either General or Windows. Also, try entering the information you’re seeking in the search field first; it’s quite possible you’re the answer to your question may already have been provided in an earlier post, thus saving the developers, who aren’t reimbursed for their time or efforts, some time:

http://audacityteam.org/forum/

Audacity E-Mail Distribution List – General – This list is a place for Audacity users to post questions for other Audacity users to answer. Please note that this list sometimes receives as many as 200 messages per week. If you don't want to receive that many messages, you may subscribe in "digest" mode, which combines each day's messages into one large e-mail. Before you join, however, search through the archives to see if your question has already been answered:

Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=audacity-users

Distribution List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-users

Audacity E-mail Distribution Lists – Advanced -- Anyone can send a message to this list to contact the Audacity team with questions, comments, and feedback. However, this is a high-volume list, and the only people who should be subscribed to this list are Audacity developers or expert users who want to help provide technical support. You must join this list before you can post; this helps keep the Spam level down. Once again, though, check the archives first:

Archives: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=audacity-help

Distribution List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-help

Editing Audio With Audacity -- Some Good References

Editing audio files is the heart and soul, if you will, of Audacity. Its easy-to-learn-and-use interface, its wide array of powerful features, and of course its price (free) make it an ideal choice for amateur and professional podcasters alike.

Here are some online resources to help you get started (or become a bit more proficient) at editing audio using Audacity:

For a short, simple overview of the main tools you’ll be using to edit a sound file, you can download the following Microsoft Word document here:

http://www.aclearn.net/display.cfm?resID=16394

Here's an easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorial that covers the very basic editing steps. Not illustrated:

http://www.edhsonline.org/other/audacity/index.html

This is a very basic piece that’s noteworthy primarily because it contains a few good general sound editing pointers to keep in mind:

http://www.j-learning.org/present_it/page/editing_audio/

Here’s a more comprehensive and generously-illustrated overview of Audacity’s basic sound editing features:

http://www.melug-central.org/~jonm/audacity.html

Transom.org is an outstanding site with great information on all aspects of audio production, including mixers, microphones, and, of course, Audacity. It’s intended to support independent radio producers.

Here’s an excellent transom.org tutorial on editing and other tools:

http://www.transom.org/tools/editing_mixing/200404.audacity.html

Here’s a nice, short piece that essentially provides a running commentary during a short set of audio edits. This is the one link that’s not focusing on Audacity, but the editing techniques it discusses apply to all audio editing programs, and besides – it’s from transom.org. (No, I’m not affiliated with this site – I just think it’s a fabulous resource):

http://www.transom.org/tools/editing_mixing/200101.editing.bgolding.html

That should be enough to get you started (or keep you going). Next time I’ll provide links to some of the help resources that are available to you via the Audacity site itself. Until then – sound off!

Recording With Audacity -- Some Good References

Recording audio is all by itself worthy of years of learning and practice. Microphones, acoustics, live mixes, digital and analog recording equipment – it’s a vast, complex subject. What follows are some links to sites where you can get simple, straightforward information on recording equipment and techniques that are well within range of the beginning and intermediate podcaster.

First, there’s a diagram, a flowchart, and an illustrated list of equipment you need to record a live event:
http://kino-eye.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/07/Audio-Podcasting-v2.pdf

Here are the very basic – very basic – steps involved in making a simple voice recording using Audacity:
http://tinyurl.com/jwlrc

Next, Jake Ludington – he of the Podcasting Starter Kit – has a more detailed tutorial covering recording settings and procedures using Audacity:
http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/lpt/a/5735

If you’re not satisfied with the sound quality of your recording, here’s a page from the folks who brought you Audacity on ways you can improve your recording quality:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Improving_Recording_Quality

Although this site has a lot of information about all aspects of Audacity, I place it here because of its excellent section of recording troubleshooting tips:
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~raa110/audacity/AudacityHelp.html

Finally, for those of us with a bit too much time on our hands, here’s a way you can use Audacity to measure just how fast that speeding bullet is going:
http://nitricacid.blogspot.com/2005/11/using-audacity-recording-software-to.html

Next up: Help with editing. In the meantime, listen to the Audacity Audio Minute, my own series of (very brief) podcasts that provide specific tips and techniques aimed at helping you become more efficient and creative with the Audacity program. Until next time – sound off!

Getting Started -- Some Good References

Audacity is the open-source (aka free) software program that enables you to record and edit sound files and thus produce your own podcast. I truly believe Audacity is a key reason podcasting has proliferated so swiftly (and no, I have absolutely no relationship with its dedicated team of developers). It's brought fun and surprisingly powerful audio production capabilities into the hands of the masses. In this blog I'd like to share what I've learned over the course of the year or so I've been using this great tool. I hope my readers will chime in with additional tips, techniques, and resources of their own.

I'd like to start with -- well, getting started. If in fact you are just getting started with Audacity (or, for that matter, with podcasting in general), here are some great online (mostly) resources I've found. These resources helped me a great deal when I began podcasting.

First, four resources that will, in varying degrees, take you through the broad steps of creating a podcast from scratch. The first two belong to O'Reilly, a publisher well known and respected in the high tech field. They both cover the high-level or broad steps through which you must traverse to create a podcast and both, of course, use examples from Audacity:

http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/lpt/a/6054

http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/4552

The third resource is Jake Luddington’s Podcasting Starter Kit, which costs US $20.00 and is worth every nickel. This kit, which is really more of a manual, thoroughly covers all you need to know to produce and post a podcast from scratch, and it includes significant material on Audacity. Find this resource at:

http://www.podcastingstarterkit.com/

Next, there seem to be a few books out now that serve as good guides toward becoming a podcaster. The one I'm most familiar with, and which I can certainly recommend, is Podcasting Solutions, by Michael Geoghegan and Dan Klass, which can be had at Amazon for even less than Jake's starter kit:

http://tinyurl.com/k2jbj

Now -- what about overviews targeted more specifically at Audacity? There are several. First, you can find a good general overview of all of Audacity's features here:

http://www.melug-central.org/~jonm/audacity.html

There also exists an excellent set of tutorials (albeit with a couple of broken image links) here:

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~gmote/audacity/

Finally, there's a yet-to-be-completed online book about Audacity that's great for beginners, even without much information covering Audacity's more advanced features:

http://audacitybook.org/html/

That's it for now. In my next post I'll provide links to resources that dive a bit deeper into the specific recording capabilities of Audacity. In the meantime, listen to the Audacity Audio Minute, my own series of (very brief) podcasts that provide specific tips and techniques aimed at helping you become more efficient and creative with the Audacity program. Until then -- sound off!