Is anyone using Audacity?

ken · Post by **ken** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:24 pm

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I mean, it is totally free, but does anyone use it?

Ken

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 3:36 pm

I used to use a beta version of it years ago to record single tape streams at work. Buc interviews via phone... easily stop and start..quick edit...then encode it to .wmv for a streaming server. Found it very useful for simple things like that. Thought the interface (at the time) wasn't condusive to deep multitrack editing. That and it crashed alot.

But I wish it was around when I FIRST started recording on a computer. It would have been alot better than some of the stuff I was using then.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:19 pm

Free, Windows, Mac, Linux all identical. It's great for all that.

Easy and basic for aligning tracks and doing simple podcasts and such. Good basic EQ, normalization, etc. Not good for region-based editing, etc. but definately the starting point for free.

Dan-O from Five-O · Post by **Dan-O from Five-O** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:29 pm

I haven't used it as a program, but I often have it in various aspects in my life.

Southwest_Statistic · Post by **Southwest_Statistic** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:44 pm

Every song I've ever submitted.

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 6:10 pm

Since my DAW of choice can't export to mp3, I use Audacity for that. Very little else, though.

Smalltown Mike · Post by **Smalltown Mike** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 7:19 pm

Southwest_Statistic wrote:Every song I've ever submitted.

Really? I played with it once, but it crashed a lot on my Mac. This was several versions ago. But you use it for multitracking?

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Tue Oct 18, 2005 8:57 pm

from the release notes...

"Mac OS X: Fixed a major bug that caused Audacity to crash at seemingly-random times on Mac systems, especially during playback or recording."

*edit* i just downloaded this program. i will be using it quite a bit, i'm sure.

ken · Post by **ken** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 8:35 am

Southwest_Statistic wrote:Every song I've ever submitted.

What is your system? I was thinking about trying it on my p2 laptop.

Ken

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 1:58 pm

Its got a good "make the sound go backward" tool that I use occaisionally. I can't do that on Garageband (I dont think).

Which sort of reminds me of a joke I heard the other day:

Hear about the dyslexic devil worshipper?
He sold his soul to Santa.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:27 pm

i've got it here on my work comp (winxp) for the occasions that i need to edit audio... for work, of course

it's got a bit of a weird interface - i prefer the soundforge - but it's free!
some nice features. definitely check it out. haven't had crashing problems here.
-bill

Hoblit · Post by **Hoblit** » Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:51 pm

Caravan Ray wrote:Its got a good "make the sound go backward" tool that I use occaisionally.

I remember once at work a long time ago we were using a filter in Adobe Premeire to make the audio/video go backwards. We upgraded and were upset that the filter wasn't there and/or wasn't compatable or something.

We probably went a week looking for something about this on the internet until one day I realized something. Tested it out. Worked.

You simply cut the part you wanted to go backwards out...copy and paste that if necessary and change the time span in seconds. Making it negative by adding a minus sign before it.

Me$$iah · Post by **Me$$iah** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:58 am

Smalltown Mike wrote:
Southwest_Statistic wrote:Every song I've ever submitted.
Really? I played with it once, but it crashed a lot on my Mac. This was several versions ago. But you use it for multitracking?

ken wrote:
Southwest_Statistic wrote:Every song I've ever submitted.
What is your system? I was thinking about trying it on my p2 laptop.

Ken

IIRC, then SWS uses Audacity to record samples, or a guit riff etc.
Then the cuts em up and fires em using a tracker program called:-
Renoise
tho I could be making this up, But I think I read that somewhere

Ive looked at Renoise, but it seems really complicated to me. I prefer cubase
But it also reminds me of Notator(sp) on the old Amiga, which altho I could use it, I never really liked it, or the way it worked. Even then I preferd cubase* and the ,IMHO, the more logical way it worked. But heh each to his own an all that

Messiah

*tho the cubase Im talking about were versions 2.11 up and I dont mean VST or nothing

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:10 pm

Caravan Ray wrote:Its got a good "make the sound go backward" tool that I use occaisionally. I can't do that on Garageband (I dont think).

do you know of a way to import files from audacity into garageband? garageband doesn't seem to be very good when it comes to using files from other programs or even wav or mp3 files.

Tonamel · Post by **Tonamel** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:30 pm

Well, just on the merit of it being GarageBand, wouldn't it play nicer with aiff than wav? (Audacity can export aiff, if this is the case)

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:30 pm

fodroy wrote:
Caravan Ray wrote:Its got a good "make the sound go backward" tool that I use occaisionally. I can't do that on Garageband (I dont think).
do you know of a way to import files from audacity into garageband? garageband doesn't seem to be very good when it comes to using files from other programs or even wav or mp3 files.

I export the sound from Audacity as a wav (to the Desktop) - then drag & drop the wav into GB.

I've never had problems dragging wavs or mp3 into GB from either the desktop or iTunes. It all seems to work pretty well

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:46 pm

Tonamel wrote:Well, just on the merit of it being GarageBand, wouldn't it play nicer with aiff than wav? (Audacity can export aiff, if this is the case)

hmm. well, i guess i'll have to play with it some more. i only saw the options of exporting as wav, mp3 and ogg vorbis...vorg abbis...orb of doom. something.

Caravan Ray wrote: I export the sound from Audacity as a wav (to the Desktop) - then drag & drop the wav into GB.

I've never had problems dragging wavs or mp3 into GB from either the desktop or iTunes. It all seems to work pretty well

i haven't tried drag and drop yet. i'll have to do that.

thanks, fellas.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 1:52 pm

fodroy wrote:hmm. well, i guess i'll have to play with it some more. i only saw the options of exporting as wav, mp3 and ogg vorbis...vorg abbis...orb of doom. something.

<a href="http://www.vorbis.com/faq/">Ogg Vorbis</a> - open source uncompressed audio goodness. Not well supported but growing. Big in the live show bootleg jamband crowd.

Plat · Post by **Plat** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:50 pm

roymond wrote:<a href="http://www.vorbis.com/faq/">Ogg Vorbis</a> - open source uncompressed audio goodness. .

You might be confusing this with <a href="http://flac.sourceforge.net/">FLAC</a> (or ogg flac for that matter).

Vorbis is neat and all, but it's lossy. Definitely 'compressed' for both. And now for something less pedantic...