Audacity Basics (NEW in 2023): Recording, Editing, Mixing
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.ค. 2023
- In 2015, I recorded a popular intro to the free audio editing program Audacity, but a few things have changed in the program, so I made a new one! It's for brand new Audacity users who have never used this software before.
This video shows some of the most common and simple tools in Audacity, especially if you're recording your voice and layering it with music. I cover the basics of recording, adjusting the hotness of the mic, audio compression, splitting clips, importing music, adjusting the volume of multiple tracks, saving, and exporting.
00:00: Intro
00:20: Mic selection & levels
01:49: First recording & zooming
03:06: Selecting audio & compressing
05:26: Importing music & deleting
08:42: Sync-lock, splitting clips
10:30: Mixing volume with the envelope tool
13:48: Saving project, exporting, metadata
Recorded in July 2023 with Audacity 3.3.3 on Windows 10.
![Audacity - Tutorial for Beginners in 11 MINUTES! [ UPDATED ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/l2hidKKWGPU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Audacity - Tutorial for Beginners in 11 MINUTES! [ UPDATED ]](/img/tr.png)
Yup. Clearly you’re a college professor. Your delivery was very efficient, clear, highly informative. Obviously, you’re an experienced teacher. This was extremely helpful to me. Thanks a bunch for posting this. 👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks! The first version of this video was actually made exclusively for students, with them in mind, and then only later it was like, "Wait . . . other people might want to know this too!"
@@kylestedman Can you please help, is there a possibility to record my own voice and system audio on laptop at the same time on an online lecture, for example? I can only separately record, or pc audio, or the voice, but dont know yet how to record both at the same time ..
@@IlhomHamaaevI wrote a comment about this a few days ago, so let me just send you to that. This link will take you back to this video, but with the comment I'm talking about at the top of the list. Let me know if it doesn't work! th-cam.com/video/Im2W7pokfpw/w-d-xo.html&lc=Ugy-tpuQXKaMObJ-WCp4AaABAg.9y3YGJk4AXj9y3nvQ3n_R3
Thank you for a real tutorial. I have used audacity for quite a few years as an amateur cutting music for my wife’s choir program. The latest update left me stumped when I opened up the program tonight. You answered what I was looking for.
Sidenote, I have only subscribed to less than a handful of channels on TH-cam, you are one of them!!
I had that same experience with the latest update, so yes, thanks. I like the way the envelope tool work to use background music. Someone else tried to explain another way to do it that was way too confusing, so thanks.
Thanks for the clarity and getting us started! Greatly appreciate your time.
Extremely clear (and useful), thank you.
Just started using Audacity and glad to watch your basics first. Thanks, Kenny
I've used Audacity for way over 10 years and I learned a lot from this video. The newest version has got me interested in learning more ! Thanks !
Compact yet comprehensively explained. Thanks for your work.
Perfect getting-started tutorials! I watched all of them, practicing each thing on my other device. Just what I needed. Thank you so much!
Great tutorial Kyle.Thank you very much for that.I'm new to the audio world and it will help me tremendously. Very much appreciated.
I'm thinking of making a short film, and I found this program, but I had no idea how to use it to edit the sound. But, you showed me where to start. Thanks, great tutorial!
Excellent tutorial well done, you have a great way of imparting your knowledge ❤
this is an insightful quick start video! thanks for your efficiency and effectiveness in sharing this information!
Very helpful. Lot of knowledge in a short time. Had my coffee so most of it was easy to absorb. Thank you.
Excellent tutorial, VERY helpful for a first time user. Thank you!!
Loved this mate. Super helpful!
Many thanks! As a new content creator for affirmation videos, this will help me tweak my videos little by little until they become great!
Thank you very much for your video. I am new to audacity and your explanations were very clear and useful.
That was so helpful thank you,I been looking for a clear explanation of things in Audacity and this is it .BIG HELP
Thank you for your sharing. Your tutorial is easy to follow and well explained!
Excellent video Kyle, very clear and concise as well as helpful. Thanks for sharing. Peace and Blessings 🙏🏾
im a new user to the platform (and an aspiring VA!) and this tutorial is a LIFESAVER. thank you so much for this, maybe ill actually get something going!!!!
Thank you for this video. I downloaded audacity recently but haven’t gotten around to using it yet. Watched several beginner tutorials before finding yours, yours is by far the easiest to understand.
Thanks a ton, Audacity will really help me with my animation audio!
I appreciate your style of teaching 💙🙏🏼 well done, friend!! Thank you for this!!
Nice information i was searching for this new version... finally got your video
thank you so much!! been trying to find software to record and produce music, so this is really helpful
This is excellent, very beautifully done ! Thanks
Thank u Kyle u are saving me rn. Been avoiding using audacity. THANK YOU SO MUCH
Fantastic. One of the best and most straight-forward tutorials on 'any' subject I've come across on TH-cam. Thank you so much. I have subscribed.
Hey, thanks a lot!
Thanks! This was the perfect help for me.
Thanks for the video. Just enough knowledge to fool around in the app
Super helpful, Kyle! Thanks -- I subscribed to your channel.
This video is so helpful. Thank you so much.
This is the second Audacity tutorial I'm watching, and yours is better. Not too complicated. Thank you.
Thank you for the help my man it's 100% working
Thanks Kyle, awesome video. much appreciated.
very useful! thank you ^^
Wow it's cool and to-the-point. Thank you
this is great, thank you so much!
Excellent presentation, thank you !
Bill P.
Very useful, thanks a bunch.
Hello, Kyle Stedman! I was afraid of the Audacity screen full of tools. Now I know it is very easy to go with it. I am in love with your presentation. That really gets my job done. Thank you very much.
Well put together!
Thank You!
Great video! Very helpful!
So nice. Thank you so much.
This is quite user friendly, thanks a lot
Thankyou this is so helpful
WOW! so helpful, looking forward to more tutorials.
Thanks! I've got a few other ones in the same playlist as this video: th-cam.com/play/PL59h0wcpCzgoeb-LRtRp10uEfzYADbFax.html. Let me know what else I should cover!
Thanks very much for the video Kyle, I'll be using the envelope tool for sure!! - BTW, I subscribed to your channel because of the work you did on this video - your work is not in vain my friend! 😁
Thanks! That means a lot!
Getting ready to start podcasting, this is just what I needed, so simple and digestable. THANK YOU, I've been a bit overwhelmed. I'm still struggling w/ how to set up sound or adjust it for my speaking...
thank you this is so useful.
I've just downloaded this audacity version, and this video is just what I needed so thankyou sir, please more tutorials on audacity plugins and effects to help us with voice enhancements, thnks again
Thanks so much! I don't know if this is what you mean, but here's an older video about some of the effects I use the most often: th-cam.com/video/iQ_d4wlM4RE/w-d-xo.htmlsi=JZCMA-qCtNiefiv3. If you have other ideas for effects and plugins you're interested in, let me know!
Thanks bro!
Your audio sounds great!
Excelente aporte, gracias...
It Work ! Thank you
Finally Ive found a video that is for real beginners. Im assuming you have more ... thank you so much
You're a natural (and practiced) teacher - I see I'm not the only person to have noticed...
I've just been watching 1 or 2 other tutorial videos and this one stands out
super helpful!
You're a cool dude, thank a lot!
very helpful
THANK YOU
Gracias, funcionando
thank you
Nice tutorial...
so cool man
This is a really helpful tutorial; I learned a lot of things (even though I've been using Audacity for years). What I cannot seem to find, is how to record a second (and third, and fourth, etc.) track while hearing the previous track(s) WITHOUT the previous track(s) being re-recorded with the new track. In other words, I need to be able to hear the previous tracks in order to add the new track, but I don't want the previous tracks to be mixed with the new track as it is being recorded. I hope that makes sense. Thank you!
I was just emailing with someone recently about this same issue, but I'm kind of baffled because I've never faced this. When I replied to him I assumed he was recording with a mic and simply wasn't wearing headphones, so the playback was just bleeding into the mic, but he said no, he was recording directly from an electronic drum kit with a USB input, so that wasn't it.
It must be some setting, right? Without setting things up and testing a lot of things, all I can tell you is that what you want is definitely possible; plenty of times I've recorded track after track, none of which include the audio from the other tracks on the new ones.
Sorry I'm not more helpful!
Many thanks, this made it very easy to get started. Currently the only issue I have is making space on my laptop ^^'
Hi, speaking from a different corner in the world - not USA that is, where this tutorial originates from (I´m writing from Iceland) I just want to express my massive gratitude to Kyle Stedman for making this video - I am currently studying at a university, and I had to (to my pleasure) make a narrated presentation a few weeks back and I had absoloutely no idea what I was doing. I usually don´t depend on TH-cam instructions and video tutorials (I learn best from reading written instructions) - but this video clearly and in a simple, accessible manner, shows what to do and how to do it. My presentation resulted in a 11 minute narrated video presentation (with licenced background music!) about the nature of Internet of Things and for that, I listened to, watched, and learned from these instructions, demostrated in this video. Now. My assignment has not yet been graded, and that - of all things - is clearly not the point. But. Fact of the matter is, that after watching this video (over and over again) for this video is not a "one time show" but a very valuable beginners tutorial on how to use Audacity. I learned so much, that I decided to purchase the Kindle Edition of the textbook Soundwriting: A Guide To Making Audio Projects on Amazon, written by Tanya K. Rodrique and Kyle Stedman. I´ve always wanted to learn how to work on sound for my projects - but never known how to. So here are massive thanks to Kyle Stedman for making this tutorial available on TH-cam - and yes, I like the contents of the textbook and yes, I will return to this video tutorial more then once. Five Stars & Thanks! :)
This is so kind!! Thanks for your comment, and let me know if there are particular things you'd like to see new videos cover!
Thanks. Great video. Ive watched others and they are so difficult to undertand. This was great. Literlly saved me £1k, as that was what I'd have to pay to get my book narrated into an audiobook. Now i can do it myself. Great video. Subscribed
Glad to hear it! I narrated an audiobook not too long ago using Audacity (open.spotify.com/show/40uN7yLUwnuSRbkaomNj9B), using exactly the kind of things I show here.
thanks
Nice Video
Nice video. Bring more videos on Audacity.
I've been wondering what my next videos should focus on! If you have particular needs, let me know!
You are a great teacher, because you tell us what you are about to do, e.g. mouse clicks, before you do it. Makes your teaching very easy to understand. Is there a way to quickly locate a label in a long track? I had 15 labels in a 3 hour recording; scrolling to find the next or the prior label was not very efficient. Thanks
Thanks for the kind words. Personally, I move to different labels by zooming in and out a lot. When I'm on a computer with an external mouse with a roller ball, I hold CTRL on the keyboard (or CMD on a Mac) and use the rollerball on the mouse to zoom in and out. Or there's a button that will instantly zoom you all the way out to see the entire project (or just use CTRL-F). From there you can see your label, click the waveform around there with the select tool, and then zoom in, and you'll zoom straight to that label.
I bet there are other ways to pop from one label to the next, but I don't personally use it or know about it. Sorry!
Thank you for this video, very helpful, new sub from me
Thanks for the video! It would help a lot if you included time stamps. Any chance you might add them?
Good idea, and sorry I didn't think of it!
Great tutorial...can you please make a tutorial on how to edit different classical music for youtube without copyright claim?
Interesting idea (especially because I'm a classical music fan)! I've actually always just assumed this is one of those things that people can do and robots can't (that is, distinguishing between a copyrighted and a public domain recording of a public domain composition). If there's a discourse out there about how to make little tweaks to the music to dodge the (often wrong) TH-cam copyright strikes, I've never come across it. Sorry!
Hello and congratulations on your video! I wanted to ask you for some info: if I have an mp3 audio file and I import it into Audacity to modify it when I export it, I always export it in mp3 or to have better quality(?) I export it in wav for example with a setting like: freq.44100 and a 32bit encoding? Or doesn't it make anything better? Thank you!
My understanding, sadly, is that this won't work: you'll end up with a bigger file that sounds like it's at the same quality as whatever you imported. That is, Audacity doesn't do any upscaling to fill in audio gaps is lossy formats, at least as far as I've ever heard.
Another thing I don't quite know the answer to (and which you're not quite asking): A friend told me once that if you import, say, a 320kbps MP3 to Audacity and then export it as a 320kbps MP3, the export could actually sound worse (in very minor ways that most listeners wouldn't hear). He said it had to do with the second batch of encoding making slightly different choices about where to save space, thus giving you kind of a double-lossy MP3. Again, I don't know if this is true, but I've had times where I export as WAV when I want the export to be exactly as good as what I put into Audacity, especially when I want to use that WAV export as an asset in another project, if that makes any sense.
@@kylestedman Thanks!!
I have a question, my tool bar is extremely small how can I make it easier to see, thank you.
♨️✌🏾👍🏾
THX
1. is it posible to highlight an area - and drag it down, to reduce the volume eg for clicks ?
2. Is it possible to zoom in by eg pressing alt + move mouse wheel?
3. Is it easy to drag an audio part from one to an other track?
4. Is keyboard customization possible - eg p instead ctrl +i
1. Not sure what you mean by "for clicks," but I think you mean just for really quick moments, right? The answer is yes, but there are lots of ways to do it. You can highlight any amount of audio with the select tool and then silence it by hitting CTRL-L or using the silence button on the toolbar (manual.audacityteam.org/man/edit_toolbar.html). But that's TOTALLY SILENT, so it's sometimes noticeable. Sometimes it's better to highlight and then use the envelope tool as I show in the video to drag volume down, or you can even use the Amplify tool to LOWER volume in a selection (not just raise it).
2. You can zoom by using CTRL (or CMD on a Mac) and the mouse wheel, yes! Just like in lots of other programs!
3. You can drag a clip from one track to another, yes, as long as they're both the same kind of track (which in most cases means they're either both stereo or both mono). You just grab the top of the clip the same way I show in this video to drag a clip left and right, and then drag it to the new track. But if you're trying to drag a long clip into a small space on another track (like if there are clips before and after the space), it won't work-you'll need to drag the other clips to make room for the new one first.
4. Yes, you can change keyboard customizations! Check out manual.audacityteam.org/man/keyboard_preferences.html
You tutorial was great, thank you. At the moment, I need to learn something simpler. How to edit an existing audio file. I just need to remove about 22 seconds from a video and then export the video as one piece. Do you have an example of that?
Unfortunately, if you want to make your cut and then export AS A VIDEO, Audacity isn't the right tool-you'll have to use a video app. You CAN import a video file into Audacity, but the second you do, you'll be editing the audio from the video and only the audio, and when you export you'll just be exporting an edited version of the audio.
If that's okay, though, it should be easy: import the video, use the select tool to select what you want to cut, hit the delete key on your keyboard, play it to make sure it sounds good, and then export as audio.
Thank you @@kylestedman Very kind of you to reply to my message. Very helpful.
Kyle, a question about metadata. I have several podcasts where the producer gives an intro, plays 3 or 4 tracks, another voice section, then 3 or 4 more tracks. In some cases, there's a single bit of metadata that simply says "Name - Show Name" , in others the show will start with 'Name - Show Name', then for each track played during the show, the metadata changes to "WhoeverTheArtist Is - WhateverTheTrackNameIs". Is there some special sauce to embed that additional metadata, or is that outside Audacity's tool set? (that ability would make reporting song played data to the Performing Rights Organizations MUCH easier, and save a lot of broadcast folks many many hours of work)
Thanks for the work you do, I've used Audacity for years and learn something new with each of your videos.
Good question, and thanks for the kind words! I'm going to give a guessing answer, not one that's really informed by knowledge or having looked anything up. My guess is that this isn't something Audacity can do, and which is instead managed by the podcast host.
For instance, I have a podcast hosted at Spotify (called "Bad Ideas about Writing"), and I remember when they said they had started a new partnership allowing you to use copyrighted music from the Spotify catalog in your podcasts. My guess is that when you use their web-based tool to mix their Spotify songs into your prerecorded narration, it automatically updates the metadata at the correct spots. That's just a guess, but it fits with what I know.
I've uploaded musical mixes I made in Audacity to Mixcloud a couple times as well, and when you upload the file there's a way there, in their web interface (not in Audacity), to say at what time stamp each song started. Like, I can say, "At 14:55 a new song started," and then I can search for a song title, telling the interface that X song began right there. And then when anyone listens to that mix, the visual metadata changes to show listeners what you're listening to at that moment. Again, not something I did in Audacity.
Hope that helps, and sorry for the long answer!
Ahhh, ok that's working like a SYLT file. I ran across a way to kludge it manually using the 'Lyrics' space in the ID3 data by adding the timestamp and artist info as separate text lines, but I haven't tried it yet...I'll bump a note here if I can get it to work out. There's a couple of SYLT editors out there as well...Thanks!
Can you recommend any Audacity TH-cam tutorials from beginners to advanced that are easy to understand - like your tutorial? I'm using version 3.4.0 for Mac OS.
Honestly, I don't really follow what else is out there! Over the years, I've made a few tutorials on different topics that are all in this playlist: th-cam.com/play/PL59h0wcpCzgoeb-LRtRp10uEfzYADbFax.html. But if there's something you wish you knew that's not there, let me know and I can try to focus on it, too!
What if you are recording vocals over an instrumental, and you need to be able to quickly record from certain point, so you need the playhead to start at different points of the instrumental track to record out vocals?
If I'm understanding you correctly, it's easy to start wherever you need to start. Just make sure the select tool is chosen (which is the default), and then click anywhere on the waveform (the blue squiggles), and you should see a line appear there. Then, when you hit play or record, it will start playing or recording from that spot.
Also, if you're recording vocals over instrumentals, it might be worth knowing about how to automatically correct for "latency," that little bit of lag between what you hear while singing and the computer actually recording your vocals. Check out manual.audacityteam.org/man/latency_test.html
I've got a drum kit with 16 mics on it (recorded in Reaper). I'm wondering if there is an easy way to "nudge" sections of the tracks a little bit closer to the grid - just "pocketing" the drums a bit a la ProTools "nudge?" I find editing quite difficult in Reaper, plus I made all the click tracks in Audacity, so it'd be nice to be able to nudge them using Audacity...
I've got to be honest and say I don't know the answer. I've actually never played around in ProTools, since I'm so much more a "record my voice and mix it with other sounds I find online" person than a "record my own instruments" person-which is why Audacity has always been enough for me. Sorry!
@@kylestedman No problem! The process I'm looking for is apparently called "quantizing," and after spending some time on a few forums last night and this morning I have discovered that Audacity CAN NOT quantize. Thanks, though!
Can I add ISRC codes and UPC codes to Metadata in WAV Files before exporting? If so, would these codes be recognized by DSPs?
Sorry to say that I don't know anything about that. Maybe someone else does, but I've never had do so.
Hi. I have a question. For a song I wrote, can I upload it, cut off the last part and copy and [paste my chorus to the end? I'm thinking the split tool would help with that but all I know about audacity is what you just said. I have nevt been good at editing audio or video , but I've always wanted to write and perform my own music. Through the use of AI, I'm able to do so without being held back by my inability to play an instrument, something I wish I'd learned how to do when I was a child. The end result isn't always the greatest and editing the songs I write is essential to being able to share my songs with my friends and family.
You definitely can copy and paste audio like that! After you import audio, you can select a specific part of a track with the select tool, copy it, click where you want to paste, and then paste it. That's easier if your audio is all one track, but I'm pretty sure you can select and copy and paste multiple tracks at once, too. If I were you, I'd zoom way, way in to make sure my initial selection is exactly what you want, to make sure the beat doesn't feel "off" when you paste the new selection in. I'd probably paste the new audio on a new track below the original, too, making it easier to nudge it just a little to the left or right to make sure it lines up perfectly. Definitely doable!
@@kylestedman Wow! That was an amazing explanation and I truly appreciate, one, that you even responded and two, that you added that extra tip. My Suno song is 2 minutes already and add to song doesn't work, either because ir's already long or it just does not really match up with the original song.
Hi, I am totally new to anything like this and I want to record harmonies with myself. Can youhelp. I have 3.4.1 and it seems differnt to the tutorials from a few years ago. I can vocals but cant record one over the other!
You can totally do this! I just downloaded the newest version (3.4.2), and I think for basic things, it should still look a lot like it does in this video, but of course let me know if there's anything in particular that seems wrong.
If recording multiple tracks isn't acting the way you expect, try clicking Edit > Preferences and then clicking "Recording" in the left of that box to see your recording preferences. Does anything there help you do what you want to do?
Remember, too, that if you record one track of vocals and then record a second track of vocals, it'll look like two separate tracks. But if they're on top of each other, they'll play at the same time when you hit play.
Do you know how i can turn off the feature that when i close down an open wave file/project Audacity also close's itself? So instead i end up with 50+ opened Audacity's since i don't want to re-open the program everytime i want to open a new file for editing!
I'm not totally sure what you mean, but I don't think that's possible (though I might be wrong). The way I understand it, Audacity is kind of like Word: every time you open a new project or Word doc, there's a new instance/window of the program, making it different from something like Photoshop, where you open the program and then can switch between multiple projects in the one instance/window of Photoshop. I personally don't think one is necessarily better than the other, it's just a different design philosophy. But again, I might be misunderstanding the question. Sorry!
You can't turn it off. You just have to close audacity normally (A.K.A. you have to either save or choose not to save everytime you close audacity). If you close audacity (or any editing program for that matter) forcefully (like shutting down your PC without closing programs first), thanks to windows fast startup, they are stored somewhere on your computer and audacity will ask you if you want to resume to it or not.
great tutorial
what i want to do is import a song and then be able to rip the base line and vocals. Can audacity do this?
The short answer: not easily or cleanly. Check out the manual's page on vocal removal at manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_vocal_removal_and_isolation.html, which shows that you can try removing just vocals from a piece of music, but your success depends a lot on how the track was mixed, so it doesn't always work. But then if you have a track with the vocals removed, you can then use noise reduction to remove everything BUT the vocals from the original, giving you an instrumental track-again, imperfectly. It's fun to play around with, but don't count on it working too well.
Hello! Does your program work on Windows? I saw that you are on Mac :-)
Actually, I recorded this on Windows! It's available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, too! Check it out at www.audacityteam.org/
What version are you using?
In this video I'm using version 3.3.3. on Windows 10.
How do I open the equalizer consul? I opened it once and I don't remember how to do it again. Thank you
Sorry I missed this comment for so long! I bet you've found it by now, but it's under the Effects menu (which is really where you can find just about anything that's going to change the sound of a clip). And remember there are multiple ways to play with EQ; I find the Graphic EQ is most like what I usually expect, but there are other cool options, too.
😀😀😀
I just ripped a dvd on winx dvd platinum. I set my channels for sound to 6. How can I load my saved video to the program and open the sound wave to see that all 6 channels were filled, so I can get true surround sound? Thank you
Great question, but I honestly have never played with that before. I've definitely dragged video files into Audacity, which (if it's a supported file type) just ignores the video part, letting you edit the audio. But when there are 6 channels, I don't know what to say. Sorry!
What's the different between Joint Stereo and Stereo?
Hoo boy. If you google this, you'll find way more information than you want; it has to do with the various ways the MP3 file format saves stereo information behind the scenes, with slight differences in file size between the two. Personally, I don't think most everyday users will notice any difference at all, so there's no wrong choice, but I've seen people online who say it's always better to fall back on "joint stereo."
how do you record starting with the music as the base track it keeps starting the recording at the end of the imported music track lol help!!
Yikes! I don't have Audacity open, but I'd try 2 things: 1) Make sure that before you hit record, you click where on the imported track you want the recording to start. Does that make sense? So if you want to start recording 30 seconds in, click (using the default select tool) 30 seconds along the timeline. Then I think it'll start recording from there. 2) If that doesn't do it, check on the preferences, where there's a whole page just on what you want to happen when recording. Play with those settings! Hope that helps!
Are you using audacity on the Mac or on windows? I tried to install audacity on the Mac and I can't change the latency to lower it. I try to do multi track recording but every time I record the latency with audacity is set to where it's set and the Mac won't allow me to change it. Also how is your room so soundproof and no echo
Sorry you're having so much trouble! I'm using Windows, and it's always let me adjust the latency, so I'm not really sure what the problem might be. (I assume you've searched the Audacity manual, looking at pages like manual.audacityteam.org/man/latency_test.html.) So sorry!
I recorded this with a Blue Yeti mic in a room that I use as a walk-in closet, so it has lots of soft surfaces and a carpet! That can go a long way, especially with the right mic!