- The Book of Audacity
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Audacity from Start to Finish
- Audacity Quick-Start
- Audacity in Detail
- Managing Audacity Projects
- Selecting Tracks and Segments of Tracks
- Track Panel
- Cutting Out Unwanted Chunks
- Fade In and Out
- Making Quiet Recordings Louder
- Timer Record and Sound Activated Recording
- Mixer Board
- Track Metadata
- Final Mixdown
- Audio File Formats and Quality Settings
- Now What?
- 2. Building a Good Digital Sound Studio on the Cheap
- Getting Sound In and Out of the Computer
- Multichannel Recording, PCI, USB, FireWire
- USB or FireWire?
- Microphones
- Microphone Preamp
- Speakers and Headphones
- Your Computer Must Have Muscle and Vast Drawers
- Operating Systems
- Portable Recording
- The Secret of Recording Your Own Great Audio
- Visit Appendix A
- 3. Transferring Vinyl LPs (and Other Legacy Media) to CD
- Preparing Vinyl LPs for Copying
- Eight Steps to Converting Records to CDs
- Audacity Settings
- Recording
- Fixing Defects
- Customizing Dynamic Range Compression
- Normalization
- Dividing a Long Track into Individual Songs
- Exporting to CD-Ready Files, One Long Audacity Track
- Exporting to CD-Ready Files, Multiple Audacity Tracks
- Writing Songs to a CD
- Copying Vintage 78s
- Connecting Legacy Devices to Your Computer
- Which Is Better: Vinyl, Tape, or CDs?
- 4. Creating and Editing Live Tracks for CD
- Making Good Live Recordings
- Audacity Settings for Recording
- Editing Live Recordings
- Editing and Downmixing Multitrack Recordings
- Special CD Settings in Audacity
- Trimming
- Splitting Stereo Tracks for Surgical Repairs
- Fixing Clipping and Too-Loud Passages
- Noise Removal
- Compressing Dynamic Range
- Cutting a Single Long Track into Individual Song Tracks
- Creating Graceful Breaks Between Songs
- Normalization
- Optional Track Metadata
- Final Export
- Writing Your Songs to CD
- Combining Songs from Different Recording Sessions, Fix-its, and Special Effects
- 5. Authoring a Compilation CD
- 6. Authoring Super High-Fidelity Audio DVDs
- 7. Creating Podcasts
- 8. Becoming an Online Star
- 9. Multitrack Recording
- 10. Making Your Own Ringtones
- 11. Audacity Plug-ins for Special Effects
- Repeat Last Effect
- Noise Removal
- Normalization
- Remove Clicks and Scratches
- Truncate Silence
- Change Tempo
- Change Pitch
- Change Speed
- Compress Dynamic Range
- Equalization
- Fix Timing and Latency Errors
- Analyze Menu
- 13. Configuring Linux for Best Audio Quality
- Using Distributions with Real-Time Kernels
- Building a Real-Time Kernel
- Latency Is Not That Scary
- Sorting Out Linux Audio
- Using ALSA
- Hardware Testing with alsa-utils
- Querying Your Sound Card
- Using JACK with Audacity
- Turning PulseAudio and Phonon Off
- Linux System Tweaks
- The Tangled History of Linux Audio
- Sound Cards
- 14. Configuring Windows for Best Audio Quality
- 15. Customizing Audacity
- A. Audio Hardware
- B. Glossary
- The Myth of Burn-In
- The Myth of Tube Superiority
- The Myth of Uber Cables
- The Myth of Analog Superiority
- The Myth That You Don’t Need Tone Controls
- The Myth That Someone Else Knows Better Than You
- D. References and Resources
- E. Updates
- Index
- About the Author
- Colophon
Audacity has a number of tools for fixing defects and cleaning up, recordings. As I keep saying, your best approach is to make the cleanest recordings you can, because that is a lot easier than fixing them. There is no TV crime-show magic; there are limits to what you can do.
However, there is a lot you can do to fix problems, so we’re going to learn how to do that in this chapter. (If you need a refresher, Chapter 1 covers the basics of using Audacity, and Chapter 2 goes into building a simple recording studio.
Oftentimes only half of a stereo track will have a defect. So, you should split the track (Split Stereo Track in the Track menu), apply repairs to each track independently, and then rejoin them with Make Stereo Track from the Track menu. Then you’ll have the advantage of the good half helping to mask imperfect repairs.
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