01 - Starting and Running

Start Audacity,

On Ubuntu goto the Applications --> Sound & Video -> Audacity.

To open a file you can then use the menu File -> Open, or you can drag and drop files onto the window do open them up.

The Window

• Along the top of the window are the menus, as usual.
• Under the menus starting on the left are the playing controls, Pause, Play, Stop, Goto Begining, Goto End and record.  Theses work on the current select project(s), or the current selection of the project(s).
• Next are two rows of tools.  Along the top the tools are Selection, Envenlope, and Draw tools.  The second row of tools are Magify Glass, Time shift tool, and Multi-Tool Mode tool.
• Next are the meter tools.  First are the output Meters (right and left) with the Output audio controls under the meters via the drop down arrow box.  Then the input Meters (right and left) with the Input audio control again under the Meters next to the microphone icon via the drop down arrow box.
• Next are two rows again, the top row with the Output volume control, then the Input volume control
• Under that is the a play button, and the playback speed
• Last are various tools, cut, copy, paste, trim, and silence
• Then undo and redo.
• Last are zoom in, zoom out, fit selection, and fit project (the last two fit either the selection or the project to the width available in the project window with into Audacity window.)
• Next is the time track, it lists the corresponding time in seconds.
• The large gray area in the middle of the window is the Project window space, this is where the project is displayed with the tracks, projects controls and other information is displayed.
• The first row along the bottom of the window had the project rate.
• Then the Selection information.
• And the bottom row of the scree has an information box and Actual Rate

Most of these groups of items (ie. the playback controls) can be moved by grabbing and dragging around the bar to the left of the icon group.

Project/Track Window

With Audacity file are called projects.  In projects you have tracks.

Once you open up a project you will have a new window within the middle gray box of the Audacity window.  This controls the project file and has most the info about the project.

• Starting on the upper left of the Project window you have the close/kill button (box wit the 'X' in it).  It will not ask you if you are sure you want to do this if you have changes that haven't been saved but you goto close.  But it will allow you to undo this action.
• Next, to the right of the button is the project/file name with a down arrow to the right of the name.
• The down arrow will open up a menu with options for this project and for tracks.
• Below those two is a box with info about the project, being stero/mono, and the recording rate and recording type ?
• Below that are two buttons, mute and solo, that control these tracks for play.  If mute is selected this project will not play when you play (all the other projects will play), and solo is the opposite it will only play this project.
• Below this is the gain  and balance control for this project.
• The bottom button on the column will shrink the project to only a few lines.  (The call this collapsing)

The with the magifiy glass tool you can zoom in on part of the audio file.  The left mouse button will zoom in, and the right mouse button will zoom out.

To select part of a track you need to first select the selection tool, the hold down the mouse button where you want to start the selection and pull across the audio info to where you want the selection to end.  You have to be in a track to make a selection.  In the bottom bar the info about your selection will be displayed, and you can togle between displaying the length of the audio selection or the end of the audio selection.