Audacity Basic Skills Tutorial

This document can be found online at ​http://bit.ly/11o0LZ6

You will use Audacity to mix together 5 different tracks (including the narration) to create one finished project. The final
product should be as follows

1. They Can’t Take That Away From Me​ by Billie Holiday (15 second audio clip)
2. The Entertainer​ by Scott Joplin (20 second audio clip)
3. Struttin’ With Some Barbecue​ by Louis Armstrong (15 second audio clip)
4. Thinkin’ Blues​ by Bessie Smith (15 second audio clip)

(all music available for free at ​http://publicdomain4u.com/​ or from Google at ​http://bit.ly/1u6n7HY​)

Audacity techniques you will have to perform to create product:

● Import audio
● Cut and paste audio
● Create Fade ins/outs
● Use multiple audio tracks concurrently
● Amplify volume
● Decrease volume
● Use “echo” effect
● Export as mp3
Step By Step Instructions
1. Open Audacity

2. Go to “Tracks,” then “add new” and select “New Stereo Track.” Do this again as we will need two stereo tracks for
our project.
a. If you select “File” and “New” you’ll create a new file—not a new track. You COULD do the project that
way but it’s a little easier to have everything all in one window rather than clicking back and forth.
b. We are selecting a new ​stereo​ track because the files we’ll be working with are mostly in stereo as well.
We could also select “New Audio Track” and still have this work but we’d be losing the “stereo”
component which, when working with music files (as opposed to something like simple narration), we
want to maintain if we can.
c. At this point, you should also save your project. Be sure to save frequently!

3. You will now need to import some mp3 files. Save the files (located at above links) to a location you can access
them later (I recommend Google drive). You will need to import each one individually into Audacity. The display
on the screen will change to fit the longest file—this is fine—you didn’t break anything.

4. The title of each track will be displayed on the left hand side. If you were to hit “play” (towards the top) right now,
you would hear all of these tracks playing at once. For each track, on the left, you will see a “mute” and a “solo”
button. Clicking “solo” will mute all the other tracks. “Mute” will simply turn that one off. While working, you will
have to use the “mute” and “solo” buttons to make sure you are only hearing what you want to hear in that
moment.

5. Click “solo” on the “Narration” track and listen to it. You should hear some numbers and track titles. You can
actually see the audio as it plays. You may want to zoom so you can see the audio a little better. If so, go to
​ ou can see the rest of the “zoom” options in the “view” menu and use as
“view” and “zoom in” or simply hit ​ctrl 1. Y
needed.

6. Make sure you have the selection tool selected (upper left, looks like a cursor) and, in the narration track, click
and drag over the “number one” audio. Copy this audio (edit/copy or ctrl C). Select the first empty audio track
and select paste. Audacity will paste the audio at the earliest location in the track by default or you can move it
over choose the “time shift” tool (the double sided arrows)
7. In the narration track, find the “​They Can’t Take That Away From Me​ by Billie Holiday” audio and repeat the
process from step 6. Again, Audacity will paste audio in at the earliest point.

8. In the ​They Can’t Take That Away From Me​ by Billie Holiday audio file, select any 15 second block of music you’d
like (you can see the seconds at the top or, towards the bottom, choose “length” instead of “end”). As we did
before, simply “copy” this block and then paste it into our audio track at the top.

9. This makes for a very abrupt beginning and end so we should add some fade. In the section you just pasted,
select about 4 to 6 seconds at the beginning of the audio, go to the “effect” menu and select “fade in.” Next,
select about 4 to 6 seconds at the end of the audio, go to the “effect” menu and select “fade out.”

10. We want a little break after the fade out so go to the “generate” menu and select “silence.” Enter 2 seconds (this
step may be unnecessary if you are using “time shift”)

11. For the second part, we will want our number and song introduction to actually happen over the audio. First,
select a 20 second of audio from ​The Entertainer​ by Scott Joplin and paste it into the first audio track. Give this
one a shorter fade in (maybe only 2 or 3 seconds) but still about a 6 second fade out.

12. Now, from the narration track, find the “number two” and ​The Entertainer​ by Scott Joplin audio and paste into this
track as we did at the beginning.

13. Because our music now playing over the narration, it is much too quiet to hear. So—select all the audio you just
pasted from the narration and go to “effect” and “amplify.” By default, Audacity will give you the max possible
amplification (if you go above this number, Audacity will not let you select “OK”). You can select whatever
amplification you want at long as the amplification remains positive. Do not worry about the peak amplitude at this
time.

14. This will probably still be too quiet to hear so we will need to lower the volume of ​The Entertainer​. In the upper
left, select the “envelope tool” (next to the selection tool). Click in the spot where you want it to quickly get quieter
then click and drag again at the point where you want it to be quiet and lower the volume. Click once where you
want the volume to start rising again then click and drag afterwards to bring the volume back up. Listen to both of
these tracks to see if you like the balance. If not, feel free to make more alterations. WHEN DONE, DO NOT
FORGET TO GO BACK TO THE SELECTION TOOL IN THE UPPER LEFT.

15. Find the audio for “number three” and ​Struttin’ With Some Barbecue​ by Louis Armstrong and copy and paste that
into our first audio track.

16. Select about 30 seconds from the beginning of the song and copy and paste that into the SECOND audio track.
Be sure to select an area AFTER the narration you were just working on. If you do paste it in early, just “undo” or
delete it and paste again in the proper place.

17. IN THE SECOND AUDIO TRACK…paste in “number 4” and “​Thinkin’ Blues​ by Bessie Smith” Select this
combined audio, go to “effect” and select “echo.” Play with this a little bit to see what you like by hitting the
“preview” button. Whatever you decide to do, you will need to add a short fade out to the end of it.

18. Select about 15 seconds of audio from the ​Thinkin’ Blues​ by Bessie Smith track and paste it into the second audio
track. Give it a short fade in but a long (10 seconds or more) fade out.

19. In theory—you should be done. Save the project in the folder (this is just precautionary in case you goof
something up in the next part). Mute everything except the first two audio tracks and listen from the beginning. If
you are satisfied with the sound, delete the other imported tracks.