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Sound Booth

What is Audacity?

Audacity is an easy-to-use audio recording and editing application. 
It's open-source, free, and available to download on your PC. 

Audacity Logo

Manual: https://manual.audacityteam.org/index.html

Hardware

Headphones can be loaned from the Help Desk. Plug them into the audio receiver as shown.

 

 

Microphone Settings

  1. Check the correct microphone Scarlett 2i2 USB is selected. 
  2. Check that the correct speakers Scarlett 2i2 USB are selected. 

Audacity application showing correct microphone and speaker selections

Start Recording

Click the circular red RECORD button to start a recording. A bluish-purple waveform will start on the timeline. 

 

Audacity program with cursor clicking record button

 

2. Click the square STOP button when finished recording a clip.

 

Import Audio

To import an existing audio file click the File menu and select Import>audio...

audition application showing cursor selecting file>import>audio...

Navigating the Timeline

As your recording gets longer, seeing your audio waveforms at different magnifications can be helpful for making specifics edits or fades. To zoom in/out of the timeline, hold CTRL and scroll wheel up or down.

audacity application showing zooming in and out of timeline

Fade In/Out

Zoom in until you can see the first two or three seconds of the waveform.

Click in the waveform to place your cursor about 1-2 seconds after the start and highlight the section of audio you want to apply the fade to.

Click on Effect > Fade In. The first few seconds of the audio will smoothly fade in.

audacity program showing cursor highlight audio on the timeline and clicking effect>fade in

Click on Effect > Fade Out at the last seconds of a track to fade out.

Remove Noise

It's best practice to record ten seconds of room noise at the beginning for noise removal later. Click and drag your mouse to highlight this “silent” section of your recording. Click Effect > Noise Reduction and then select Get Noise Profile.

audition application showing the cursor highlighting 10 seconds of audio and then clicking effects Noise Reduction and selecting Get Noise Profile

Once you’ve captured the Noise Profile, select the entire audio clip by double-clicking the waveform or pressing CTRL-A.

Go back to Effect > Noise Reduction.  Leaving the default settings, click Okay and it will remove the background noises from the entire audio track.

Audacity program showing cursor highlighting everything on the timeline and then clicking effect>noise reduction>Ok

 

 

Export Audio

Click File > Export > Export as MP3 (or another desired file type)

audacity program with cursor going to file>export>Export as MP3

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