Audacity Support
  • Audacity Support
  • Audacity Basics
    • Downloading & installing Audacity
    • Installing FFmpeg
    • Recording your voice with a microphone
      • Setting recording and playback levels
    • Recording desktop audio
    • Editing audio
    • Saving and exporting projects
    • ☁️Sharing audio online
    • Customizing Audacity
      • Using themes
      • Installing plugins
      • Effect Presets
    • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Repairing Audio Recordings
    • Noise reduction & removal
    • Re-recording a section
    • Removing clicks & pops
  • Audio Editing
    • 🆕Using master effects & realtime effects
    • Making crossfades
    • Speeding up and slowing down audio
    • Changing pitch
    • Mixing and panning tracks
    • 🆕Reducing dynamic range (Compressor / Limiter)
    • Splitting a recording into separate tracks
    • Loudness Normalization
    • Macros
      • Manage Macros
      • Macros Palette
      • Macros Examples
    • Audiobook Mastering
  • Music
    • 🆕Enabling music view
    • Aligning music to beats and bars
    • Working with audio loops
      • Making audio loops
    • Isolating or removing vocals from a song
  • Audio Analysis
    • Spectral analysis
  • Troubleshooting
    • Troubleshooting overview
    • Error codes
      • Error -9996: Invalid Device Error
      • Error -9997: Invalid Sample Rate
      • Error -9998: Invalid number of channels
      • Error -9999: Unanticipated Host Error
      • Error opening sound device
      • Error opening recording device
      • Error: Audacity failed to read a file in C: and Error: Failed to Open Database File
      • Error Audacity did not recognize the type of this file
      • Error: The Audacity IPC server failed to initialize
      • Error code=12: cannot allocate memory (macOS)
      • Error: Missing Plugins
      • Error FFmpeg:1008
      • Installation exit codes
    • Recovering corrupted projects
      • Recovering corrupted projects in legacy Audacity versions
    • Common troubleshooting steps
    • Solving recording problems
      • Audacity is not detecting the audio device I just connected
      • Audacity is not playing back what is being recorded
      • Delay and echoes when recording
      • Crackles, pops and distortion in the recording
      • Vertical red lines in the recording
      • Recording volume slider cannot be moved
      • Audacity records silence when using a Bluetooth headset as a recording device
      • Only the left channel is recording
      • Recording dropouts, gaps, skips and glitches
      • Latency Compensation
    • Solving other problems
    • Resetting Audacity
    • Missing features
  • Special uses
    • Info for Visually Impaired Users
    • Info for System Administrators
  • Community
    • Contributing to Audacity
      • Making Tutorials and User Guides
        • Style Guide
        • Editing through GitHub
        • Gitbook Markdown syntax
        • TODO
          • Untitled
          • ASIO in Audacity
          • Synchronizing Tracks
            • Keeping Tracks Synchronized
          • Using Macros to Automate Frequent Tasks
          • Using looping Playback
          • Mastering for Audio Books
          • How to use Audacity
          • Working with Tracks
      • Developing Audacity
      • Translating Audacity
      • Answering user questions
      • Testing the latest features
      • Finding & testing plugins
      • Credits & License
    • 💬Discord
    • 💬Forum
  • Additional resources
    • 📄Changelog
      • Audacity 3.7
      • Audacity 3.7.1
      • Audacity 3.7.2
      • Audacity 3.7.3
      • Older versions
        • Audacity 1.x
        • Audacity 2.x
          • Audacity 2.0.0
            • Audacity 2.0.1
            • Audacity 2.0.2
            • Audacity 2.0.3
            • Audacity 2.0.4
            • Audacity 2.0.5
            • Audacity 2.0.6
          • Audacity 2.1.0
            • Audacity 2.1.1
            • Audacity 2.1.2
            • Audacity 2.1.3
              • New features in Audacity 2.1.3
              • New features in Audacity 2.1.3 - Appendix
          • Audacity 2.2.0
            • New features in Audacity 2.2.0
            • New features in Audacity 2.2.0 - Appendix
            • Audacity 2.2.1
              • New features in Audacity 2.2.1
            • Audacity 2.2.2
              • New features in Audacity 2.2.2
          • Audacity 2.3.0
            • New features in Audacity 2.3.0
            • Audacity 2.3.1
              • New features in Audacity 2.3.1
            • Audacity 2.3.2
              • New features in Audacity 2.3.2
            • Audacity 2.3.3
              • New features in Audacity 2.3.3
          • Audacity 2.4.0
            • New features in Audacity 2.4.0
            • Audacity 2.4.1
              • New features in Audacity 2.4.1
            • Audacity 2.4.2
              • New features in Audacity 2.4.2
        • Audacity 3.0
          • New features in Audacity 3.0.0
          • Audacity 3.0.2
            • New features in Audacity 3.0.2
          • Audacity 3.0.3
            • New features in Audacity 3.0.3
          • Audacity 3.0.4
            • New features in Audacity 3.0.4
          • Audacity 3.0.5
        • Audacity 3.1
          • Audacity 3.1.1
          • Audacity 3.1.2
          • Audacity 3.1.3
        • Audacity 3.2
          • Audacity 3.2.1
          • Audacity 3.2.2
          • Audacity 3.2.3
          • Audacity 3.2.4
          • Audacity 3.2.5
        • Audacity 3.3
          • Audacity 3.3.1
          • Audacity 3.3.2
          • Audacity 3.3.3
        • Audacity 3.4
          • Audacity 3.4.1
          • Audacity 3.4.2
        • Audacity 3.5
          • Audacity 3.5.1
        • Audacity 3.6
          • Audacity 3.6.1
          • Audacity 3.6.2
          • Audacity 3.6.3
          • Audacity 3.6.4
    • Audacity Plugins
Powered by GitBook
LogoLogo

Get Audacity

  • Home
  • Download

Contribute

  • Tutorial makers
  • Translators
  • Testers
  • Developers

Audacity Help

  • Help & Tutorials
  • Manual
  • Help Forum

Resources

  • Plugins
  • Share your audio
  • Muse Hub

© Muse Group & contributors. Contents licensed under the Creative Commons-Attribution 4.0 license.

On this page
  • Fixing bad sections as they occur (Punch-and-roll recording)
  • Fixing a bad section afterwards
  • Related pages

Was this helpful?

Edit on GitHub
Export as PDF
  1. Repairing Audio Recordings

Re-recording a section

Punch-in repair of recordings is an easy and fast way to fix short sections of a recording by re-recording it.

PreviousNoise reduction & removalNextRemoving clicks & pops

Last updated 2 years ago

Was this helpful?

Fixing bad sections as they occur (Punch-and-roll recording)

Best Practice:

  • Make sure that Overdubbing is turned on in Transport > Transport Options.

  • Make sure that your latency settings are correct.

If your audio recording broke and you immediately noticed it (for example because you misspoke your script or had to cough), it is possible to stop the recording and immediately fix the mistake by using Punch-and-roll recording. To use it:

  1. Record as normal until you make the mistake.

  2. Stop the recording.

  3. Choose a splicing point by clicking into the audio before the mistake happens. For spoken content, this should be between words so you can drop in easier. Note: All audio on the track after the splicing point will be deleted.

  4. Start a Punch-and-roll recording with Transport > Recording > Punch and roll record (Shift+D). This will playback a couple of seconds of your recording so you can find the right rhythm and tone as before, and at the splicing point you set in step 3, it will switch to recording mode and make a crossfade.

  5. From here on out you can continue recording as usual. If you make the same mistake again, you can stop the recording and undo (Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) and try again. If you make another mistake later on, you can do another Punch and Roll recording by repeating the steps above.

Tip: You can change the amount of pre-roll audio and crossfade in the Preferences > Recording in the Punch and Roll recording section.

Fixing a bad section afterwards

If your audio recording broke at one specific point in time (for example because an ambulance drove by), but you only notice it after having recorded everything, it is possible to re-record this section using punch-in repair.

Best Practice:

  • Make sure that Overdubbing is turned on and Software Playthrough is turned off. Both settings can be found in Transport > Transport Options

  • Always create a backup of your project before editing it. For a continuous recording, this typically is best done by .

To use it:

  1. Select a couple of seconds of audio before and after the bad part. With overdubbing turned on, recording will playback the recording back to you and help you match the timing.

  2. Do the re-recording on a new track. To do this, Shift-click the record button or press Shift+R. It will automatically start recording from the beginning of your selection.

Related pages

  • To hide the cut a bit better, a crossfade may help: Making crossfades

  • You can use a similar technique to continuously fix mistakes as they occur during a recording session using Latency Compensation

Select the bad part of the recording and silence it. You can do this by clicking the Silence Audio Selection button (found next to the undo and cut/copy/paste buttons), or by pressing Ctrl+L (Cmd+L)

If your new take is slightly longer or shorter than the gap left in the original recording, you can split the clip:

#exporting-audio
Splitting up clips