Getting loops

You can find loops all around the internet, including Muse Hub.

You also can manually convert a section of a song to a loop.

Adjusting loops to the project

When importing a loop to the project, Audacity will automatically attempt to match the tempo. If it's unable to, you can instead adjust the tempo yourself by holding Alt (macOS: Option)and dragging the edge of a clip to stretch it to fit.

Additionally, if the loop is in a different key to your project, you can also select a clip, and press Alt+↓↑ to adjust the pitch by semitones.

Repeating loops

Audacity does not feature a looping feature as known from traditional DAWs at this point. Instead, you can repeat via copy-pasting the loop, or using the Effects -> Special -> Repeat effect.

Causes

• Your microphone gain may be reduced. To fix this, see: Setting recording and playback levels

• You may be attempting to record a Bluetooth device at an unsupported sample rate. To fix this, see Audacity records silence when using a Bluetooth headset as a recording device

• You may be attempting to record a device which doesn't produce any sound. To fix this,

  • ensure that all parts of the device are connected properly (cables, microphone, interface, etc),

  • that microphones in need of phantom power are provided with that,

  • that no mute switches on any devices are turned on,

  • that no faders are turned down, and

  • that an input signal is being produced by the source.

Causes

This error occurs if you try to record an unsupported number of channels.

Fixes

Go to Audio Setup -> Recording channels and choose a different number of channels. Values which typically work are 1 (mono), 2 (stereo), and the highest number presented on the list. So for a 8 channel interface, 8 should work.

This error indicates a problem with the hardware used for playback, whether it is permissions, drivers, connections, or if you ask the device to do something it cannot do. You can attempt the following steps to resolve it.

Other names

• Error code 11

• Error code 13

• Error code 101

Causes

These errors may occur when the project you're trying to open is in a read-only location.

These errors may also occur when attempting to load a damaged .aup3 project file.

• Make sure Audacity has write access to the folder the file is located in, or move the project file to a different location.

• If your project is damaged, you can also try .

Causes

If you are on a low-end machine, this may be caused by insufficient resources, specifically memory.

This also can happen if you assign yourself a static IP in the hosts file.

Fixes

• Try closing other programs or restarting your computer to clear up memory.

• If you're using static IP assignments in the hosts file, simply commenting out the assignment may solve this.

Causes

This is caused by missing realtime effects.

Fixes

• You can replace any missing effects from the effects sidebar.

• Before opening a project on a new computer, ensure that all plugins you've used are in the same location as where they would've been in your old computer.

Causes

This error indicates that FFmpeg isn't loaded correctly.

Fixes

Restarting Audacity fixes this. If the problem persists, try reinstalling FFmpeg and Audacity.

Causes

Audible input monitoring usually causes a delay (latency) of the live recording input due to the time it takes to reach your headphones.

Fixes

To prevent this, turn input monitoring off. This can be done by choosing Transport > Transport Options > Enable audible input monitoring and clicking it to remove the check (tick) mark.

To listen to the live recording input without playthrough latency requires hardware monitoring - that is; the input signal must be routed directly through the audio device from the input to the output rather than being passed through software from input to output.

Causes

The default project sample rate in Audacity (and, indeed, most other devices) is 44100 Hz, whereas most Bluetooth headsets utilize different sample rates: 8000 Hz, 16000 Hz and, rarely, 24000 Hz.

Fixes

In order for Audacity to record audio from a Bluetooth headset, the sample rate must be set to a value supported by your Bluetooth device. To do that, go to Audio Setup -> Audio Settings and then set Project Sample Rate to a setting supported by your headset. Typically, this will be 16000 Hz. Make sure you record on a new track.

Causes

Most microphones are mono microphones, so they by default record on the left channel only.

Fixes

To hear your audio on both speakers, make sure you record in mono, and that the track is center-panned.

1. Connect your Microphone

You can connect your mic by plugging it into the appropriate port. In general, this means:

• If you have a USB mic, plug it into a USB port.

• If you have a mic with a 3.5mm jack, plug it into a mic-in port.

• If you have an XLR mic, plug it into an XLR-USB audio interface and the interface into the USB port.

How you will connect your microphone will depend on your computer model and your microphone. Use your manuals or support pages for further information. You may need adapters if your computer does not have the correct ports for your microphone.

Once you have plugged in your microphone into your computer, select the microphone to record from the list of available recording devices in the Audio Setup toolbar.

This toolbar may display some unexpected devices here (for example, webcams), as well as virtual devices (software pretending to be a microphone). Select the entry that matches the microphone you actually want to use. The Audio Setup toolbar will also allow you to select whether you'll be recording in Mono or Stereo.

Select the microphone icon and choose Start Monitoring (shown below) and tap your mic with your finger. If you see the green bar move when you tap the mic, you have selected the correct device in the previous step.

Then try to speak in a normal volume. In general, the volume should remain in the green zone throughout (in general, between -18 and -12 dB is best).

Next, make a test recording. To start recording your voice in Audacity, simply press the red record button.

When you have ended the recording, listen back to it. If everything went well, you should now hear your voice clearly. Once you hear your voice clearly, you should now be able to continue with the next steps.

If you run into trouble with any of these steps, you may find the solution here:

• Once you've made your recording, make sure to save your work. This applies regardless of whether you intend on editing it later or not.

• If you want to edit your recording afterwards:

The recording and playback levels can be set using the sliders in the Recording and Playback meter toolbars:

• The slider with the microphone icon sets the recording volume on a system level. If the operating system is prohibiting this action, this slider will be inactive.

• The slider with the speaker icon sets the playback volume relative to the system volume. It does not affect the volume of exported files, use the gain sliders on each track to edit those.

Audacity comes with 4 themes preinstalled: Light, Dark, Classic and High Contrast. You can switch between themes by going to Edit -> Preferences -> Interface (macOS: Audacity -> Preferences -> Interface)

Once you have chosen a theme, click OK to close the preferences dialog and load the new theme.

Custom themes commonly are distributed as files called ImageCache.png. You can find some custom themes here:

To install a custom theme, place the ImageCache.png in the following folders. You may create the folders if they aren't present.

When you select an effect to apply to your audio (for example Effect > Noise Removal & Repair > Noise Gate...) Audacity will show you the effect settings window where you can change the different values according to your needs.

After you find the settings that best suit your needs you can use the Presets & settings button to save your settings for future use:

• Click the Presets & settings button and select Save preset...

The click removal effect can automatically remove clicks across an entire track.

To use it:

1. Select the audio you want to remove the clicks from. Tip:

2. Go to Effect > Noise Removal and Repair > Click Removal

If you have two clips in one track you'd like to crossfade, you can use Crossfade Clips effect. To use it:

1. Have two clips in one track.

2. Select the region you'd like to apply the crossfade to. Try to select roughly the same amount of time in both clips.

You can change the pitch of a clip by selecting the clip, and then pressing Alt+↓↑ to change the pitch by a semitone. Alternatively, you also can click on the overflow menu (...) in the top right of the clip, and then Pitch and Speed... to change it via a dialog. You can also use the dialog to change the pitch by cents instead of just semitones.

Once you have changed the pitch, the clip will have an indication of how much it's been changed:

You can change pitch at any time by clicking on the indicator, or reset it by Ctrl+clicking it (macOS: Cmd+clicking) .

While Audacity does not have any pitch correction natively, you can use plugins such as for this task. See and on how to use these plugins.

A high can lead to quiet parts of a track being too quiet compared to its loud parts, causing the listener to constantly adjust the volume to keep things at an acceptable level. Audacity has several tools to help reduce the dynamic range and increase the loudness of a track.

This effect can be found in Effect -> Volume and Compression -> Compressor.

The compressor can be used to reduce the dynamic range by a certain ratio for all sounds that exceed the threshold. Doing so will make the resulting audio quieter, so you need to add make-up gain to make up for that - or, alternatively, normalize your track in a second step. The knee width and smoothing parameters are there to reduce distortion. .

A limiter is effectively identical to a compressor, with the difference that it's much harsher: While a compressor uses a low ratio and may let a sound exceed the line drawn on the curve temporarily, a limiter does not allow any sound to exceed the threshold.

You can enable a more musical view in Audacity as follows:

1. Right-click the Timeline Ruler and select Beats and Measures.

2. In the Time widget, select beats, or for more subdivisions, beats and 16th.

This error indicates that the device that's being attempted to use is not valid, for example:

• The device got unplugged

• The device has a faulty or loose connection

• The device itself is faulty or not a real audio device.

This error can indicate an unsupported sample rate.

This error can also occur when using Audacity on Windows to record a track while listening another existing track (also known as overdubbing) with Windows WASAPI as the Host if the sample rate of the recording device is different than the sample rate of the playback device.

This error can also occur when you are trying to record a number of channels that is not supported in the current configuration.

• Double-check that both your OS settings and the Audacity project rate are set to a supported sample rate (usually 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz).

This error means "something is wrong", most commonly

• A lost connection to a USB audio device

• Missing microphone permissions from the operating system.

• Your device is unable to playback other tracks while recording.

This error occurs when the file you're trying to open has no decoder available.

This may be caused by several things:

• The FFmpeg library may be missing.

• Modules which handle importing of the file may be missing or disabled.

This is caused by an unexpected system state. Specifically, macOS typically allows allocation of 32 instances of shared memory, out of which Audacity requires one to start. However, other apps on your computer may have filled up these allocations, in which case Audacity cannot start.

• Rebooting the computer generally resolves it as it clears the shared memory.

• You also can edit the macOS kernel to allow for more shared memory, but this is a very technical process. Essentially, various shared memory limits need to be increased. (Catalina) or (Sonoma) may have further instructions.

The setup program may return one of the following exit codes:

By default, Audacity doesn't play back the input.

Go to Transport -> Transport Options -> Enable audible input monitoring.

If you hear crackles, pops, or distortion when the recording is loud, or if the waveform is clearly touching the top and bottom edges of the track, you probably have clipping, which means that the signal has exceeded the maximum allowed level.

Try lowering the recording level using the recording slider or the slider in the operating system.

You can also check to see if you can lower the volume on the input source itself (such as the tape deck, record player or microphone). Many sound cards and USB turntables or USB tape decks have an independent volume control for the playback signal level. See Recording with USB turntables or USB cassette decks for more help with USB turntables or tape decks.

When recording, try to aim for a maximum peak of around –6 dB in the Recording Meter so as to prevent the meter's red clipping warning coming on. If the meters are set to linear, the equivalent level to aim for is 0.5. Clicking and dragging on the meter's right edge lets you expand the meter to gauge levels more easily. After recording, you can boost the level safely using the Amplify or Normalize effects.

This is a visual indication that your recording has . See for more information.

The vertical red lines show where the clipping has occurred; these clipping indicators can be turned on and off (Audacity default setting is "off") by selecting View -> Show Clipping in Waveform.

The recording slider is purposely disabled if it cannot directly manipulate the operating system's slider for the sound device, or if that device has no system slider. Turning down the Audacity slider to prevent distortion would be inadequate unless it also turned down the system slider. It would only make existing distortion quieter instead of removing it.

• If the slider is disabled, check first via Audio Setup -> Recording devices that you are selecting the correct device. Audacity should be able to control the recording level of most built-in sound devices subject to the device having appropriate Sound Device Drivers.

• External recording devices such as USB turntables or tapedecks or interfaces may not have an operating system slider, especially on Mac. For all cases where there is no system slider, try to adjust the playback level on the recording device itself.

(this probably is a category on its own, but let's write it on this page for now)

• Making new tracks

• Use case: spoken word with music in the background

If you know Audacity well, but don't want to , you can help users out directly. The most active communities in this regard are:

• The ,

• the , and

We maintain a list of free VSTs and similar plugins on plugins.audacityteam.org. You can find, test and add plugins to the list.

To do this, you can get access to the plugins space via and then edit the relevant sections.

Exact details can be found here:

Uninstalling OpenVINO models can be done in the following manner:

Windows

Go to the Windows Settings -> Apps -> Installed Apps and uninstall OpenVINO AI Plugins for Audacity.

Alternatively, you can go to C:\Program Files\Audacity and remove the openvino-models folder, along with modules\mod-openvino.dll.

macOS

Go to /Library/Application Support/audacity/ and remove the openvino-models folder, along with modules/mod-openvino.dylib.

Pages under this section are just stubs. Feel free to work on them. Check out the Style Guide and Making Tutorials and User Guides for more info

From https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering

• Synchronizing with claps

• https://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/man/Rhythm_Track

☁️ Saving projects to cloud

To save a project to the cloud, first go to File -> Save to Cloud. In the dialog that follows, click Link Account.

You will be guided through the audio.com signup process, and finally given an option to link your audio.com account to Audacity.

Once you have linked your audio.com account to Audacity, simply enter the project name and hit Save. The project will now be uploaded in the background.

For the first time you save, you'll be asked how often you want to generate a mixdown. The mixdown is used to preview the file on audio.com. If you don't intend on collaborating with others, it may not be necessary to generate mixdowns. You can change your preference at any time in Edit -> Preferences -> Cloud.

Saving projects to the computer (.aup3)

You can save projects using the File -> Save Project -> Save Project menu.

A saved project has the most information about your project available. If you save a project, you can change later on, or untrim clips.

You can export your project into an audio file using the File -> Export Audio... menu item. Exported audio files can be opened with a wide variety of programs.

With Audacity 3.2 you can quickly share audio online using the new service audio.com. To do this, simply click the Share Audio button.

You can now upload your audio by pressing Continue. If you'd like to link an existing audio.com first, you can do that by clicking Link Account.

Audacity will now prepare the track for upload and upload your audio.

After your audio has been uploaded, press Continue. You will be taken to the audio.com website.

On audio.com you now can either create an account to use this with, or copy the anonymous link. To share the link,

1. Close the sign up panel,

2. click the share button (shown below) and

3. select Copy Link

You now can share your audio by sending this link to people.

Linking your audio.com account to Audacity lets you get the sharable link from Audacity itself. To link your account,

1. Press the Share Audio button. Note: You need to have some sort of audio present in your project for this button to work

2. Your browser will open audio.com

3. Login or sign up if you aren't yet logged in

Noise Reduction

The Noise Reduction effect works best to remove a constant source of noise, like the hiss of fans, the hum of fridges, or whines, whistles and buzzes.

To use it, use the following steps:

1. Locate a section of your recording that's just your background noise, preferably a few seconds long, and select it.

2. Go to Effects > Noise Reduction and press the "Get noise profile" button.

3. Select all the audio for which you want to reduce the noise.

4. Go to Effects > Noise Reduction again. You now can tweak the settings of the reduction to your liking. Tip: While tuning the settings, use the "Residue" toggle to hear what sound will be removed.

5. Once you're satisfied with the result, click OK to apply it to the selected audio. Note: If you used the Residue toggle before, make sure to switch it back to Reduce before pressing OK.

The Noise Gate effect attenuates any sound quieter than a certain threshold while leaving sounds louder completely unaffected. To use it

1. Select a part of the audio that's just background noise.

2. Go to Effects > Noise Gate... to open the effect.

3. Click Select Function: Analyse Noise Level and press OK. Audacity will now tell you where your noise level lies and recommending a threshold.

The notch filter removes a hum or whistle at a specific frequency. To use it:

1. Select the audio you want to apply the effect on

2. Go to Effects > Notch Filter to open the effect.

3. Enter the frequency you want to reduce, together with the Q-value (how many frequencies around the main one you want it to affect - the higher the number, the less frequencies).

Audacity provides you with two different built-in normalization effects available through the Effect -> Volume and Compression menu:

• Loudness Normalization

• Normalize

Normalize

Normalize is a peak normalization effect which apply gain or reduction to the selected audio so the level of the peak is changed to the desired level. You set the desired level of the peak (in dBFS) before applying the effect. This effect does not take into account the perceived loudness of the selected audio only the desired peak level.

By comparison Loudness Normalization will calculate the perceived loudness of the selected audio and then apply gain or reduction to the audio so a desired loudness level is reached. You set the desired loudness (in LUFS, Loudness Units relative to Full Scale).

To apply Loudness Normalization:

• Select the region containing the audio that you want to normalize. It could be an audio clip or the entire track.

• Click Effect -> Volume and compression -> Loudness Normalization... to open the Loudness Normalization window

• Set the target loudness in LUFS units using the Normalize perceived loudness to field.

• Keep Normalize stereo channels independently disabled If you are normalizing a stereo track (Left and Right channels) with the audio levels already balanced as this mode will preserve its original stereo balance.

• Disable Treat mono as dual-mono (recommended) if you are normalizing a mono track.

Detecting tempo (BPM)

To align music to the beats and bars grid, you first need to know the tempo of the song, usually measured in beats per minute (BPM).

• If you're recording music on your own, try playing to a metronome to ensure you stay in tempo.

• If you're using music downloaded from the web, try figuring out its tempo. In some cases, a web search for song title ``tempo is sufficient.

• You also can download a bpm detection plugin. The features several tempo detection plugins, such as:

  • IBT - INESC Beat Tracker

  • Simple Fixed Tempo Estimator form the Vamp SDK example library

Audacity will snap the beginning of the clip to the beats and bars grid, depending on your tempo and snapping setting. If your first beat doesn't start exactly at the start of the clip, you can trim the beginning of the clip. To trim a clip, simply drag the upper edge of it inwards.

Once you have everything set up and snapping enabled, simply dragging your clips will align them to the beat and bars grid.

Once you have aligned your music, you can get started with adding loops and other content to the project

Using AI to separate vocals

You can use the Intel OpenVINO Music Separation plugin to separate vocals from music. To do that, first download and install the plugin as described here.

Once installed and Audacity is restarted, you can find it in Effect -> OpenVINO AI Effects -> OpenVINO Music Separation.

Here, choose the appropriate separation mode. The 2 stem - Instrumental and Vocal works well on most songs, while the 4 stem version can be useful to extract only drums and bass, if a song happens to feature these instruments.

The Inference Device setting lets you choose what processor should do the work:

• CPU always works, but is typically slowest

• GPU is typically fastest on high-end computers

• NPU can only be used on modern Intel processors, and is similarly fast as GPU.

A faster, but typically less reliable method of removing vocals is to take advantage of their typical position in a stereo field

1. Select Split Stereo to Mono from the stereo audio track dropdown menu

2. After splitting the stereo track you will end up with 2 mono tracks similar to this:

3. Invert one of the mono tracks by selecting it and then choosing Effect -> Invert

This will remove everything panned in the center, not just vocals and returns a dual mono result (both channels have the same audio). In some music this could mean removing instrumental parts. Removal of the vocals can often be incomplete leaving artifacts behind; this is especially true where there are backing vocals or where reverb (echo) has been applied as this spreads sound sources and makes them very hard to extract from each other.

To use AI models in Audacity, you first need to download the current alpha with this feature from

Once you have installed this version, you can download and apply AI models via Effects → Deep Learning Effects.

Audacity can record and playback audio on your Windows PC using one of the following three alternative interfaces:

• MME

• Windows DirectSound

• Windows WASAPI

ASIO (Audio Stream Input / Output) is an additional proprietary interface to record and playback audio in Microsoft Windows. ASIO bypasses the Windows audio mixing components to provide lower latency direct communication between computer audio software and hardware. Most audio recording interfaces manufacturers provide a driver to support ASIO.

• ASIO supports 24-bit sampling which is only otherwise available using or WDM-KS (Windows Driver Model Kernel Streaming). 24-bit sampling allows greater dynamic range, lower theoretical and greater resolution at lower audible volumes.

• An unmixed ASIO output is "bit identical" to the original source.

• Multiple physical input and output channels of the hardware are accessed over one single device.

Windows interface protocol support multi-channel recording on some sound devices, but not the very low latencies that are possible on ASIO.

Due to patent restrictions, FFmpeg cannot be distributed with Audacity itself. However, FFmpeg is required to import and export a variety of audio formats, including M4A and WMA.

You can download and install FFmpeg as follows:

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.

You can add realtime effects using the following steps:

To add master effects, first open the realtime effects panel (Shortcut: E). At the bottom of the panel, you'll find a Master Effects section.

Master effects are effects which are applied to the master mix (that is, after all the individual tracks in the project are mixed together, with any per-track realtime effects as well as gain and pan faders applied).

You can change the effect settings by clicking on the effect's name. This will open a settings window, often with a graphical interface which looks nothing like Audacity itself. You still can interact with the main Audacity window while the effect settings are open.

In Audacity 3.4 and onwards, holding Alt (macOS: Option) while hovering over the edge of a clip shows a clock cursor (shown below). Once it appears, dragging the edge inwards or outwards lets you change the speed of a clip. This action is repeatable as many times as you like.

To change the speed to precise values, right-click the clip header and select "Change Speed". This will open a dialog in which you can type in a number.

Additionally, if you want to render the stretching, that option is in the same right-click menu.

You can change the speed of an entire project over time using Time Tracks. To add one, go to

Audio loops are a type of music that plays a few bars on repeat over and over. They can be created by taking a sample out of pre-existing content and looping it seamlessly.

To enable playback looping, simply click onto the loop button (1). When you do this, you'll note the blue looping region appear in the timeline (2). You can move the region and it's in and out point individually by dragging it.

When making a loop out of music, you often will be able to see repetitions in the waveform as your source material will probably contain some loop already (for example a drummer playing the same beat throughout the song). You can use these to roughly find good looping regions and position your looping region above it.

To make the loop seamless, you may need to zoom in some more, using Ctrl+Scroll

If you see an error when importing an MP3 file, it can have the following causes:

• Your file isn't using the MP3 codec, but instead is using a codec associated with another file extension (for example, the Advanced Audio Codec (aac) usually is found in .m4a files, and PCM Wave is usually found in .wav files). A true MP3 file will show MPEG Audio, Version 1, Layer 3. To solve this error, you can use to find out what the actual codec used in the file, and change the file extension accordingly (for example rename the audio.mp3 file to audio.m4a).

Audacity does not come with any group policies or installers intended for institution-scale deployment at this time. However:

• Audacity is distributed through WinGet. You may be able to incorporate a into your deploy script.

• Audacity doesn't require installation; the standalone ZIP can simply be copied anywhere.

Audacity is largely accessible. A usage guide can be found in the sidebar; a VPAT document can be found at .

Audacity is translated into multiple languages by volunteers across the world. You can contribute using Transifex.

You can find and join the Audacity project at

• Click the JOIN THIS PROJECT button on the right side.

• Select the language you would like to contribute to from the dropdown.

You can reset Audacity by going to the following menus:

• To reset the toolbars only: View -> Toolbars -> Reset Toolbars

• To reset everything: Tools -> Reset Configuration

If you cannot open Audacity or want a more thorough cleanup, you can also delete the configuration files manually. They can be found in the following locations:

TODO

If you connect an external audio device (such as a USB microphone or USB headset) to your computer while Audacity is already running, it won't be detected automatically by Audacity.

To solve this, make sure the device is detected by the operating system, then go to Audio Setup -> Rescan Audio Devices . The new device should appear as an option on the Recording or Playback device selection dropdown in the Device toolbar.

This error indicates a problem with the hardware used for recording, whether it is permissions, drivers, connections, or if you ask the device to do something it cannot do.

You can attempt the common troubleshooting steps to attempt to resolve it

1. Select the loopback device

Recording the desktop audio will record all desktop audio, including notification-pings, games, and Audacity itself (for example, other tracks in the timeline if you're using overdub). So unless you specifically want these noises, make sure to turn them off.

Hit play to ensure audio is playing and then the record button to record your desktop audio.

You can download various plugins here:

Most plugins get automatically activated once you install them on your system.

Manually installing plugins

If a plugin doesn't get found by Audacity, or doesn't come with an installer, move the plugin files to one of the following locations:

To install a Nyquist Plugin, follow these steps:

1. Download the plugin(s) in question.

2. Open Audacity, and go to Tools > Nyquist Plugin Installer

3. Click Browse and locate your downloaded plugin(s)

1. Go to Tools > Plugin Manager

2. Select the plugins or effects you want to deactivate

3. Click Disable.

Using the Track Controls

You can adjust volume and panning per track on the left-hand side of any track:

Using the Mixer Board

You can access the Mixer Board via View > Mixer Board.

This shows all track controls side-by-side, with a volume slider on the left per track, as well as per-track volume meters.

By default, the icon for each track is the Audacity logo, but it can be changed if the track name contains the following keywords:

Once you have your changes to mixing, panning and other real-time effects final and want to apply them onto the waveform itself, you can render the mix using Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render. This replaces all selected tracks with the mix. If you have used many tracks and real time effects, this may considerably improve performance.

Spectrogram View

Each track in Audacity can be viewed in a Spectrogram view:

To access it, click on the track menu dropdown and select Spectrogram.

The track menu also features Spectrogram settings, where you can tweak the scale, the colors, the used algorithms and the window size.

Increasing Accuracy in Spectrogram View

You may notice that the spectrogram is somewhat blurry usually, where even if you have a precise frequency, the spectrogram makes it look like a whole range of frequencies is being played. This is an inherent mathematical tradeoff related to the window size:

Depending on what you're after, you can change the window size to fit your analysis: Smaller window sizes benefit time resolution, larger window sizes benefit frequency resolution.

You can change both the window size and the algorithm in the spectrogram settings found in the Track Menu dropdown.

You can zoom vertically in Spectrogram View by right-clicking the frequency scale.

Additionally, while hovering over the frequency scale, you can

• Ctrl+Scroll to zoom in/out on the frequency scale and

• Shift+Scroll to scroll up/down while staying on the same zoom level.

To use Plot Spectrum,

1. select the audio you're interested in analyzing

2. go to Analyze -> Plot Spectrum.

• Spectrum (default) Plots the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the data, with the FFT window size being determined by the Size dropdown. The amplitudes are normalized such that a 0 dB sine (pure tone) will be (approximately) 0 dB on the graph.

• Autocorrelation These options measure to what extent the sound repeats itself. This is done by taking two copies of the audio, and moving one forward by one sample. The two copies are then multiplied together, and all the values added up. This is repeated for two samples difference and so on, up to the number of samples in the size option. This gives a small result if the waveform is random (for example, noise) and a large result if it is repetitive (like a musical note). By looking at the peaks in the plot, the key frequencies present can be determined even if there is a lot of noise.

Function offers choices like Rectangular, Hann, Hamming and others. We suggest you use the default Hann for most situations.

Click the Export... button to export the current view as a tab-separated value text file.

Audacity supports the Vamp plugin format among others. Many of them can be found in the .

Writing Tutorials and User Guides

Audacity welcomes contributions to both Audacity 3.x and , whether it's a small spelling correction or an entirely new guide. If you're not sure what to start with, check out some good first issues:

Gitbook works a bit like a wiki in that you can edit all pages freely, but unlike a wiki, it uses git's "everyone has their own branch" principle. That is to say that the changes you make are independent of everyone else's changes, and won't show up on the main (live) website until the branches are merged.

To some degree, this means that you can do whatever you want in your branch. That said, there's some things which make things easier for everyone involved:

When editing on Gitbook, you can edit existing pages, but you cannot create new ones. If you'd like to make a page about a new topic, write to LWinterberg in the discord server. You also can hand in Markdown files or Word documents to him directly to add. This restriction does not apply when Editing through GitHub, however, there are other technical oddities when editing through GitHub.

Making Video Tutorials

Video tutorials are highly appreciated as part of a guide. You can upload them to YouTube (or Vimeo/Dailymotion/...) and embed them in your guides, or in other people's guides, like this:

We have some requirements for which video tutorials are accepted into Audacity Support pages (see the for more info)

Causes

Recording gaps are typically caused by an overloaded computer, or by broken cables and connectors.

Computer load

Audacity is for the most part a single-core application. On modern multi-core systems it typically isn't possible to bring it down with normal computer use, but it may be bottlenecked by hard drive access, and by creating very complex projects with many realtime effects.

You may be able to see the bottleneck in the performance tab of the task manager (macOS: activity monitor). Typical bottlenecks are CPU or storage.

Broken cables and connectors

There are several parts on the path between a mic and Audacity which can break: The mic itself, the cable, the port for the cable on the computer, and the computer itself.

Fixes

Reducing computer load

Reducing CPU load

• Close all other programs which aren't necessary to run for your recording task.

• Increase the buffer length in Audio Setup -> Audio Settings.

• Disable playback of other tracks, as well as input monitoring during recording (Transport -> Transport options -> Hear other tracks during recording and Enable audible input monitoring)

• End background tasks, or wait for them to finish. These often may be antivirus scans, system updates or updates of other applications (like games).

• Render all tracks in Audacity via Tracks -> Mix -> Mix and Render.

• Shrink the size of the Audacity window and zoom out.

• Record to a hard drive which still has a lot of capacity.

• End background tasks, or wait for them to finish. These often may be antivirus scans, system updates or updates of other applications (like games).

• Record to a hard drive which is directly attached to the computer (as opposed to a USB hub or similar).

• Try using a different cable.

• Try plugging the cable into a different port on the computer

• Try using a different microphone.

• Try using a different computer.

Audacity is an audio editor with limited DAW functionality. As such, we expect and test for the following uses:

• Recording audio, including digitizing analog media

• Applying effects to alter or enhance audio

• Installing plugins to extend Audacity's functionality

• Analyzing audio

• Producing podcasts, audio books, songs, and other audio works

• Saving projects to disk or the audio.com cloud

• Exporting projects into various file formats.

Audacity can be used in a wide variety of other scenarios as well. However, while we appreciate you finding more uses for Audacity than we initially anticipated, these scenarios are untested, and you may use them at your own risk:

• Using Audacity as a HEX editor.

• Using Audacity with non-audio files ("data bending").

• Using a cloud sync service other than audio.com for open projects. This is due to Audacity's project format creating as part of its normal operations, which generic cloud sync services may struggle with syncing adequately. As a result, the use of cloud services other than audio.com may result in data corruption.

A batch processing Macro to compress and normalize files then convert them to MP3:

1. Insert to reduce the of each WAV, also normalizing them to maximum of 0

2. Insert Export as MP3 to convert them to format

This article addresses the following error codes in Audacity:

• Error code 11

• Error code 13

• On Windows open the Edit menu and select Preferences... or press Ctrl + P in your keyboard. On macOS open the Audacity menu and select Preferences... or press Cmd + P

• Select Devices in the left pane of the Preferences window

These help articles have been created by the following people:

• Leo Wattenberg

• Gonzalo Guzmán

Testing Audacity is one of the best ways to find bugs.

You can download the latest master build from . These builds reflect the state the master branch. Anything in the master branch has passed at least a quick round of QA to validate that the features the change touched still work for the common use cases.

Before features go into the master branch, they live in . Each pull request comes with its own builds, available through the "Checks" tab inside the PR and then the "Artifacts" dropdown in the top right. Additionally, you can get builds which are still in development from . Both methods require a Github account.

When you do find something that breaks, make sure to (or comment on the pull request that introduces the bug if it's unmerged)!

Before each release, a branch is split off master named "release-x.x.x". This release branch contains all features which will be part of the next Audacity release. Bug fixes which go towards this release will be made inside this branch. You can get builds for it via