Need Quick Start for Audacity

[solarblast]

Here's my situation. I have about 12 mp3 audio files I'd like to slice up and create about 40 files from the result. Each slice would carry a name like, gunshot, wind, engine, or whatever. Suppose the first file contains exactly those three sounds. How do I slice it up? It would be good to put markers at the end of each sound segment, so that I would know the ends. How do I slice? Suppose I know where the ends are, How do I get each succesive slice isolated and sent to a file?

[byteguy]

If there are only a couple of sounds in each file. Open them, select the bit you want, then use "File->Export selection" to write out that one bit. Then just drag over the next bit and do it again. Much faster than marking "sound a" "sound b" "sound c"

If you really really want to do it that way... MP3DirectCut lets you create cue-sheets and export them all in one action. But the names are set once and then numbers added. This won't be as usefull.

[redwudz]

Audacity works just like a word processor. You cut and paste your selections. You can put them in another track and save or just cut and save. You can also taper the audio level on the start and stop of the sound if needed. For saving as a MP3, you need to have LAME MP3 in your computer.

Documentation here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/

[solarblast]

How do I cut them? Is it with an s like in Vegas? Do I then select the first one, and then export it? Then select the next, and export it?

[redwudz]

You import the audio. Then you just select it with the mouse and highlight what you want. Then under 'File', 'Export selection as MP3'. Give it a name and a location and save it. You can also create a new track and cut and paste to it if you need to modify the audio clip. Creating a new track is done in 'Projects'.

You may want to expand the original track so you can see the individual clips easier. There is a magnifying tool in the upper left corner of the page. If you mess up anything, it won't damage the original file and you can always 'undo' your mistake. It also has a lot of functions you can use directly from the keyboard. It has quite a few other options, but you would have to read the tutorials.

It's a very good freeware audio editor. If you like it, drop the authors a note. They appreciate feedback and we need to encourage our freeware authors.

[solarblast]

Ah, Export as section. I was just using Export, and kept getting the whole file. I think I'm on my way now. Thanks to all. Yes, to freeware.