The Book of Audacity: Recording, Editing, Mixing, and Mastering with the Free Audio Editor

Brief Contents
Contents in Detail
Acknowledgments
Introduction
	What Can Audacity Do?
	What This Book Covers
	Audacity vs. Ardour
1: Audacity from Start to Finish
	Audacity Quick-Start
	Audacity in Detail
	Managing Audacity Projects
		Adding Audio FIles: Import vs. Open
		Saving Your Work
	Selecting Tracks and Segments of Tracks
	Track Panel
	Cutting Out Unwanted Chunks
	Fade In and Out
	Making Quiet Recordings Louder
	Timer Record and Sound Activated Recording
	Mixer Board
	Track Metadata
	Final Mixdown
	Audio File Formats and Quality Settings
		Understanding File Formats
		Understanding Bit Depth and Sampling Rate
		16/44.1, 24/96, 32-Bit Float
		Bitrate, Bit Depth, and File Size
	Now What?
2: Building a Good Digital Sound Studio on the Cheap
	Getting Sound In and Out of the Computer
		An Example Studio
		Sorting Out Connectors
	Multichannel Recording, PCI, USB, FireWire
	USB or FireWire?
	Microphones
		Polar Patterns
		Which Microphones for Which Occasions?
		Microphone Cables
		Smart Miking
	Microphone Preamp
	Speakers and Headphones
	Your Computer Must Have Muscle and Vast Drawers
	Operating Systems
	Portable Recording
	The Secret of Recording Your Own Great Audio
	Visit Appendix A
3: Transferring Vinyl LPs (and Other Legacy Media) to CD
	Preparing Vinyl LPs for Copying
	Eight Steps to Convering Records to CDs
	Audacity Settings
	Recording
	Fixing Defects
		Fade In, Fade Out
		Fixing Warps
		Fixing Skips and Pops
		Finding and Repairing Clipping
		Noise Removal
	Customizing Dynamic Range Compression
	Normalization
	Dividing a Long Track into Individual Songs
	Exporting to CD-Ready Files, One Long Audacity Track
	Exporting to CD-Ready Files, Multiple Audacity Tracks
	Writing Songs to a CD
	Copying Vintage 78s
	Connecting Legacy Devices to Your Computer
		Connecting a Turntable to Your Computer
		Connecting a Tape Deck
	Which Is Better: Vinyl, Tape, or CD?
		The Digital Advantage
		Longevity
4: Creating and Editing Live Tracks for CD
	Making Good Live Recordings
		Portable Digital Recorder
		Laptop with Audacity
		Multitrack Recording of a Live Performance
		Be Nice to the Sound Crews
	Audacity Settings for Recording
		Setting Recording Volume Levels
		Starting, Stopping, and Pausing Recording
		Monitoring Your Live Recording
	Editing Live Recordings
		Editing and Downmixing Multitrack Recordings
		Special CD Settings in Audacity
		Trimming
		Splitting Stereo Tracks for Surgical Repairs
		Fixing Clipping and Too-Loud Passages
		Noise Removal
		Compressing Dynamic Range
		Cutting a Single Long Track into Individual Song Tracks
		Creating Graceful Breaks Between Songs
		Normalization
	Optional Track Metadata
	Final Export
	Writing Your Songs to CD
		Labeling Your CD
		Mass CD Duplication
	Combining Songs from Different Recording Sessions, Fix-its, and Special Effects
5: Authoring a Compilation CD
	Audio CDs
		There Is Not a Special Audio CD
		Convert MP3s to Red Book CD
	CD Writers and Software
	Three Way to Author a CD Compilation in Audacity
		One Track per Song Project
		Single Audacity Track Compilation Project
		Single Audacity Track + CD-Mastering Program
		CD Cue Sheets and BIN Files
	Fixes and Cleanups
		Splitting Stereo Tracks for Surgical Repairs
		Normalization
		Making Graceful Fades and Song Breaks
	Configuring Audacity for Orange Book CDs
		Putting an Orange Book CD Collection Together
		File Formats and Quality Settings
	Computer Media Players
	Ripping CDs
	Ripping DVDs
6: Authoring Super High-Fidelity Audio DVDs
	What Are WAV, AIFF, and FLAC?
	DVD-Audio Overview
	Creating High-Quality Recordings in Audacity
		More Power
		What Bit Depth Is Best?
		What Sampling Rate Is Best?
		Saving Your Masters
		Creating 5.1 Surround
		Exporting to 16-Bit
		DVD-Audio Authoring Software
	Transferring Legacy Media
	Learn More
7: Creating Podcasts
	The Short Story
	Making a Simple Voicecast
		Audacity Settings
		Cleaning Up Your Recording
		Reducing Too-Tall Peaks
		Fades
		Normalization
	Export to MP3 or Ogg?
		Ogg Vorbis Quality Settings
		MP3 Quality Settings
		Other Lossy Formats
		Exporting Your Podcast
	Two-Person Podcasts
		Editing a Two-Track Recording as a Single Stereo Track
		Editing a Two-Track Recording as Two Mono Tracks
	Adding a Background Music Track
8: Becoming an Online Star
	File Formats and Audio Quality
	The Business of a Recording Artist
	Establishing an Online Presence
	Online Music Distributors
	Self-Hosting
		Selling Stuff Online
	To DRM or Not to DRM?
	Copyrights and Legal Issues
	Learn More
9: Multitrack Recording
	Tracks, Channels, and Clips
	How to Make Multitrack Recordings
	Playback Tips and Tricks
	Label Tracks
		Creating and Managing Labels
		Using Labels to Edit Multiple Tracks
	Aligning and Moving Tracks
		Link Tracks and Track Groups
		Time-Shifting Multiple Tracks at the Same Time
		Splitting Tracks
		Working with Clips
		Time-Shifting Inside Tracks
	Metronome Track
	Overdubbing
		Measuring and Fixing Latency
		Changing Tempo
	NTSC, PAL, and CDDA Frames
	Creating Loops
	Mixdown to Stereo
		Customizing the Mixer Board
		Too Loud! Clipping!
	Control Your Channel Mapping
		Multichannel Surround
10: Making Your Own Ringtones
	Customizing Audio for a Mobile Phone
	Applying Dynamic Range Compression
	Phone Audio File Formats
		RTTTL
	Proprietary Audio File Formats
	How to Transfer Files to Your Phone
11: Audacity Plug-ins for Special Effects
	Cross-Fades
	Generate Menu
		Sine Wave Example
		Frequency Frange of Generated Tones
		DTMF Tones
		Chirps
		Generating Noise
		Test Tones
		Click Track
		Pluck
		Risset Drum
	Effect Menu
		Reverberation
		Amplify
		Auto Duck
		Change Pitch
		Phaser
		Reverse
		Sliding Time Scale/Pitch Shift
		WahWah
	Linux Plug-ins
		Linux LADSPA Plug-ins
		Linux Nyquist Plug-ins
	Windows Plug-ins
	Audio Effects Glossary
12: Fix-its and Cleanups
	Split Stereo Tracks
	Repeat Last Effect
	Noise Removal
	Normalization
	Remove Clicks and Scratches
		Click Removal
		Repair
		Draw Tool
	Truncate Silence
	Change Tempo
	Change Pitch
	Change Speed
	Compress Dynamic Range
		How Much Dynamic Range?
		Compressor Settings
		Chris\'s Dynamic Compressor
		Leveller
	Equalization
	Fix Timing and Latency Errors
	Analyze Menu
13: Configuring Linux for Best Audio Quality
	Using Distributions with Real-Time Kernels
		Specialized Multimedia Linux Distributions
	Building a Real-Time Kernel
	Latency Is Not That Scary
	Sorting Out Linux Audio
	Using ALSA
		Setting Recording and Playback Levels in alsamixer
		Master vs. PCM
		Multiple Sound Cards
		Adjusting Volume Levels
	Hardware Testing with alsa-utils
		Testing Speakers
		Testing Recording
		ALSA Applications
	Querying Your Sound Card
	Using JACK with Audacity
		Connecting a FireWire Recording Interface
		Creating Persistent Configurations
		JACK Settings
	Turning PulseAudio and Phonon Off
	Linux System Tweaks
	The Tangled History of Linux Audio
	Sound Cards
14: Configuring Windows for Best Audio Quality
	Enabling MP3 Support
	Enabling WMA, M4A/M4P Support
	Low-Latency Recording and Audio Driver Fun
	Tuning Windows for Best Performance
		Tuning Windows XP
		Tuning Windows Vista and 7
	Configuring Windows Audio Devices
15: Customizing Audacity
	Customizing Audacity\'s Default Options
	Devices
	Playback
	Recording
	Quality
	Interface
	Tracks
	Import/Export
	Projects
	Libraries
	Spectrograms
	Directories
	Warnings
	Effects
	Keyboard and Mouse
Appendix A: Audio Hardware
	PCI, PCI-e, PCMCIA Sound Cards
		PCI
		PCI-e
		PCMCIA
	USB Recording Interfaces
	FireWire Recording Interface
	Stand Alone ADC/DACs
Appendix B: Glossary
	A-E
	F-J
	K-O
	P-T
	U-Z
Appendix C: Seven Myths of Digital Audio
	The Myth of the Golden Ear
	The Myth of Burn-In
	The Myth of Tube Superiority
	The Myth of Uber Cables
	The Myth of Analog Superiority
	The Myth That You Don\'t Need Tone Controls
	The Myth That Someone Else Knows Better Than You
References and Resources
	Books
	Online Resources
	Image Credits
	GNU Free Documentation License
Index