Audacity 3.0.0 and 3.0.2 Guide

A guide for users of the Jaws, NVDA, and Narrator screen readers, written by David Bailes. More guides are available on the Jaws Guides page of the VIP Software Guides website. Although these are written specifically for users of the Jaws screen reader, many of them may also be useful to users of other screen readers.

New version of audacity now available

The remainder of this guide is for versions 3.0.0 and 3.0.2 of Audacity. However, version 3.4.2 of Audacity, which contains new features and bug fixes, is now available from the Windows download page of Audacity's website. There's also a guide for this new version: Audacity 3.4.2 guide.

Contents

Introduction

This is a guide for the 3.0.0 and 3.0.2 versions of Audacity, which is a free multi-track audio editor. You can use it for recording, simple editing of single tracks, or more advanced editing involving multiple tracks. Several bugs with were present in version 3.0.0 have been fixed in version 3.0.2

You can download Audacity 3.0.2 using the following link: Audacity 3.0.2 installer.

The remaining sections of the introduction are as follows. There are introductions to Projects and the cursor in Audacity, and descriptions of the welcome message box, and how to get help. There is then an outline of some new features and changes which were introduced in Audacity 3.0.0 and which are covered in this guide. There are then sections on Audacity's two sets of default shortcuts, some advice if you are using a non US/UK keyboard, and details of where to get the Jaws script for Audacity.

Projects

The objects which Audacity edits are known as projects. So projects are equivalent to documents in Microsoft Word, and workbooks in Microsoft Excel.

An Audacity project simply consists of a number of tracks, and there are a number of different types of track in Audacity: audio, label, and time. However, time track are not accessible to users of screen readers, and so won't be described in this guide. For many simple tasks you'll probably only have one track in a project.

You can save an Audacity project using the Audacity project file format, and this preserves all the tracks in the project. However, you only need to save a project in this format if you intend to continue working on the project in the future.

Cursor

Audacity has a cursor to specify a particular time during the audio, and this is similar to the cursor in Microsoft Word. The cursor in Audacity is used for defining times such as: the start of playback, the position where you want to start selecting a time range, and the place where audio is pasted from the clipboard.

Welcome message box

When you open Audacity, a Welcome message box opens, and this contains an HTML window which contains some information on how to obtain help for Audacity. Unfortunately the links in this text can't be opened using keyboard navigation, but details of the available help are given in the next section. The message box also contains a “Don't show this again at start up” check box. To stop the message box appearing in future, just check the check box, and press the OK button.

Help

Audacity is an extremely powerful program, and this is only an introductory guide. For more information see:

New features and changes

The new features and changes which were introduced in Audacity 3.0.0 and which are covered in this guide include:

Default shortcuts

If you run Audacity 2.2.0 or later in a user account where versions of Audacity before 2.2.0 have not been run, then by default, there are less shortcuts available than in those earlier versions of the program. However, you can change to using a fuller set of shortcuts, and this is described in the Standard and full sets of default shortcuts section of the Preferences section. The remainder of this guide assumes you are using the full set.

Using keyboards other than US, UK, or Irish

If you're using a keyboard other than a US, UK, or Irish keyboard, then a couple of important keystrokes won't work if you're using Audacity's default settings. To fix this, see the The left and right bracket shortcuts on keyboards other than US, UK or Irish section, which is in the Customizing section.

Jaws Script

There's a Jaws script for Audacity, and its uses include giving additional feedback, and providing convenient ways of obtaining information. Full details of its functionality can be found on the Jaws Script for Audacity website. A direct link to the installer for a beta version of version 2.2.2 of this script is: Jaws-Script-for-Audacity_2_2_2-beta-2020-06-21.exe.

Note that for those using Jaws, the remainder of the guide does not assume that this script is installed.

Main window

Main components

Moving around the window

Reading the status bar

If you're using Jaws or NVDA, you can read Audacity's status bar using the screen reader's standard keystroke for reading a status bar. Unfortunately, Narrator doesn't currently have a command to read the status bar. However if the track view is the focus, then you can move to the first field of the status bar by pressing Narrator key + Right arrow, and return to the track view by pressing Narrator key + Left arrow.

Opening an audio file

To open either an audacity project file or a standard audio file, use the Open dialog, which is on the File menu (Ctrl + O). The dialog's title is “Select one or more audio files...”, and its structure is similar to the standard Windows XP Open dialog. The types of standard audio files which Audacity can open described in the next section.

When you first open Audacity, the window contains an empty track view table, and so when you open an audio file, it opens in this initial window. After opening a standard audio file, the track view table contains a single track, whereas after opening an Audacity project file, the track view table contains all the tracks in the saved project. If you then open any other audio files, then they each open in a new window. (If you want to deliberately create a new window with an empty project, choose New from the File menu, or press Ctrl + N.)

In addition to opening standard audio files, you can also import one or more standard audio files into the current project. In this case, a new track is added to the track view table for each of the files. For details, see the Importing audio files section.

Opening standard audio files

The default installation of Audacity can open audio files in the following standard formats: WAV, AIFF, AU, MP3, MP2/MPEG, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC. In addition, you can open files in some other formats, including wma and m4a if you download and install the FFmpeg library, as described in the FFmpeg library section. This is not included in the installation of Audacity due to legal issues about patents.

Saving audio

You can save the audio in a project in either the audacity project format, or one of the standard audio formats, as described in the following sections. The Audacity project format preserves all the tracks in the project. You only need to save a project in the audacity project format if you intend to continue working on the project in the future. In contrast, when you save in one of the standard audio formats, Audacity automatically mixes all the tracks down to a single track.

When you close Audacity, if you haven't saved your changes to an Audacity project file, then a Save changes? dialog opens asking you whether you want to save changes before closing. The default button is Yes, but unless you want to save the project as an Audacity project file, just Tab to the NO button and press it.

Saving audio in the audacity project format

To save in this format, open the File menu, open the Save Project sub menu, and choose Save Project (Ctrl + S). The first time you do this, you get a Warning dialog box telling you that only Audacity can read these project files. The dialog box contains a check box which you can check if you don't want this warning again. If you press the OK button, you then get a Save Project As dialog.

Saving audio in one of the standard audio formats

The default installation of Audacity can save in the following standard formats: WAV, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and MP2. In addition, you can save in some other formats, such as wma and m4a, if you download and install the FFmpeg library, which is not included with Audacity because of legal issues with patents. Details of how to do this are given in the FFmpeg library section.

To save audio in one of the standard audio formats:

  1. To save all the audio, open the File menu, open the Export sub menu, and choose Export Audio (Ctrl + Shift + E). Alternatively, to save only the selected audio, choose Export Selected Audio from the same sub menu.
  2. The Export Audio dialog opens, and its structure is very similar to a standard Windows XP Save As dialog. The folder where the file will be saved is shown in the Save in combo box (Alt + I). When the dialog opens this folder is set to the folder which you used last time you exported audio. If it's the first time, then the folder is an Audacity folder in your documents folder, which is automatically created for you by Audacity. If necessary change the folder where the file will be saved.
  3. To set the file format which you want to use for saving the audio, there's a Save as type combo box, which is the next control after the File name edit box. Note that all the formats which use the FFmpeg library, have FFmpeg in parenthesis after their name.
  4. Optionally, after choosing the file format, you can set the options for the encoding used by that format by tabbing to the controls which appear after the Cancel button.
  5. In the File name edit box type a name for the file, and then press the Save button (Alt + S). An Edit Metadata tags dialog opens.
  6. This dialog enables you to edit various items of information about the audio data, such as the Artist name, and the Track title, and is described in detail in the Metadata tags editor section later in the guide. If you don't want to edit any of the information, then you can just press Enter to press the default OK button. Note that if you cancel the dialog, as well as cancelling any edits in this dialog, this also cancels the saving of the audio. If you don't want the Edit Metadata tags dialog to automatically open each time you save audio, then you can turn this option off, as described in the Edit Metadata Tags dialog opens during export section, which is in the Preferences section.
  7. Note that if you've tried to save in any of the formats included in the FFmpeg library, then a message box opens telling you that it needs to be configured.

The Export (or the Save Other) sub menu on the File menu also contains commands for opening dialogs for Exporting as MP3, Wav, and OGG. These commands open the Export Audio dialog with the Save as type combo box already set to the appropriate format. However, given that the Export Audio dialog remembers the last format that was used, and that the more specific commands do not have default shortcuts, you may find is more convenient just to use the Export Audio dialog.

Playback

Playback settings

You can select the playback device which Audacity uses in a number of places, including the Upper toolbars section of Audacity's main window and the Devices category of the Preferences dialog. If you only have one playback device on your computer, you shouldn't need to change the setting.

The volume of the playback is controlled by playback volume slider which is in the Upper toolbars section of Audacity's main window.

To change either of these settings in the Upper toolbars section of the main window, assuming that the Track view is the current focus:

  1. Press Ctrl + F6 twice to move to the Upper toolbars section
  2. Tab or Shift + Tab until you get to either the Playback device combo box or the Playback volume slider and make any changes you want.
  3. Press Ctrl + F6 to return to the Track view.

Playback depends on whether there is a time range selected (see the Selecting audio section): if there is no selection, then playback starts at the cursor position; if there is a selection, then playback starts at the start of the selection, and stops at the end of the selection.

Playback commands and keystrokes

These are the keystrokes for some common playback commands. Apart from the commands for seeking, the commands can be found in the Playing sub menu of the Transport menu:

For all the commands listed above which start playback, where playback starts and and then automatically stops depends on whether a time range is selected (see the Selecting audio section). If there is no selection, then playback starts at the cursor position, and automatically stops at the end of the audio in the project. If a time range is selected, then playback starts at the start of this selection, and automatically stops at the end of the selection.

If you ever need to check the playback status, that is, playing, stopped or paused, then this information is available as the first item in the status bar.

Audacity includes several more specialized playback commands, and these are described in the appropriate places in the guide. A full list of playback commands is available in the Playback section of the Keystrokes section.

Track view table

The Track view table contains the tracks which make up the project. The table just has one column, and a row for each of the tracks. Each track has a name, and your screen reader reads this when you move to the track, or press your screen reader's keystroke to read the current line.

An audio track is a container for audio data, and this is displayed as a waveform. Often the audio data starts at time zero, but after editing, this is not always the case. At the left hand end of an audio track there is a small area containing various controls, which include a menu, and controls for track gain and pan. Using these controls is described in the Editing when there are multiple tracks section of this guide.

The Cursor is displayed in the track view table as a vertical line, as is the playback position during playback. The positions of both the cursor and the playback position are available to screen reader users via the Start of selection and Audio Position spin boxes in the Selection Toolbar.

Track focus

Whenever the focus is within the track view table, and the table contains one or more tracks (rows), then one of the tracks has the focus, and you can move to the next or previous track by pressing Down Arrow or Up Arrow, respectively. You can also move to the first or last track by pressing Ctrl + Home or Ctrl + End, respectively.

Track selection

You need to be able to select tracks:

There are a number of ways of selecting and deselecting tracks:

If a track is selected, then when your screen reader reads the name of a track, it also says “selected”.

Toolbars

There are two sections of the main window which contain toolbars, and these will be referred to as the upper and lower toolbar sections. The upper toolbars section appears above the track view table, and the lower toolbars section appears below it. As previously mentioned you can cycle round the upper toolbars, the track view table, and the lower toolbars either forwards or backwards by pressing Ctrl + F6 or Ctrl + Shift + F6 respectively.

In both the upper and lower toolbars sections, you can navigate to all the controls in the toolbars in that section by pressing Tab or Shift + Tab. Note that you can only press the buttons in the toolbars by pressing Enter. You can't use Spacebar, as this key is the keystroke for starting and stopping playback.

You can show and hide all these toolbars using the Toolbars sub-menu on the View Menu. Only showing the toolbars which you find useful has the advantage of greatly reducing the number of Tabs needed to find a particular control.

Bug warning: There's a bug which affects users who have been using Audacity since version 2.2.1 or earlier. You may find that if you show a toolbar which has not been shown since version 2.2.1, then the toolbar will be shown as a floating toolbar somewhere in the Audacity window, and you will not be able to tab to it. To work around this, choose reset toolbars on the Toolbars sub menu. You can then set which toolbars are displayed.

The remainder of this section on toolbars contains sections on the upper and lower toolbars, and then sections on some individual toolbars: the selection, time, and play at speed toolbars.

Upper toolbars

By default, the Upper toolbars section of the main window contains the following toolbars:

The Upper toolbars section also contains a Timeline options button, which opens a menu containing items which either aren't of much interest to most screen reader users, or which duplicate settings which can be more conveniently available elsewhere.

Lower toolbars

By default, the Lower toolbars section of the main window contains the selection toolbar and the time toolbar, and these toolbars are described in the following two sections.

Selection toolbar

The selection toolbar contains the following controls:

Edit spin boxes

The controls on the selection toolbar which are used for displaying and changing times are often referred to as edit spin boxes. They have this name because to change a time you can either type in times, or use Up Arrow or Down Arrow to increase or decrease the value of the time respectively. In the guide they will often be referred to as just spin boxes for brevity.

Each spin boxes contains a time which can be in a number of different formats, and you can change it by choosing one of the options on a spin box's context menu. In the case of the edit spin boxes in the Selection toolbar, if you change the format of one of them, then this change is also applied to the other one. The default format of the edit spin boxes in the Selection toolbar is hh:mm:ss + milliseconds, but the format hh:mm:ss + hundredths is a useful alternative, as adjusting times to a hundredth of a millisecond is normally accurate enough. Nearly all the examples in this guide will use the latter format.

The time can be considered to be made up of one or more sections, depending on the format used. For example, when using the hh:mm:ss + hundredths format, the time consists of four sections: hours, minutes, seconds, and centi-seconds (hundredths of seconds), each consisting of two digits.

If you move to a spin box by tabbing, then your screen reader reads the entire contents of the spin box, for example, 00h13m04.73s, that is 0 hours, 13 minutes, and 4.73 seconds.

Within a spin box, one of the digits is the focus. When you first move to a spin box after opening Audacity, the last digit is the focus, but if you subsequently return to the spin box, then the digit which was the focus when you left the spin box is the focus. The keystrokes for moving the focus are:

When you use one of these keystrokes, your screen reader reads the digit which is now the focus. In addition, if you've moved to a different section of the time, then your screen reader reads the new section before reading the digit. For example, if the time is 01h42m38.46s and the focus is the second of the minutes digits (the digit 2), then if you press Right arrow your screen reader says 38s, 3. Alternatively, if you press End then your screen reader says 46 centi-seconds, 6.

There are a couple of ways of changing the value of the time:

If you are using the Jaws screen reader, you can always read the entire time by pressing the keystroke to read the current line.

Snap To combo box

The Snap to combo box contains three options: Off, which is the default, Nearest, and Prior. If the combo box is set to either Nearest or Prior, then this has two effects on using the left and right arrow keys to move the cursor or the start or end of a selected time range.

The first effect is that if Snap combo box to is set to Nearest, then if you move the cursor or the start or end of a selected time range, then its position is always automatically adjusted to the nearest whole number of the smallest unit in the format of the edit spin boxes. For example, if format is hh:mm:ss, then a position of 1.3 seconds would be adjusted to 1 second, and a time of 1.8 seconds would be adjusted to 2 seconds. In a similar manner, if the Snap to combo box is set to Prior, then the times 1.3 seconds and 1.8 seconds would both be adjusted to 1 second.

If the Snap to combo box is set to Nearest or Prior, the second effect is that the minimum amount that the position of the cursor or the start or end of selection changes by is the smallest unit in the format of the edit spin boxes. So, for example, if the format is set to hh:mm:ss, and you press Right arrow to move the cursor to the right, the minimum change in position is 1 second.

Time toolbar

The Time toolbar is in the Lower toolbars section of the main window, and contains a single control, an audio position spin box. During playback or recording, this shows the position of the playback recording cursor respectively. Otherwise, it shows the time that playback would start if you pressed Spacebar. Note that unlike the spin boxes in the Selection toolbar, you can't change the time shown by the audio position spin box, you can only read its value.

The default format of the audio position spin box is hh:mm:ss. You can change this using the control's context menu, but unfortunately there is bug which causes the format to be reset to the default value if you open the Preferences dialog and press the OK button.

Play at speed toolbar

The play at speed toolbar is in the upper toolbars section of the main window, and enables you to playback audio at speeds varying from very slow to three times the normal playback speed. It contains:

There's an option for play at speed which makes some important differences. In the Preferences dialog, in the Playback category, in the Options group, there's a “Vari-Speed Play” check box, which is checked by default. The effects of this setting are:

Moving the cursor

Audacity has a cursor to specify a particular time during the audio, for example, the start of playback, the position where you want to start selecting a time range, or the position where audio is pasted from the clipboard.

Reading the current position of the cursor is described in one of the following sections, and the ways of moving the cursor are as follows:

The time selection controls when there is a cursor

In Audacity, there is either a cursor or a selected time range. When there is a cursor, then the times shown by the controls for start of the selection are the same as the times shown by the controls for the end of the selection, and these times are the position of the cursor. Because of this, we can use the start of selection controls for reading and changing the position of the cursor, as described in the next two sections.

Reading the position of the cursor

There are a couple of ways of reading the cursor position. The first is to read the Start of selection control on the Selection toolbar:

  1. Assuming that the Track view table is the focus, press Ctrl + F6 to move to the Lower toolbars, where the first toolbar is the selection toolbar.
  2. If necessary, Tab until you get to the Start control, which contains the cursor position, and which your screen reader reads out. Note that when returning to the Lower toolbars, the control that was previously the focus is the focus again, so you often don't have to Tab to the Start control.
  3. Press Ctrl + F6 twice or Ctrl + Shift + F6 to return to the Track view table.

The second way of reading the cursor position is to open the Set left selection boundary dialog:

  1. Whilst there is no playback, press the Left Bracket key to open the Set left selection boundary dialog.
  2. The position control is the initial focus, and its value is the cursor position. Press Esc to close the dialog.

Moving the cursor using the Start of selection control

  1. Press Ctrl + F6 to move to the Lower toolbars, where the first toolbar is the selection toolbar.
  2. Tab to the Show box, and make sure that the Start and length of selection option is selected. If it's set to Start and end of selection, then you can accidentally select a time range, instead of moving the cursor, as described in the next section.
  3. Tab to the Start control, and change its value using one of two ways described in the as described in the Edit spin boxes section.
  4. To return to the Track view table, press Ctrl + F6 twice.

Reason for setting the Start and length of selection option

With no time range selected, consider the two cases:

Step size of the left and right arrow keys

This section describes how the step size of the left and right arrow keys depend on the horizontal zoom of the audio data, and how to set the amount of zoom so that the step size has suitable values. The same step sizes are also used by the Shift + Left or Right Arrow and Ctrl + Shift + Left or Right Arrow keystrokes for expanding or contracting selected time ranges.

Audacity has the ability to vary the amount by which the audio data is zoomed in the horizontal direction. This allows sighted users to view the audio data in either more or less detail, depending on the task.

Pressing Right Arrow or Left Arrow moves the cursor by the same physical distance on the screen, whatever the amount of horizontal zoom. So if the amount of zoom is increased, then the time by which the cursor is moved is decreased. Similarly, if the amount of zoom is decreased, then the time by which the cursor is moved is increased.

After opening or importing a file, the horizontal zoom is adjusted so that the longest track in the project takes up the available space in the track in the window. So the initial amount of zoom, and so the step size of the arrow keys depends on the length of the tracks.

However, you can set the horizontal zoom to a predefined amount. You can do this by opening the view menu, opening the zoom sub menu, and choosing Zoom Normal (Ctrl + 2). When the zoom is set to normal, then the left and right arrow keys move the cursor by slightly more than one hundredth of a second. This step size is normally too small to be useful. However, you can easily adjust the step size using the zoom in and zoom out commands which are also available on the Zoom sub menu on the View menu:

So, for example, after setting the zoom to normal (Ctrl + 2), which sets the step size to slightly more than one hundredth of a second, if you zoom out (Ctrl + 3) three times, this multiplies the step size by 8, resulting in a step size which is slightly less than a tenth of a second. As another example, if you press Ctrl + 2, and then Ctrl + 3 7 times, then the step size is about one and a half seconds.

Scrubbing

The use of the word scrubbing in audio editors originates from editing using reel to reel tape machines. The tape was moved backwards and forwards over the tape head to find the precise position for an edit. In Audacity, there are two commands for scrubbing which are of interest to keyboard users: Scrub backwards which has the keystroke U, and Scrub forwards, which has the keystroke I. By pressing and holding one these keys you can play either backwards or forwards. The speed of playback depends on Audacity's horizontal zoom setting, and so by changing this you can have the audio played back at a wide range of speeds.

If you are using the Jaws screen reader, and its typing echo setting is set to characters, which is the default, then if you press and hold one of keys for scrubbing, you will hear the name of the key being repeated while you scrub. To avoid this, you can temporarily set the typing echo to none. To do this, press Insert + 2 until you hear the word none, and use the same keystroke to set the typing echo back to characters.

If no time range is selected, and you press and hold one of the scrubbing keys, then playback starts at the cursor. When you release the key, playback stops and the cursor is positioned at this time. Alternatively, If a time range is selected, and you press and hold one of the scrubbing keys, then playback starts at the start of the selection. Unlike during normal playback, if the end of the selected time range is reached, playback doesn't automatically stop. When the key is released, the selected time range is deselected, and the cursor is positioned at the time the key was released.

If you press and hold one of these keys, and whilst still holding it, press and hold the other key, then playback immediately changes direction, and does not stop when you release the original key.

The playback speed for these commands depends on Audacity's horizontal zoom setting. This can be set using the commands on the zoom sub menu, which is on the View menu:

You can position the cursor more accurately using lower playback speeds, and you may find that a playback speed of one quarter is a useful choice for the speed. The accuracy of the positioning of the cursor also depends on the Audio interface which Audacity communicates with your audio devices. The choice of interfaces is described in the Audio interface section later in the guide. Using the WASAPI interface will give you the most accurate positioning.

In the above description, it's been said that when one of the scrubbing keys is released, the cursor is positioned at the time the key is released. However, there is an exception to this if either the Left bracket or Right bracket key has been pressed during playback. In this case, the time selection present when the scrubbing key is released is preserved. This behaviour allows scrubbing to one of the options described in the section One general method for selecting a time range.

Selecting audio

In the case of an audio editor which can only edit a single audio track, then selecting audio simply consists of specifying the start and end times of the audio which you want to select, that is, a time range. For example you might want to select the audio between the times 1 minute 2 seconds and 5 minutes 23 seconds.

However, Audacity is a multi-track editor. If the project consists of a number of tracks, then you may want to select the audio on only some of the tracks for a given time range. So in Audacity, as well as having to select a time range, you also have to specify which tracks are selected. The selection of tracks was described in the track selection section above, and selecting a time range is described in the following sections.

Using Audacity's default settings, if you try to perform some action on some audio, such as applying an effect, and in fact no audio is selected, then a dialog opens, telling you that no audio is selected. However, there is an auto select option, and if that is turned on, then instead of the dialog appearing, all the audio in the project is selected, and the effect is applied to this audio. For users of screen readers, it is recommended that you leave this option off, but full details of the option and its setting are described in the Auto-select section of the Preferences section. All the instructions in the remainder of this guide assume that the option is off.

Selecting a time range

A quick way of selecting all of the audio in the project is to use the shortcut Ctrl + A: this selects all the tracks, and selects a time range which includes all the audio.

There are two general ways of selecting a time range. One of these is described in the next section, and the other method is described in the Selecting a time range using the stored cursor position section below. After this, there are sections on useful playback commands, making fine adjustments to time ranges, and how to deselect time ranges.

One general method of selecting a time range

The first general way of selecting a time range consists of two steps:

  1. Move the cursor to where you want to start or end the selection, using one of the methods described in the Moving the cursor section above.
  2. Set the other end of the selection using one of the methods described below.

Note that when a time range is selected, playback plays the selected time range. There are also a number of additional playback commands which are described in the Playback commands for checking a selected time range section.

You can use any of the following methods for setting the other end of the selection:

Examples

In the following examples, it's assumed that one track is selected, and any other tracks are not selected. In the cases which involve pressing a key during playback, then in practice, you'd probably want to then make small adjustments to the selection, as described in a section below.

Selecting a time range using the stored cursor position

The second general method of selecting a time range consists of four steps:

  1. Move the cursor to where you want to start or end the selection, using one of the methods described in the Moving the cursor section above.
  2. Open the Select menu, and choose Store Cursor position.
  3. Set the other end of the selection, again using using one of the methods described in the Moving the cursor section above.
  4. Open the Select menu, and choose Cursor to Stored Cursor position.

In some circumstances, this method is easier to use than the method described in the previous section. Having stored the cursor position, you can use what ever method you want to position the cursor at the other end of the time range you want to select, without any danger that you'll loose the other end of the selection.

Note that during playback, including when paused, the Store Cursor position command stores the position of the playback cursor, rather than the cursor used for editing. However, it's normally easier to position the edit cursor precisely where you want it, and so for selecting a time range, you probably won't want to store the position of the playback cursor very often. Similarly, during playback, including when paused, the “Cursor to Stored Cursor position” on the Select sub menu selects from the position of the playback cursor to the stored cursor position.

Playback commands for checking a selected time range

When a time range is selected, then if you press Spacebar for playback, only the audio in the selected time range is played. In addition you can use the following playback commands to check that you've selected the time range which you want:

The settings for the length of these periods all share the settings of the play cut preview command, and can be set in the playback category of Preferences.

Adjusting a selected time range

There are a couple of ways of making small adjustments to a selected time range, and they are described in the next two sections.

Adjusting the selected time range using keystrokes to move the start or end of the selection

You can use the following keystrokes to move the start or end of the selection by a small amount. Adjusting the step size is described in the Step size of the left an right arrow keys section above.

Note that the two keystrokes that use Ctrl contract the selected time range, and the other two keystrokes expand the selected time range.

Adjusting the selected time-range using the selection controls

  1. If the current focus is the Track view table, then press Ctrl + F6 to move to the Lower toolbars, where the first toolbar is the selection toolbar.
  2. Tab to the Show combo box, and set the Start and end of selection option. This allows you to adjust the Start or the End of the selection without affecting the other one.
  3. Tab to either the start or the end control.
  4. If, for example, you want to adjust the time in tenths of a second, and the time format is hh:mm:ss + hundredths, then press End to move to the last digit, and then press Left Arrow to move to the tenths of a second digit. You can then press Up Arrow or Down Arrow to increase or decrease the time by a tenth of a second respectively.
  5. Adjust the other selection control if desired.
  6. Press Ctrl + F6 twice to return to the tracks.

Deselecting a selected time range

If you press any of the following keystrokes which move the cursor, then any selected time range is deselected: Home, End, J, K, Left Arrow, Right Arrow, Comma, and Period. After you have pressed Left Arrow or Right Arrow, then the cursor position is at the start or end of the selection which has just been deselected.

To deselect all the tracks, and deselect any time-range, press Ctrl + Shift + A. The new cursor position is at the start of the selection which has just been deselected.

Basic editing

Undo and redo

To undo press Ctrl + Z, and to redo press Ctrl + Y.

Deleting audio

To delete the selected audio, press the Delete key.

If you want a preview of the audio after deletion, press C which plays back from a short time before the selected audio to a short time after the selected audio, but omitting the selected audio. The length of the times of playback before and after the selection can be set in the Cut Preview group of the Playback category in the Preferences dialog.

Cut

To cut the selected audio, press Ctrl+ X. The selected audio is removed from the tracks, and placed on the Audacity clipboard.

As in the case of deleting audio, you can preview the effect of your cut by pressing C for Play cut preview.

Copy

To copy the selected audio onto the Audacity clipboard, press Ctrl + C.

Paste

To paste the audio on the Audacity clipboard into the selected track or tracks, press Ctrl + V. There are two cases:

If no tracks are selected when you paste some audio, then the audio is inserted at the beginning of a new track.

There are a couple of convenient playback commands which can be used for checking that the transition at the start and end of the pasted audio sounds alright:

The settings for the length of these periods share the settings of the play cut preview command, and can be set in the playback category of Preferences.

Replace with silence

To replace the selected audio with the same length of silence, on the Edit Menu, open the Remove Special sub menu, and choose Silence Audio (Ctrl + L).

Insert silence

To insert a period of silence into the selected tracks:

  1. Move the cursor to where you want to insert the silence.
  2. Choose Silence from the Generate menu.
  3. A Silence Generator dialog opens, and the focus is a spin box which allows you to specify the length of the silence. The spin box is identical to the spin boxes used on the Selection toolbar, though the first non-zero digit is the initial focus, rather than the first digit.

    Set the time that you want, and then press Enter to press the default OK button. The period of silence is inserted, and a time-range which covers this period is selected.

Note that all the commands on the Generate menu have the following behaviour. If one or more tracks are selected, but no time-range, then the generated audio is inserted at the cursor. However, if a time-range is also selected, then the selected audio is replaced by the generated audio. Also, all the spin boxes in the dialogs which are opened from the Generate menu have a default format of seconds, and the first non-zero digit is the initial focus, rather than the first digit.

Effects

Audacity provides a large number of effects which are available on the Effects menu. Some of the commands, like fade in or fade out, simply execute the effect on the selected audio, but most of them open a dialog box so that you can adjust the parameters for the effect.

If an effect does not support real-time preview, which is described in the next section, then its dialog nearly always contains a Preview button which allows you to hear a short sample of the effect applied to the selected audio. By default, the length of the preview is 6 seconds, but you can change this in the Preferences dialog, where in the Playback category, in the Effects Preview group, there's a Length edit box.

The effect's dialog also contains a Manage button, which opens a menu which includes commands for presets.

Effects with real-time preview

Some of the effects which can be used Audacity include real-time preview – where you can change the settings of an effect during playback. A small number of the effects included with Audacity's installation, for example, the bass and treble effect and the wahwah effect, have this feature. In addition, if you have downloaded any VST or LADSPA effects, then these have real-time preview.

The dialogs of effects which include real-time preview include the following controls, all of which have access keys:

After opening one of these effect dialogs, you can return to the main Audacity window without closing it. Dialogs with this behaviour are known as modeless dialogs. You can cycle round the Audacity main window and any open modeless dialogs by pressing Alt + F6. Because these effect dialogs have their own playback controls, you may not need to make use of the behaviour very often.

Deleting tracks

There are two ways of deleting tracks:

Avoiding introducing clicks when editing

If you delete or cut part of the audio in a track, and if the beginning or end of this part hasn't zero amplitude, then this can result if sudden changes in the amplitude of the audio. If the size of these sudden changes are large enough, then you'll hear them as clicks. A similar problem can occur if you copy and paste audio.

You can avoid introducing these clicks by using the “At Zero Crossings” command, which is on the Select menu, and has the shortcut Z. If a track is selected, but there isn't a selected time range, then if you apply this command, the position of the cursor is moved to the nearest position where the amplitude of the audio in the selected track is zero. The change is position is very small, so you don't have to worry that this will make a large change to the cursor position. In a similar manner, if there's a selected time range, the positions of both the start and the end of the time range are adjusted so that the amplitude of the audio in the selected track is zero.

So to avoid introducing clicks:

Editing when there are multiple tracks

This section describes some commands and settings which are relevant when you want to work on a project which contains more than one track.

Importing audio files

You can import one or more audio files, and these become new tracks in the existing project. To import standard audio file(s), open the File menu, and choose Audio from the Import sub-menu (Ctrl + Shift + I). A “Select one or more audio files” dialog opens, which has the same structure as a standard Windows XP Open dialog. Select one or more files, and press Enter to press the OK button.

Note that immediately after the import, the last track in the project is selected, and all other tracks are unselected.

Adding a new empty track

To add a new empty track, choose an option from the Add New sub-menu which is on the Tracks menu.

Duplicate

To duplicate the selected audio into new track or tracks, open the Edit menu and choose Duplicate (Ctrl + D). The duplicated audio retains the same timings as the original selected audio, so in the new track or tracks the audio data starts at the start of the selected time range.

Track Mute and Solo

Each track can be muted and soloed. These settings are used to control which tracks contribute to playback, and to the audio saved in one of the standard formats. By default, a track is neither muted or soled. After reading the name of the track, your screen reader says the words muted and soloed if this is the case.

Mute

If a track is muted, then it doesn't contribute to playback, or to the audio saved in one of the standard formats. There are a number of commands for changing whether or not tracks are muted:

All apart from the first of these commands can be found on the Mute/unmute sub menu of the Tracks menu.

Solo

If one or more tracks is soloed, then only these tracks contribute to playback or to the audio saved in one of the standard formats, regardless of the Mute settings of all of the tracks. To toggle whether or not the focussed track is soloed, press Shift + S.

There are a number of options for the solo setting and its interaction with the mute setting:

The setting which has these options can be found by going to the Tracks Behaviors category of the Preferences dialog, where there is a Solo button combo box.

Track gain

To change the gain of the focused track, press Shift + G. A Gain dialog opens which contains both an edit box and a slider for changing the gain. The range of gain (db) is -36 to +36.

The gain of a track is applied to the whole track, and is only applied during playback, or when the track is exported to a file, or when you use the mix and render command. Changing the gain doesn't affect the amplitude of the audio data in the track.

Track pan

To change the pan of the focused track, press Shift + P. A Pan dialog opens which contains both an edit box and a slider for changing the pan. The range of pan is -100 to 100, corresponding to left and right.

Track menu

You can open the menu of a focused track by pressing Shift + M, or the Application key. The commands on the menu include renaming the track, and moving the track, and the latter is described in the next section.

Moving a track

On the Track menu there are commands for moving a track up, down, to the top, and to the bottom of the tracks. By default, these commands to not have keystrokes assigned to them, but you can assign your own keystrokes in the keyboard category of Preferences, which is described in the Keyboard shortcuts section, which is in the Preferences section. The names of the commands are move focused track up, down, to top, and to bottom. Keystrokes which are not currently used and are suitable include Ctrl + Shift + Up Arrow, Ctrl + Shift + Down Arrow, Ctrl + Shift + Home, and Ctrl + Shift + End.

Align the audio in tracks end to end

If you select two or more tracks, you can align the audio in these tracks so that the audio in a track starts at the end of the audio in the previous track. To do this, open the tracks menu, open the Align tracks sub menu, and choose Align end to end. Notes:

Time shift

You can time shift the audio data in one or more selected tracks so that either the start or the end of the audio is at some desired position. You can specify this position either with the cursor, or the start or end of a selected time range. All the commands for moving the audio are available on the Align Tracks sub menu which is on the Tracks menu, and some examples of using them are given below.

There are a couple of convenient playback commands which can be used for checking the position of the shifted audio:

The settings for the length of these periods share the settings of the play cut preview command, and can be set in the playback category of Preferences.

Examples

To move the audio in one or more tracks so that it starts at some desired time:

  1. Move the cursor to the desired time, using any of the methods described in the Moving the cursor section.
  2. Select the tracks containing the audio you want to move, and make sure that the other tracks are not selected.
  3. Open the Align Tracks sub menu on the Tracks menu, and choose Start to Cursor/Selection Start. Note that if more than one track has been selected, and the audio in these tracks start at different times, then the audio in all the tracks is moved by the same amount, so that the earliest audio in the tracks is positioned at the cursor.

If you'd wanted to move the audio in one or more tracks so that it ended at some desired time, then you'd simply change step three to use the End to Cursor/Selection Start command, instead of Start to Cursor/Selection Start.

As another example, if you want to time shift one or more tracks by a certain amount of time, then:

  1. Select one or more tracks that you want to time shift, and make sure that the other tracks are not selected.
  2. Press J to move the cursor to the start of the audio in the selected tracks.
  3. Press Ctrl + F6 to move to the Lower toolbars, where the first toolbar is the selection toolbar. Then Tab to the Show combo box, and make sure that the start and length option is selected.
  4. Tab to the Start spin-box.
  5. Depending on whether you want to time shift forward or backward, you now need to move the cursor forward or backward by incrementing or decrementing the time in the spin-box. For example, if you want to move the audio forward by 1.5 seconds, then use the following keystrokes to increment the time : End moves you to right most digit, which is hundredths of seconds; Left Arrow moves you to the tenths of second digit; Up Arrow five times increments this digit by five; Left Arrow moves you to the seconds digit; and finally, Up Arrow increments this digit by one.
  6. Go to the Align tracks sub-menu on the Tracks menu, and choose Start to Cursor/Selection Start. This moves the data in the selected selected tracks, so that is now starts at the modified cursor position.

Note that if you're wanting to move a track which you've recorded and which doesn't line up with the existing tracks, then you may need to move the start of the audio to earlier than time zero. Because you can't move the cursor before time zero, the above method has to be modified so that in step two, you press K to move to the end of the audio in the selected tracks, and then in step five, you use the End to Cursor/Selection Start command. Note that Audacity does have an automatic latency compensation.

Fades

When you've got more than one track in the project, you may well want to fade some tracks when the audio in other tracks starts and ends. For example, if there's some introductory music before the start of some spoken audio, you may want to start fading the music down just before the start of the speech. The fade up and down effects have been mentioned already in the guide, and these simply fade up or down with the start and end of the fades being either zero or 100 percent of the original amplitude. The next two sections describe the Auto duck and Adjustable fade effects, which enable you to do more complex fades.

Auto Duck effect

The Auto Duck effect reduces the volume in the selected audio during the periods in which the level of another track, known as the control track, exceeds a certain threshold. The track which is used as the control track is the last unselected track which is immediately below a selected track.

So, for example, if you've got one music track, and one voice track in the project, and you want to reduce the volume of the music when there's speech in the voice track:

  1. Make sure that the music track is the first track. If it isn't, you can move a track up or down the track table by opening its menu, and choosing Move Track Up or Move Track Down respectively.
  2. Make sure that the voice track is not selected.
  3. Select all the audio in the music track. To do this, first make sure that the track is selected. Then select a time range that includes all the audio in the track: press J to move the cursor to the start of the audio in the selected track, and then press Shift + K to select from the cursor to the end of the audio in the selected track.
  4. On the Effects menu, open the the Auto Duck dialog, and if you've happy with the default settings, then just press Enter to press the default OK button.

These are the various Auto Duck settings:

Adjustable fade effect

This effect can be used in two ways, depending on the setting of the Handy presets combo box:

The Adjustable fade effect dialog contains the following controls:

As an example of the use of this effect, say that you want to fade down the audio in a track to 50 percent of the original, and then stay at that level till the end of the track.

  1. Ensure that the track is selected, and no other tracks are selected.
  2. Select a time range for the initial fade down.
  3. Open the Adjustable fade effect. Set the Fade Type to either Fade down or S-Curve Down, Start/End as to % of Original, and the following two edit boxes to 100 and 50 (or indeed 50 and 100). Press Enter. The fade is applied.
  4. The time range remains selected. Press Right arrow to deselect the time range and move the cursor to the right hand end of that time range. Select a time range from that point to the end of the audio in the track.
  5. Open the Adjustable fade effect. Set both the Start and End edit boxes to 50%, and press Enter.

Sync lock tracks

The idea of sync-lock tracks is to try and keep a group of tracks time synchronized with each other when some operation, such as deleting, affects the timing of one or more tracks in the group.

Say you just had two audio tracks, and they were sync-locked. If you select one track and a time range, and delete the selected audio, then the audio in that time range in the unselected track is also deleted, so that all the remaining audio in the two tracks is still in sync with each other. Similarly with just two tracks which are sync locked, then if you select one track, and paste some audio into that track at the cursor position, then silence, with the same duration as the pasted audio, is pasted into the unselected track at the cursor position.

You switch sync lock tracks on and off in the tracks menu, and by default it's off. If there are only audio tracks in the project, then there's just one group of sync-locked tracks. The tracks in a project can be divided up into more than one group using label tracks. Each audio track which follows immediately after a label track starts a new group.

When you select one or more tracks in a sync locked group, then an appropriate icon is shown in the track for sighted users, and the phrase sync locked is added to the name of the track for screen reader users.

Labels

A label represents either a specific time position or a specific time range, and it can have a name. A label representing a specific time is referred to as a point label, and a label representing a specific time range is referred to as a region label.

Labels are stored in Label tracks. There can be more than one Label track in a project, but normally a single label track is all that is needed.

You can label positions or time ranges as described in the next section, and then easily return to these later on in your editing using the commands described in the Moving to labels section. In addition, a number of the tools on the Analyze menu add a label track to the project which contains their results. For example, the Find clipping tool produces a label track containing labels at points where the audio has clipped.

Creating labels

There are two commands for creating labels, and both are on the Labels sub menu on the Edit menu:

For these commands, there is an option as to whether any name for a new label is entered in a dialog box, or in an edit box in the label track. The second option is not very accessible for users of screen readers, and so it's recommended that you use the dialog box option. In the Preferences, in the Tracks Behaviors category, there is a “Use dialog for the name of a new label” check box, which is not checked by default, but which you can check.

Using these commands for creating labels using both of these options will be described. First, using a dialog box for the name:

  1. Either choose one of the commands from the Labels sub menu on the Edit menu, or press its shortcut. A New label dialog opens, and a name edit box is the initial focus.
  2. Type in a name for the label (optional), and then press Enter to press the OK button, which is the dialog's default button. The new label in added to a label track, which is the first of the following possibilities: the focussed track, if it's a label track; the first label track below this track, if such a track exists; a new label track appended to the existing tracks. The focus is returned to the original track.

To use these commands for adding labels, not using the dialog option:

  1. Either choose one of them from the Labels sub menu of the Edit menu, or press its keystroke. If the focused track isn't a label track, then the first label track below this track becomes the focused track, if such a track exists. If there isn't one, a new label track is appended to the existing tracks, and becomes the focused track. In the focused label track a new label is created, and an edit box is opened for entering a name for the label. Unfortunately your screen reader does not say that the focus is now this edit box.
  2. Type in a name for the label (optional), and then press Enter to close the edit box. For the Add label at Playback position command, the focus is then returned to the original track.

Moving to labels

There are two commands for moving to labels. For the purposes of working out which is the nearest label, the position of a region label is taken to be the start of its time range.

Both these commands use the labels in a single label track, not all the label tracks in the project. If there is a single label track in the project, which is the usual case, then the commands use that track whatever track is the focus. If there is more than one label track in the project, then if the focused track is a label track this track is used, otherwise the first label track below the focused track, if one exists, is used.

When these commands “move to” a label: if the label is a point label, then the cursor is set to the label's position; if the label is a region label, then a time range is selected using the label's time range. In both cases, Jaws says the name of the label, if it has one, followed by its position in the label track. If these commands are used during playback, then playback continues using the label's cursor position or time range.

Note that if a label track is the focus, then the keystrokes Tab, and Shift + Tab for moving to the next or previous label are also available. However use of these keystrokes is not recommended. In addition to moving to a label, these keystrokes also open the name of the label for editing in an edit box which is not read properly by screen readers. If you accidentally use one of these keystrokes, then you can close the edit box by pressing Enter. If you need to edit the name of a label, you can use the Edit labels dialog, which is described in the next section.

Editing labels

The uses of the Edit labels dialog include renaming a label, deleting a label, and as an alternative to the move to label commands. To open the dialog, open the Edit menu, open the Labels sub menu, and choose Edit Labels. The dialog includes the following controls:

When you open the dialog, one of the cells in the table is the focus and is selected. Assuming that the project contains at least one label, then one of the names of the labels is selected. In determining which name is selected, the position of a region label is taken as the start of its time range:

When you close the dialog, either by pressing OK or cancelling it, then either the cursor or a time range is set using the label which is selected in the table, depending on whether the selected label is a point label or a region label.

Note that opening the dialog when there are no labels in the project is not recommended. If you do so the table contains a single row, and the name of a label track is the focus and is selected. The name of the label is blank. If you press the OK button, then a new label track is appended to the tracks in the project, and this track contains a label with a blank name. The best thing to do if you open the dialog in this state is to press Esc to cancel it. However even if you cancel, the cursor is set to time zero, and so you loose the previous position of the cursor.

The table

The table has six columns: the name of the label track, name of the label, start and end times, and low and high frequencies. If a label is a point label, then the start and end time have the same value. The low and high frequencies are for spectral selection, and are not covered in this guide.

There are a number of ways of selecting a cell in the table:

Note that because Tab can be used for selecting a cell in the table, there are a couple of keystrokes which move you directly out of the table. From any cell in the table, Ctrl + tab, and Ctrl + Shift + Tab move to the next or previous control.

Deleting a label

  1. Select any of the cells in the row representing the label.
  2. There are then two alternatives. The first is to press Ctrl + Tab to move to the first control after the table, Tab to the Delete button and press it. The second is to make use of the Delete button's access key, and to simply press Alt + L.

Editing cells

Screen readers read all the cells as if they were edit boxes. Just ignore this. None of the cells behave like standard edit boxes, and the way you edit a cell depends on the type of value it contains. The editing of the names of labels and the start and end times are described in the next two sections. In both cases you can confirm the edit by pressing Enter or Tab. The difference between the two is that Enter moves you the cell immediately below the current cell, and Tab moves you to the next cell. In addition, in both cases you can cancel the edit by pressing Esc.

Editing the name of the label

You can either overwrite or edit the current name:

Editing the start or end time

  1. Press F2. You can now edit the time in exactly the same way as you can edit the time controls such as Selection start in the Selection toolbar.
  2. To confirm the edit press Tab or Enter, or to cancel the edit press Esc.

Note that by default, the time format of the start and end times is the same as the time format of the time controls in the selection toolbar. You can temporarily change the time format by using the context menu of one the times when it is being edited. This changed format only applies to the time controls in the dialog, and the temporary change is not saved when then dialog is closed.

Clips

In most of the rest of this guide, it has been assumed that an audio track contains a single section of audio data. However, an audio track can contain a number of separate sections, and these are referred to as clips. In Audacity, clips can not overlap.

There are a number of ways you can end up with more than one clip on a track:

Moving the cursor

There are commands for moving both to the next and previous clip boundary, where a clip boundary is either the start or end of a clip. These commands appear on the “Cursor to” sub menu of the Transport menu. The command to move the cursor to the next clip boundary moves the cursor to the next clip boundary after the cursor, or the end of the selected time range. Similarly, the command to move the cursor to the previous clip boundary, moves the cursor to the previous clip boundary before the cursor, or the start of the selected time range.

If any audio tracks are selected, then these commands find clip boundaries in these selected tracks. Otherwise, the commands find clip boundaries in all the audio tracks.

When the cursor is moved to a clip boundary, your screen reader says either start or end, followed by the number of the clip, followed by the name of the track. In the case where two clips are immediately next to each other, and the clip boundary is both the end of one clip and the start of the next, then your screen reader says this.

Selecting a time range

There are two sets of commands for selecting time ranges which involve clip boundaries, and these are described in the next two sections. In both cases, if any audio tracks are selected, then the commands use the clips in the selected tracks. Otherwise, the commands use the clips in all the audio tracks.

Selecting the previous or next clip

There are commands for both selecting the previous clip, and selecting the the next clip. They can be found on the Clip Boundaries sub menu of the Select menu, and they have shortcuts Alt + Comma, and Alt + Period respectively. When a clip is selected, your screen reader says the number of the clip in the track, followed by the name of the track.

Note that you can also easily use these commands for moving to clip boundaries. Just select the relevant clip, and then press Left Arrow or Right Arrow to deselect the selection, and position the cursor at either the start or the end of the clip respectively.

For those that are interested, the precise rules for determining which clips are selected when these commands are used are as follows.

For the Select next clip command:

For the Select previous clip command:

Selecting using clip boundaries

The two commands for selecting using clip boundaries can be used in more cases than the commands for selecting the next and previous clip which were described in the previous selection. They are also found on the Clip Boundaries sub menu on the Select menu, but they do not have keystrokes assigned to them by default.

When the start or the end of the selected time range is set to a clip boundary using these commands, your screen reader gives the details of the clip boundary, in exactly the same way as when the commands for moving the cursor to a clip boundary are used.

Various split commands

Split

To split a clip into two clips in a selected track:

  1. Position the cursor where you want to split the clip.
  2. On the Edit menu, open the Split Boundaries sub menu, and choose Split.

You can also split a clip into three parts using this method, if you select a time range which lies within the clip.

Split delete, and Split cut

You can use the split delete and split cut commands to delete or cut the selected audio, without affecting the position of the contents of the track after the audio which was deleted or cut. This is in contrast to the standard cut and delete commands, which do cause subsequent contents to move. These two split commands can be found on the Remove Special sub menu of the Edit menu.

The effect of the split delete command is as follows. For each track which is selected, any audio data in the selected time range is removed, leaving an empty track in that time range, and so the position of any subsequent audio data in the track is left unchanged.

For example, if in a selected track, the selected time range lies within a a clip, this clip is split into two clips. The first clip ends at the start of the selected time range. There is then a section of empty track, which is the length of the time range, and then the second clip starts at the end of the time range.

As another example, if the start of the selected time range lies within the clip, and the end of the time range is at the end of the clip, then the clip is shortened – no new clips are created.

The effect of the split cut command is the same as the split delete command, except that the audio that is removed is placed on the clipboard, rather than just being deleted.

Split New

The Split New command can be found on the Clip Boundaries sub menu of the Edit menu. This command moves the selected audio to a new track or tracks, without affecting the position of any subsequent audio in the original track.

For each track which is selected, any audio data in the selected time range is removed, leaving an empty track in that time range, and so the position of the any subsequent audio data in the track is left unchanged. A new track is added after the last track, and the removed audio is pasted into this track at its original position.

You can think of Split new as being equivalent to Split cut, followed by the cut audio being pasted into a new track at the same position as the original selected audio.

Detach at silences

If the selected audio contains sections of complete silence, that is the amplitude of the audio is zero, then the Detach at Silences command can be used remove those sections of audio, leaving clips which are separated from each other by the resulting sections of empty track. The command can be found on the Clip Boundaries sub menu of the Edit menu.

For each section in the selected audio where the amplitude of the audio is zero, the audio data is removed, resulting in a section of empty track, and the position of any subsequent audio data in the track is left unchanged.

Merging clips

To merge two or more adjacent clips in a selected track:

Time shifting clips

There are a couple of commands, Time Shift Left and Time Shift Right, which can be used to move either a single clip, or a number of clips. The Extra menu contains an edit sub menu, which contains these commands. For information about this Extra menu, see the Extra menu section of the Preferences section. By default no shortcuts are assigned to these commands, but if you use these commands frequently, you'll probably want to assign your own keystrokes.

The Time Shift Left and Time Shift Right Commands move the clip or clips by a small amount to the left or right respectively. As in the case of using the arrow keys to move the cursor, the amount of movement depends on the Zoom setting, and the step size can be adjusted, as described in the Step size of the left and right arrow keys section of the Moving the Cursor section.

Moving a single clip

  1. Move to the track which contains the clip which you want to move.
  2. Move the cursor so that it lies anywhere within the clip. If the cursor is at either the start or end of clip, then it it is considered to be lie within the clip, but it's not recommended to use the end of the clip for reasons which are explained below.
  3. Time Shift Left or Time Shift Right move both the clip and the cursor by a small amount. If the clip can not be moved, because it is immediately next to another clip, then your screen reader says “clip can not be moved”

If the cursor is positioned at a clip boundary which is both the end of one clip and the start of the next clip, then for the purposes of moving clips, the cursor is considered to be within the second clip, and this is the clip which the commands use. Because of this, when you are placing the cursor within a clip to move it, it's recommended that you don't position the cursor at the end of the clip. If the cursor is at the end of a clip, then if you repeatedly use the Clip right command and the clip becomes immediately adjacent to the next clip, then the cursor will then be considered to lie within the next clip, and it is this clip, rather than the original clip that will move. This is unlikely to be what you want.

Moving a number of adjacent clips

To move a number of adjacent clips in a track:

  1. Move to the track which contains the clips which you want to move.
  2. Select the track – the other tracks should not be selected.
  3. You then need to select a time range such that the start of the selection lies within the first clip you want to move, and the end of the selection lies within the last clip. So, for example you could move the cursor to the start of the first clip, and then set the end of the selection to the end of the last clip.

In the case where other tracks are selected, in addition to the focused track, then in these tracks, all clips which include selected audio are also moved.

Moving clips when Sync lock tracks is enabled

The use of sync-lock tracks to keeps a group of tracks time synchronized was described in the Sync lock tracks section, which in the Editing when there are multiple tracks section. If sync lock tracks is enabled when you move either a single clip or a group of clips, then additional clips may be moved. We will refer to the clips that would be moved if sync lock tracks was disabled, as the original set of clips to be moved.

If a clip overlaps in time with a clip in the original set of clips to be moved, then it also will be moved. In fact, the rule is more general than this. For any clip, if there exists a series of clips, starting with this clip and ending with a clip in the original set of clips to be moved such that each pair of adjacent clips in this series overlap in time, then that clip will also be moved.

Metadata tags editor

Metadata is data which describes other data, and the metadata for audio files consists of a number of tags, where each tag is made up of a tag name and a tag value. The Metadata tags editor in Audacity allows you both to edit the values of a number of preset tags, and also to create your own custom tags.

You can open the Edit Metadata Tags dialog at any time by choosing Metadata from the Edit menu. In addition, if you save audio in one of the standard formats, then unless you've turned the appropriate option off, the Edit Metadata Tags dialog automatically opens, as described in the Saving audio section above.

The Edit Metadata Tags dialog contains the following controls:

The table

The table has two columns: Tag and Value, and the first 7 cells in the Tag column contain preset tag names such as Artist Name and Track Title. Your screen reader indicates that these preset tag names are not editable by saying unavailable or disabled after their names.

There are a number of ways of selecting a cell in the table:

Note that because Tab can be used for selecting a cell in the table, there are a couple of keystrokes which move you directly out of the table. From any cell in the table, Ctrl + tab, and Ctrl + Shift + Tab move to the next or previous control.

Editing tag values

All the tag values except the genre tag value are edited using an edit box, but the genre tag value is edited with an edit combo box, which allows you to quickly choose from a list of genres.

To edit any tag value, except the genre tag value, there are two options: either overwriting or editing the current value, as described below. Both involve using the keystrokes Enter or Tab to confirm the edit. Enter selects the cell immediately below the current cell, and Tab selects the next cell, which is the tag name in the next row.

To edit the genre tag value:

Creating and editing custom tags

You can use the rows in the table after the preset tags to create your own custom tags. In these rows you can edit both the tag name and the tag value.

For a new set of metadata, there's one spare row after the preset tags. You can add and remove rows from the table using the Add and Remove buttons which follow the table. The Add button appends a row, and the Remove button removes the current custom row.

Editing the list of genres

To edit the list of genres which is available in the edit-combo box when you edit the genre value:

  1. Press the Edit button in the Genres section.
  2. An Edit Genres dialog opens. The first control is a multi-line edit box which contains the genres, one genre on each line. Note that when you first open the dialog, all the genres are selected, so unless you type a text navigation keystroke first, for example Right Arrow, you'll overwrite all the genres. To move to the top or bottom of the list press Ctrl + Home or Ctrl + End respectively.
  3. When you've finished editing, Tab to the OK button and press it.

To reset the list of genres to the default list of genres, press the Reset button in the Genres section. A Reset Genres message box opens, asking you whether you're sure that you want to reset the list. Press Enter to press the default OK button.

Recording

The next three sections on settings, recording commands and keystrokes, and adjusting the recording level cover material which is relevant to nearly all recording. After that there are sections on punch and roll recording, and latency compensation. The latter describes how Audacity can correct for the delay in the recorded audio when recording a vocal track whilst listening to existing tracks.

Recording settings

There are a number of settings which may need changing before you make a recording, and they're described in the following sections. Note that a number of these settings can be made either in the Devices category of the Preferences dialog, or an individual dialog, or the Device Toolbar.

Audio interface

Audacity provides a number of options for the software interface which Audacity uses to interact with the playback and recording devices:

You can set this option using either the Interface host combo box in the Devices category of the Preferences dialog, or the Audio host combo box in the Select Audio Host dialog (Shift + H), or the Audio Host combo box on the Device toolbar. Note that when you change this option, the settings of the recording and playback devices may change, and so you should check these settings.

Recording device

You can select the recording device using either the recording device combo box in the Devices category in the Preferences dialog, or the recording device combo box in the Select Recording Device dialog (Shift + I), or the recording device combo box on the Device toolbar.

If you're using either the MME or the DirectSound audio interface, then the available devices may also include either “Microsoft Sound Mapper - Input” or “Primary Sound Captive Driver”, respectively. Both of these correspond to the device which has been set as the default recording device in Windows. Generally, using one of these options isn't recommended, as the default recording device can sometimes change unexpectedly, and so change your recording device in Audacity without any warning.

These combo boxes list all the recording devices which were plugged in and enabled when audacity was opened. If a device isn't listed, then check the Recording page of Windows Sound dialog to see if the device is enabled. This dialog is described in the Sound dialog in Windows section, for those unfamiliar with this dialog.

Recording level

This section describes which control to use to adjust the recording level. How to adjust the recording level so that you don't get too much noise or clipping is described in the Adjusting the recording level section below.

If Audacity can control the level of the recording device, then you can use either Audacity's recording volume slider, or the appropriate Windows control. It's normally easier to use the recording volume slider in Audacity, which is in the Mixer toolbar in the Upper toolbars section of Audacity's main window. To move to it from the Track view table, press Ctrl + F6 twice, and then Tab or Shift + Tab until you get to the recording volume slider.

When Audacity can't control the level of the recording device, this is indicated by the recording volume slider being unavailable. For sighted users, the slider appears greyed out, and for users of screen readers, you can't Tab to it. In these cases you have to use the appropriate control which is part of Windows, as described in the Sound dialog in Windows section.

Whether Audacity can control the recording level depends to a large extent on the audio interface which you are using:

Number of recording channels

The number of channels of the recording device can be set using either the recording channels combo box in the Devices category of the Preferences dialog, or the recording channels combo box in the Select Recording Channels dialog (Shift + N), or the Recording Channels combo box in the Device toolbar. If you're recording using a microphone, then the appropriate setting depends whether it's a mono or stereo microphone. If you're recording from line in, stereo mix, or one of the loopback devices when using WASAPI, then the setting should be stereo.

Overdub option

The Overdub option controls whether Audacity plays any existing tracks while recording a new one. You can check or uncheck this option either on the Transport Options sub menu on the Transport menu, or in the Recording category of the Preferences dialog.

Software Playthrough option

The Software Playthrough option controls whether Audacity plays the new track while it is being recorded. Normally this option should be off, but it's useful if you want to hear what you're recording from a device such a USB turntable. It can be checked or unchecked either on the Transport Options sub menu on the Transport menu, or in the Recording category of the Preferences dialog.

Recording commands and keystrokes

The recording commands and keystrokes, using default settings are:

Note that during a recording, the second section of the status bar contains the maximum length of recording you can make given your free disk space.

In the versions of Audacity 2.1.3 and earlier, the shortcuts R and Shift + R for two of the commands to start recording were the other way round. There's an option in Preferences which easily allows you to have them that way round if you find it more convenient. In the Recording category of Preferences, there is an “Record on a new track” check box, which is not checked by default. If this check box is checked then the two commands to start recording are:

Adjusting the recording level

There is a Recording meter in the Upper toolbars section of the Audacity window for helping to set up the recording level. The meter contains a Record meter drop down button, and you can move to this button by pressing Ctrl + F6 twice to move to the Upper toolbars, and then pressing Tab until you get to it.

If you press this button by pressing Enter, then a menu opens which contains commands for controlling the meter. You can start and stop monitoring using this menu, and the meter also automatically monitors the input signal during recording. To make the meter accessible for screen reader users, the following information is included in the name of the drop down button which is read out by screen readers:

To check what the peak level of a recording is roughly likely to be with current setting of the recording level:

  1. Press the record meter drop down button, and choose Start monitoring.
  2. Make some representative sounds for a short while.
  3. Press the record meter drop down button, and choose Stop monitoring. The name of the drop down button includes the peak level of this monitoring session.

Normally a good value of the peak level to aim for is about -6db. This should ensure that the recording level is both low enough so that distortion or clipping doesn't occur, and high enough so that you don't get an unnecessary amount of noise.

At any time when the meter is monitoring, you can read the peak level that has occurred so far in that monitoring session, but how to do this depends on which screen reader you're using. If you are using either NVDA or Narrator, you can read the peak level by pressing the keystroke to read the current line. However, if you're using Jaws, to have to tab away and then tab back to the meter button.

The peak level can also be given using a linear scale of 0 to 1. You'll probably want to just stick with decibels, but if you want to change the scale:

  1. Press the record meter drop down button by pressing Enter.
  2. Choose Options. The Recording Meter Options dialog opens.
  3. Set the Meter Type radio buttons to dB or linear.

Punch and roll recording

Punch and roll recording allows you to easily correct a recording just after you've made a mistake.

Punch recording in is a term used for overwriting part of a recorded track when you're playing back the track. The punch in point is the time at which the audio editor switches from playback to recording over existing audio. And similarly, any punch out point is the time at which the audio editor stops recording and reverts to playback. In punch and roll recording, there is a punch in point, but no punch out point. The recording continues until you stop it.

The following is an outline of Punch and roll recording in Audacity:

  1. You are recording, and realize that you've just made a mistake. Stop the recording.
  2. Position the cursor where you want the punch in point. This will usually be shortly before the end of the recording, and during a pause, for example the pause between sentences.
  3. Start punch and roll recording. Playback starts from a few seconds before the punch-in point. Once the punch-in point is reached, playback stops and recording starts. The recording continues until you stop it.

Using Punch and roll record, you base the timing of the new recording on listening to the playback of the audio before the punch in point. However, within Audacity there is a delay between the played and the recorded audio. There is a default compensation for this, and this may be good enough. However, if the timing of the audio near the punch in point doesn't sound right, indicating that the compensation is not good enough, then see the Latency compensation section below for more details of this delay, and how to adjust its compensation.

A more detailed description of punch and roll recording is as follows. You are recording, and realize that you've just made a mistake. Stop the recording by pressing either Spacebar or X.

You now need to move the cursor to the position of the punch in point:

  1. If you haven't already done so, check that the track is selected, and that any other tracks are not selected.
  2. If you stopped the recording by pressing Spacebar, then press K to move to the end of the audio. If you stopped the recording by pressing X, then the cursor will already be at the end of the audio. In fact it will be slightly after the end, but this doesn't matter.
  3. One way of then moving the cursor back to a suitable punch in point is as follows. First move the cursor to a little before the intended punch in point using the Comma or Shift + Comma to move the cursor to the left by a short or long time respectively. Then start playback, and press X when you reach the intended punch in point. Playback stops, and the cursor is positioned at the point where playback stopped.

After you have positioned the cursor, then on the Transport menu, open the Recording sub menu, and choose Punch and Roll Record (Shift + D). This command causes the following to happen:

  1. The audio after the cursor in the selected track is deleted.
  2. The pre-roll playback starts a few seconds before the cursor. The pre roll is 5 seconds by default, but you can set whatever value you want in the recording category of the Preferences dialog. During this playback you may find it useful to perform along to the existing recording, so that don't have to start from cold when the recording starts.
  3. When the playback reaches the cursor, playback stops and recording starts.

After a punch and roll record:

Immediately after the punch in point, Audacity applies a short crossfade from the original audio to the newly recorded audio. This is to avoid introducing any glitches. The default length of the crossfade is 10ms, which will probably be a suitable value, but you can change this value in the recording category of the Preferences dialog.

Latency compensation

If you record a vocal track whilst listening to one or more existing tracks, then due to various delays, the newly recorded track won't be in sync with the original tracks. The total delay is known as the latency and some of the factors which affect its size are: the recording and playback devices, the size of the audio buffers within Audacity, and the audio interface being used (for example, MME or DirectSound).

Audacity can automatically compensate for the latency, once the latency has been measured, as described below. In the Preferences dialog, in the Devices category, in the Latency group, there's a Latency compensation edit box, where the units of the compensation are milliseconds. If you record audio in a new track, then the audio is automatically moved later in time by this latency compensation. So to shift the audio earlier in time to offset the latency, the number should be negative.

The default value of the latency compensation is -130 milliseconds. The default value will be only roughly correct for a particular recording set up, and it's recommended that you measure the actual latency.

The following method for measuring the latency when using a microphone for recording is accurate to about 10ms, which normally should be good enough. It consists of the following three parts, which will be described in detail in the following sections:

  1. Generate a rhythm track, which consists of a series of clicks with 1 second spacing.
  2. Record this rhythm track. Due to latency and its current compensation, the clicks in the recorded track may occur before or after the clicks in the original track.
  3. With the help of the Start of selection spin box in the Selection toolbar, find the position of the click in the recorded track which corresponds to the click at 1 second in the generated track, and work out a new compensation.

Generate a rhythm track

  1. Choose Rhythm Track from the Generate menu.
  2. The second control is the Tempo [beats per minute] edit box, and its default value is 120. Type 60, and then press Tab twice to move to the next edit box.
  3. The Beats per measure [bar] edit box has a default value of 4. Type in the number 1, and then press Enter to press the default OK button.
  4. The rhythm track is created. The track is initially selected, and a time range is selected which includes all the audio.

Record the rhythm track

To record the rhythm track being played back through your headphones, you'll obviously need to take them off temporarily. If you're using a separate microphone, rather than a headset microphone, then position it close to the headphones so that it can pick up the clicks. Start recording in a new track (Shift + R, by default), and then press Spacebar to stop the recording after a handful of clicks.

With the first track still being the focus, press Shift + U to mute it, and then playback the recorded track. If the clicks are very quiet compared to your screen reader, then amplify the track:

  1. Deselect the first track, and select the second track
  2. Press Home, then Shift + End to select a time range.
  3. Choose Amplify from the effects menu.
  4. In the Amplify dialog, just press Enter to accept the default amplification.

Find the position of a click in the recorded track

The following instructions describe how to find the position of the recorded click which corresponds to the click which occurs at 1 second in the generated track, and then update Audacity's latency compensation. It's assumed that the original track is still muted from when you checked the level of the recorded track above.

  1. Press Home to set both the selection start and selection end/length spin boxes in the selection toolbar to zero.
  2. Press Ctrl + F6 to move to the selection bar. Tab to the Show combo box, and make sure that the Start and Length of selection option is selected.
  3. Then Tab to the Start spin box, and change the format to hh:mm:ss + milliseconds using its context menu.
  4. To set the selection start to 1 second, press End to move to the last digit (milliseconds), press Left Arrow three to move to the seconds digit, and then press Up Arrow to increment it to one.
  5. Press Spacebar to listen to the first few clicks. There are two cases: if the recorded click is later than the original click at 1 second, then time to the first click is much less than the one second spacing of the remaining clicks; if the recorded click is earlier than original click, then the time to the first click is roughly the same as the one second spacing between the remaining clicks. Finding the position of the recorded click, and modifying Audacity's latency compensation is described for these two cases in the following steps.
  6. To find the position of the recorded click when it's later than the original click, move to the 10 millisecond digit by pressing End to move to the last digit, and then pressing Left Arrow. Then go round the loop of incrementing the selection start by 10 milliseconds by pressing Up Arrow and then pressing Spacebar to check the time to the first click. When you've just gone past the click, the time to the first click will suddenly change to roughly a second. Decrement the selection start by 10 milliseconds so that you can still hear the first click almost immediately, and then press you screen reader's keystroke to read the current line, and so read the number of milliseconds. Adjust the latency compensation by subtracting this number from it. For example, if the initial compensation was -130ms, and the recorded click was 40ms late, then the latency compensation should be changed to -170ms.
  7. To find the position of the recorded click when it's earlier than the original click, move to the 10 millisecond digit by pressing End to move to the last digit, and then pressing Left Arrow. Then go round the loop of decrementing the selection start by 10 milliseconds by pressing Down Arrow, and then pressing Spacebar to check the time to the first click. When you move to just before the click, or during it, the click will suddenly sound immediately after the start of playback. Press you screen reader's keystroke to read the current line, and so read the number of milliseconds. Subtract this number from 1000 to get the number of milliseconds by which the recorded click was early. Then adjust the latency compensation by adding this number to it. For example, if the initial compensation was -130ms and the recorded click was 20ms early, then the latency compensation should be changed to -110ms.

Preferences

The Audacity Preferences dialog allows you to adjust many of the settings in Audacity. After a brief description of the dialog box, the following sections describe some of the more common settings.

Audacity Preferences dialog box

To open this dialog box, choose Preferences on the Edit menu (Ctrl + P).

On the left hand side of the dialog is a tree view which contains various categories. To the right of this tree view are controls for setting the options which correspond to the category which is selected in the tree view. So, once you've selected the category which you are interested in, you can then Tab through the settings for that category. The dialog's default button is the OK button.

Extra menu

The Extra menu, which is not shown by default, contains commands which are not shown in the standard menus. It includes commands associated with the toolbars.

You can change whether or not this menu is shown either by using the Extra menus option in the View menu, or by using a setting in Preferences:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Interface category.
  2. In the Options group, there is a Show Extra Menus check box, which by default is unchecked.

Seek times

Whilst playing, you can jump (seek) forward or backward by either a short or long period. The default values of these periods are 1 and 15 seconds respectively, but you can set them to whatever you want. These settings are shared by the commands for moving the cursor by a short or long period. To set the values of these periods:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Playback category.
  2. The Seek Time when playing group contains two edit boxes: Short period and Long period.

Automatic selection

The is a select all audio option, which is off by default, and for users of screen readers it's recommended that this option is left off. This option causes tracks and/or time ranges to be selected with no audio feedback, and so can be confusing.

The select all audio option effects what happens in two situations. The first is if you try to perform some action on some audio, for example apply an effect, and in fact no audio is selected. Remember that for for some audio to be selected, both one or more audio tracks have to be selected, and a time range has to be selected. If the option is off, then the result of the action is that a dialog opens, telling you that no audio is selected. If the option is on, then all the audio is the project is selected, and the action is performed.

The second situation is if you try and perform some action on some tracks, for example to align them end to end, and in fact no tracks are selected. If the option is off, then the result of the action is that a dialog opens, telling you than one or more tracks need to be selected. If the option is on, then all the audio tracks in the project are selected, and the action is performed.

To change this setting:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Tracks Behaviors category.
  2. In the behaviors group, there is a “Select all audio, if section required” check box, which is unchecked by default.

FFmpeg library

The FFmpeg library contains decoders and encoders which enable Audacity to open and save files in formats which are not supported by the standard installation of Audacity. The FFmpeg library is not included with Audacity due to legal issues about patents. Nearly all encoders are covered by one or more patents, but these patents aren't recognized in all countries. The FFmpeg License and Legal Considerations page of the FFmpeg website contains a few comments on these issues.

To download and install the FFmpeg library:

  1. Go to the website whose address is lame.buanzo.org .
  2. On this page, find the link ffmpeg-win-2.2.2.exe, and then open it to download a file which has the same name as the link. Note that if the link on the page is to a version later than 2.2.2 then that will be OK too.
  3. Open the downloaded file, and a setup wizard opens. The default location for the FFmpeg library is a newly created FFmpeg for Audacity folder in either the Program Files (x86) folder on 64-bit Windows, or the Program Files folder on 32-bit Windows.

Then, the next time Audacity is opened, it automatically finds the FFmpeg library.

Edit Metadata Tags dialog opens during export

To set whether the Edit Metadata Tags dialog automatically opens each time you export audio:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Import/Export category.
  2. In the When exporting tracks to an audio file group, there's a “Show Metadata tags Editor prior to export” check box, which is checked by default.

Default folders

By default, when you execute one of the commands open, save, import or export, and a dialog opens so that you can choose a file, the default folder is set to be the last folder which you used for that command. If you haven't used the command before, then the default folder is a folder named Audacity in your Documents folder, which is automatically created by audacity.

However, for each of these commands, if you don't want the default folder to be the last folder, you can set the default folder to always be a particular folder. To do this:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Directories category.
  2. You can then Tab to the controls for setting the default folders (directories). For each of the commands there is an edit box and a Browse button, and by default the edit box is empty.
  3. Although it's possible to type in the full path of a folder into one of the edit boxes, it's much easier to press the Browse button following it. This opens a Chooose a location dialog, where you can select a folder.

Use dialog for the name of a new label

The option to use a dialog for the name of a new label is described in the Creating labels section of the Labels section. This option is not checked by default, but for users of screen readers, it's recommended that it is checked:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Tracks Behaviors category.
  2. Tab to the “Use dialog for name of a new label” check box, and check it.

Type to create a label

When a label track is the focus, if the “Type to create a label” option is on, then pressing any letter or number automatically creates a new label. By default this option is off, and users of screen readers will probably want to leave this unchanged. However, if you do want to change this option:

  1. In the Audacity Preferences dialog, select the Tracks Behaviors category.
  2. In the Behaviors group, there is a “Type to create a label” check box.

Recording options

A number of recording options can be set in the recording category of the Preferences dialog, and these are described in the Recording settings section of the Recording section.

Keyboard shortcuts

The controls in the Keyboard category of Preferences enable you to manage the keyboard shortcuts for all the commands available in Audacity.

As well as the standard way of accessing these controls by opening the preferences dialog and selecting the keyboard category, there is an additional method which you may find convenient. If you select a command on one of the menus on the menu bar, and press Shift + Enter rather than the usual Enter then a dialog opens which has the title Preferences: keyboard. In the tree view or list which are described below, the command is already selected. Note that this method does not work if the command in the menu is unavailable.

The first three controls in the keyboard category are:

View by tree

The commands are displayed as a tree view, and if a command has a shortcut associated with it, then although this appears before the name of the command, screen readers read this after the name of the command.

The layout of the commands in the tree view mirrors the structure of the menus in the menu bar of Audacity's main window. So at the top level of the tree view are the names of the menus in the menu bar. Each of these names contains the commands in that menu, and the names of any sub menus contain the commands in that sub menu.

View by name

The commands are displayed as a list which is sorted alphabetically be the name of the command. If a command has a shortcut assigned to it, then although this is displayed before the name of the command, screen readers read this after the name of the command. Note the if the command appears in a sub menu, then the name of the command is prefixed with the name of the sub menu, for example “Add New - Audio Track”. This is so that commands which have the same name, but which appear in different sub menus can be distinguished from one another.

View by Key

The commands are displayed using a list of commands, and if the command has a shortcut assigned to it, this is displayed before the name of the command. The commands with shortcuts are listed first, and these are sorted alphabetically by the command's shortcut. The commands without shortcuts are then listed alphabetically by the name of the command. As in the case of View by name, if a command appears in a sub menu, then the name of the command is prefixed with the name of the sub menu.

Searching

You can search for a command or commands using the edit box whose name is either Search or Hotkey, depending on the view. The search results are shown in the tree view or the list as soon as anything is entered in the edit box – you don't have to press enter. The details of the search depend on the view:

Changing a shortcut

To set a shortcut:

  1. In the tree view or list, select the command whose shortcut you want to change.
  2. Tab to the short cut edit box, and press a key or key combination for the shortcut.
  3. Tab to the Set button, and press it. If the shortcut is already assigned to another command, then an Error dialog opens which tells you the name of this command. If you press the OK button, then the shortcut will be set a requested, and removed from the other command.

To clear a shortcut:

  1. In the Tree view or list, select the command whose shortcut you want to clear.
  2. Tab to the Clear button, and press it.

Standard and full sets of default shortcuts

There are two sets of default shortcuts:

If Audacity 2.2.0 or later is run in a user account where versions of Audacity before 2.2.0 have not been run, then Audacity uses the standard set of shortcuts. However if one of these older versions has been run, then the full set if used, and there is no need to change which set of default shortcuts is being used.

To reset all the shortcuts to either the standard or full set of defaults:

The left and right bracket shortcuts on keyboards other than US, UK or Irish

By default, the keyboard shortcuts for moving the cursor to the playback position and setting the end of the selection to be the playback position are the left and right bracket keys. These keystrokes can also be used to open dialog boxes when there is no playback.

On US, UK, and Irish keyboards, the left and right bracket keys are the two keys to the right of the letter P key. On nearly all the keyboards used in other countries, the keys used to type Left Bracket and Right Bracket, are in different positions, and you often have to use modifier keys, such as Ctrl + Alt to type these characters. Unfortunately, using Audacity's default settings, the Left and Right bracket keys only execute the commands described above when these keys are to the right of the letter P key.

However, there is a straightforward solution to this problem. All you need to do is set the keyboard shortcuts for the two commands using the method described in the previous section. The letters G and H are currently not used as the shortcuts for any commands, so a suitable option is to set the shortcut for the Left at Playback Position command to be the letter G, and the shortcut for the Right at Playback Position command to be the letter H.

Sound dialog in Windows

The Windows Sound dialog in Windows 7 and later versions has four pages: Playback, Recording, Sounds, and Communications. The following sections describe how to open this dialog, the controls on the Recording page, and how to open a device's properties dialog where you can adjust the input level of the device.

Opening the Sound dialog

Here are a couple of ways of opening the dialog, and this is the first:

  1. Press the Windows Key. The start menu opens.
  2. Type system sounds, then if necessary press Down Arrow until you get to Change system sounds in the list of search results, and then press Enter. The Sound dialog opens on the Sounds page.

And this is the second way:

  1. Press the Windows Key. The start menu opens.
  2. Type mmsys.cpl, and this should be the first search result. Press Enter. The Sound dialog opens on the Playback page.

Recording page

The recording page contains a list of devices, and when appropriate, one or more of the buttons: Configure, Set Default, and Properties. The commands provided by the buttons are also available on the context menus of the devices in the list, and it's normally easier to use these, rather than the buttons.

There are two options which control which devices appear on the list, and they appear on the context menu of any of the items in the list. The two options are Show Disabled Devices and Show Disconnected Devices. If you can't find a device which you think should be there, it may be disabled, and so will only show up if the Show Disabled Devices option is checked.

For each item on the list there are three lines of text: its name, a short description, and its status, such as working, disabled, or Not plugged in. NVDA automatically reads all three lines of text, but Jaws and Narrator only read the first line. If you're using Jaws, you can read the other two lines using the Jaws cursor. In addition, if you open the item's context menu, there will be either an enable or a disable command, which tells you whether or not the item is disabled or enabled, respectively.

Device properties dialog

To open the Properties dialog of a device which is selected in list on the Recording page, press Spacebar, or choose Properties from its context menu.

The input volume (level) can be set on the Levels page of this dialog. For many devices there's a single slider, but a microphone may also have a microphone boost slider.

Keystrokes

These are the keystrokes for the full set of default keystrokes – some of these are not included in the standard set. For more information about these two sets of defaults and how to change which set you are using, see the Standard and full sets of default shortcuts section, in the Preferences section.

General

Command Keystroke
Open audio file Ctrl + O
Import audio file Ctrl + Shift + I
New project Ctrl + N
Save project Ctrl + S
Export Audio Ctrl + Shift + E
Preferences dialog Ctrl + P
Cycle forward through Upper toolbars, Track view table, and Lower toolbars Ctrl + F6
Cycle backward through Upper toolbars, Track view table, and Lower toolbars Ctrl + Shift + F6
Cycle forward through the Audacity main window and any open modeless dialogs Alt + F6
Cycle backward through the Audacity main window and any open modeless dialogs Alt + Shift + F6
Zoom normal Ctrl + 2
Zoom in Ctrl + 1
Zoom out Ctrl + 3

Playback

Command Keystroke
Start/Stop Spacebar
Start/Stop and move cursor X
Scrub backwards Press and hold U
Scrub forwards Press and hold I
Pause/resume P
Seek backward short period during playback Left Arrow
Seek forward short period during playback Right Arrow
Seek backward long period during playback Shift + Left Arrow
Seek forward long period during playback Shift + Right Arrow
Play looped Shift + Spacebar
Select Playback Device dialog Shift + O
Play cut/delete preview C
Play short period before selection start Shift + F5
Play short period after selection start Shift + F6
Play short period before selection end Shift + F7
Play short period after selection end Shift + F8
Play short period before and after selection start Ctrl + Shift + F5
Play short period before and after selection end Ctrl + Shift + F7

Track view table

Command Keystroke
Move to previous track Up Arrow
Move to next track Down Arrow
Move to first track Ctrl + Home
Move to last track Ctrl + End
Toggle selection of focused track Enter
Select all the tracks (and a time range which includes all the audio) Ctrl + A
Deselect all the tracks (and any time-range) Ctrl + Shift + A
Select all the tracks Ctrl + Shift + K
Open menu of focused track Shift + M or Application key
Close (Delete) focused track Shift + C

Audio track

Command Keystroke
Change gain of focused track Shift + G
Change pan of focused track Shift + P
Mute/Unmute focused track Shift + U
Mute all tracks Ctrl + U
Unmute all tracks Ctrl + Shift + U
Mute all the selected tracks Ctrl + Alt + U
Unmute all the selected tracks Ctrl + Alt + Shift + U
Solo/Unsolo focused track Shift + S

Moving the cursor

Command Keystroke
Move to start of tracks (time zero) Home
Move to end of all audio End
Move to start of audio in selected tracks J
Move to end of audio in selected tracks K
New cursor position at playback position Left Bracket
Stop playback and move cursor X
Scrub backwards Press and hold U
Scrub forwards Press and hold I
Move backward short period Comma
Move forward short period Period
Move backward long period Shift + Comma
Move forward long period Shift + Period
Cursor left by a small amount Left Arrow
Cursor right by a small amount Right Arrow

Selecting a time range

Command Keystroke
Select time range which includes all the audio, and select all tracks Ctrl + A
Selection start at start of tracks (time zero) Shift + Home
Selection end at end of all the audio Shift + End
Selection end at playback position Right Bracket
Selection start at start of audio in selected tracks Shift + J
Selection end at end of audio in selected tracks Shift + K
To move the end of the selection to the right by a small amount Shift + Right Arrow
To move the end of the selection to the left by a small amount Ctrl + Shift + Left Arrow
To move the start of the selection to the right by a small amount Ctrl + Shift + Right Arrow
To move the start of the selection to the left by a small amount Shift + Left Arrow

Editing

Command Keystroke
Undo Ctrl + Z
Redo Ctrl + Y
Delete selected audio Delete
Cut selected audio Ctrl + X
Copy selected audio Ctrl + C
Paste Ctrl + V
Replace selected audio with silence Ctrl + L
Duplicate the selected audio Ctrl + D
Close (Delete) focused track Shift + C
Find zero crossings Z

Labels

Command Keystroke
Add label at selection Ctrl + B
Add label at playback position Ctrl + M
Move to next label Alt + Right Arrow
Move to previous label Alt + Left Arrow

Clips

Command Keystroke
Select previous clip Alt + Comma
Select next clip Alt + Period
Split Ctrl + I
Split delete Ctrl + Alt + K
Split cut Ctrl + Alt + X
Split New Ctrl + Alt + I
Detach at silences Ctrl + Alt + J
Join Ctrl + J

Recording

Command Keystroke
Record R
Record in new Track Shift + R
Punch and roll record Shift + D
Pause/Resume P
Stop Spacebar
Select Audio Host dialog Shift + H
Select Recording Device dialog Shift + I
Select Recording Channels dialog Shift + N