How to use Audacity

Your voice plays a vital role while creating video or audio. Everyone takes the help of audio editing software to make voice clean by reducing external noise. Audio editing software comes with the feature of changing your voice pitch, maintaining equalizer balance, and a lot more. The Internet is full of thousands of free how to use audacity and paid audio editing software that provides audio editing benefits.

Out of all those, only a few software that runs on windows operating system has received a lot of good feedback. Audacity is an example of such software that has received quite good repose from its users for the last 19 years. In this post, we are going to know details on how to use Audacity, including its benefits.

What is Audacity?

It is audio editing software that has features to do much stuff with your voice. Audacity’s first software came in the year 2000, and it keeps itself upgrading every time to take the voice editing to the next level. It comes with hundreds of features of scaling smaller changes in your voice.

No doubt how low may be the voice quality; it has capable of purifying your agent in such status. Once you know how to use Audacity, then it will be easy for you to control any sound effects. The sound editing feature makes it the most liked software in the field of audio quality. It is free to use, so you do not have to pay anything to use it.

Audacity installation guide:-

Before knowing how to use Audacity, it is necessary to know about the installation procedure. So, kindly follow the below steps for installing Audacity inside your PC:-

• Download the DMG audacity file from its official website. Open the DMG file and open the Audacity.app icon in the new window. Do not double click on the app icon; otherwise, it will take you back to the website.
• Choose the file location to extract all the files for Audacity. 
• Run the Exe file as an administrator to install the file. You can also add a plugin to add more features inside the app. All the plugins are available separately on the website, so you need to download it one by one and add them via the import button.
• After installing the file successfully, the app will create another duplicate file. Do not delete this file as it stores all the necessary processing files inside this folder. But you can clear the unusual processed file directly from audacity software.

How to use Audacity- Full details

Follow the below steps to use Audacity:-

• Import audio file:- the windows app provides you the option to import audio files for editing. In the beginning, you can record and save it to any of the folders inside your PC. Thus, it is necessary to know how to use Audacity for importing any file. Audacity also has the option to record voice directly from the app. You can import wave, AIFF, and mp3 files for editing. All these files can also be shipped using the drag and drop method.
• How to record:- If you do not know how to use Audacity for recording audio then you can follow the steps below:-
  • Turn on the recorder and wait for the first 5 seconds to record the noise in your area.
  • Recording the noise is necessary for knowing the waveform of your audio.
  • You can later use to noise removal feature to clean the same type noise in your video detected in the first 5 seconds. It also has the option to import an audio file from your CD.

• Looking at the waveform:- It is the critical step of editing your sound that will let you know how to use Audacity. After importing any audio file, it gets displayed in the form of a wave. Looking at this wave, you can determine the clarity and noise inside the audio file. It shows that whenever two waveforms come close to each other, then you get a loud sound. Similarly, when these waves are little distance apart, it indicates that your voice is low. The ruler displays your sound in minutes and seconds.

• Removing any DC offset:-

  This method is necessary when the waveform in the center does not show horizontal lines. It also happens when your amplitude is not zero. For operating the software, you must have an idea for how to use Audacity; you must know the DC offset feature. DC offset occurs when you record any video in a noisy place. It also happens when you import very low-quality audio into Audacity. You can normalize all the sounds by changing some settings of the audio section. Above this waveform, you will find the list of setting options that help you to increase the audio quality of your audio file. If you do not want to customize your voice on your own, you can click on remove DC offset; it will automatically remove all the noise and give you a specific audio file.

• Audio comparison:-

Audacity gave features to compare your edited audio with the original one. You can put both the audio file on the screen at the same time and play them one by one to check the improvement of your audio quality.

• Equalizing:- Audacity also support different equalizing mode for providing better customization to your audio file. You can set any type of equalizer mode to listens to audio. It is also a method that helps you to know how to use Audacity. You can select your audio variant by equalizing it to drum and classic like music.
• Give background music:- To add any background music, go to file, and select add background music. You will get a pop-up of your files. Select the audio which you want to place in the background of your original audio. Click on open to import your background music in the editing toolbar. You can now set the background music’s volume as per the original audio to add quality to your audio file.

Keyboard commands:-

The following functions will help you to know how to use audacity commands:-

• The space key on your keyboard is useful in playing and pause your audio.
• The left and right button can move the editable audio line of Audacity to the back and front of the imported audio file.
• To the extent, the selection towards the left side press both shifts and left or right keys simultaneously.
• To contract the audio, you have to press down key and shift key simultaneously. 
• To play the audio track from the starting point, click on the home button. You can also use the cursor to the backward and forward direction towards the audio file.
• Long press the left arrow key to go a few second backs and rewind the audio. Doing this will not stop the audio but play from the same place where your left arrow key stops on the waveform.

• If you press the End button, you will reach the end of the waveform.

• This command is useful if you want to check the pitch of your ending sound. You can also get the end of the track by long-pressing the right arrow button and wait till it comes to the end of the waveform.
• One press of the left or right cursor will shift your audio to 15 second backward or forward direction.
•  The moving of cursor while editing your audio file is called seeks time. Professional audio editors use this term. If you balance the seek time of your full audio, you can get a quality video output.

• For zooming your audio, you can click on Ctrl + 1. You can also zoom the waveform manually by clicking the zoom-in button present inside Audacity.

• Press Ctrl + F on your keyboard to track the size of your audio.
• For navigating to the section toolbar, press the Ctrl + F6 button on your keyboard.

You can also set auto-play manually if you do not know how to use audacity interface for playing audio in between some specific time interval. To do this, go to put time and enter the start and end time of the audio to edit any part of the audio file. You can also change the size of the waveform in the same way. The trying numbers will increase and reduce the size of the waveform, and you can create powder and softer voice using this command.

Other useful features

• Remove audio in parts:- Audacity app allows you to remove some specific part of your audio file. You can select any part of the audio by clicking and dragging your mouse button. Press delete to extract the audio.
• Change file type:- Audacity also allows you to change your file type. Suppose you are using a .wav kind of file for editing, then you can export the file in .mp3 form. To do this, just go to the change file option from the top and click on the exported file to get a complete idea for how to use the audacity file changing feature. It will take some time to process, and your file will convert immediately to another format.

• Trim video:

Audacity gives you a video trimming option where you can join your audio in multiple segments. To do this, click on the edit on the toolbar and click on the TRIM option. It will take you to your file where you need to select the audio you want to join. Select the audio and click on the open button to join the audio.

• Export audio file:– after customizing your audio file; you have to save to any folder inside your PC. Go to the File option from the toolbar and click on save the project to export your file. All the edited audio files get saved inside the audacity folder on your download location. Make sure to disable Show Metadata Editor before exporting your file.

FAQ:-

• How to use install plugin for Audacity?

The plugins of Audacity are available in a separate file. The more plugins you go on adding, the more filter you can apply to your audio. You need to download the plugins separately and install them from the plugin installer option available in the Audacity app. It supports all the LVS2 plugin for adding more audio editing features. It also gives you the chance to uninstall those plugins. As it is open-source editing software so, many developers around the world work to create new plugins for Audacity.

• Can I access Audacity in different languages?

Audacity is open-source software for editing audio files. Therefore, it is the most liked audio editing software in the world for 20 years. It supports more than 36 languages. So you can access the interface in any of your comfortable language for free. Some of the most popular languages supported by Audacity are Arabic, Dutch, English, Japanese, etc. You can change the language unlimited times. It does not have any restrictions on changing your default language.

• What are audio editing features available in Audacity?

The app comes with limited edited features, but you can increase the number of parts by adding audio plugins from an external source. Some of the most widely supported features include audio cutting and trimming, MIDI playback, punch and roll recording, amplitude envelope editing, etc. More features are available for exploring if you know how to use Audacity plugins. It also supports noise and vocal reduction, multi-track mixing, spectrum analysis, etc.

• What are the requirements for running Audacity?

It is running since 2000, so the system requirements are not very strict. It can even run in Windows 7, XP, or 32 or 64 system. It also depends on the architecture of your PC if you are thinking of installing an additional plugin inside the app. You must have a free RAM space of 512 MB for Windows 7 to run this software if your RAM space is more than you can enjoy smooth audio editing features. It runs best on a 64-bit system with 1 GHz processor.

• Does Audacity support the autotune effect?

Yes, you can give an autotune effect with the help of Audacity. For this, you need to enable the VST plugin inside the app. If you have a ready-made download file, you can drag and drop it inside the plugin installer to activate the feature. You can enjoy the auto-tune effect after activating the plugin.