Any tips/tutorials for using Audacity?

[Sergeant_Skyrim]

I'm basically wanting to try to use Audacity to play with some of the music that I have and try slowing, chopping, etc. I was just wondering if there were any tutorials or tips out there that could help me learn Audacity a bit better and help me out with this. I don't know much about it at all and have only really used it so far to check the Hz of different songs.

Right at this moment I just had the sudden urge to slow down Dirty Diana by Michael Jackson (bought a 2-disc The Essentials earlier for $12) and am wondering how I'd go about doing it while making sure that it won't clip or damage any equipment basically. For instance, would I just go to the effect tab and change speed however much I want and leave it at that?

I want to be able to edit tracks and have them still be playable in the sense of not destroying anything. Seems like it could be fun to edit music in my spare time. Thanks to anybody who can help!

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Helpful hints/general notes for using Audacity:

1. Ctrl+p or go to Edit and then Preferences. Click Quality. Put Default Sample Rate to 44100Hz and Default Sample Format to 32-bit float. Under Real-time Conversion select High-quality Sinc Interpolation with a Dither of None. For the High-quality Conversion select High-quality Sinc Interpolation with a Dither of Shaped.

2. When adding a bassline (done by going to Generate and selecting Tone), you want to select a "Sine" waveform and never do an Amplitude of over 0.6. Zoom in to the newly added bassline until you can see a smooth waveform and then select the entire first wave, go to Effects, and select Fade In for the beginning of the wave, and Fade Out on the rear end of this newly added bassline. This is done to prevent a "popping" a.k.a. a DC jump to the next frequency.

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All credit goes to a collaboration of spilled secrets from BigPimpin91, SPLWGN, Decaf, and the various members who post with questions without which there would be no answers!

[varietyguy]

x2 I'd like to find more info as well.

[Sergeant_Skyrim]

x2 I'd like to find more info as well.

Seems like it'd be something fun to do in spare time to be honest. Just been unable to find any good videos on implementing "Basshead friendly" effects

[^_^ Gem132]

x3 since decaf and big pimpin cant share there songs anymore, i think it will be a good idea for them to share how they did it so we can all do it ourselves

[BigPimpin91]

Okay Kiddies, sit down , grab a drink, get out your pens and notepads for a BigPimpin' Tutorial. (Or CTRL-C + CTRL-V will work just fine.)

To Slow things down in Audacity is rather easy.

Load up your track by opening Audacity and dragging the music file from it's destination folder to the work area in Audacity.

For those that do not know, if you click and hold a file and slide down to your Taskbar over the program you want to open it in and you hover there for a moment, Windows will automatically open up that programs tab. (This only works on Windows, obviously, and if that program is already running.)

Once that is done, hit CTRL-A to highlight the whole track.

From there we go to Effect-->Change Speed.

Choose any number on the negative side.

Anything more than 30% gets a bit drastic so shoot between 10-20 depending on how low you want to go with it.

If you need pictures to explain, let me know.

Now, for the BigPimpin' Trade Secret on Chopping a song in Audacity.

*NOTE*

This method is VERY time consuming. You MUST be able to keep time with music so a musical background helps. Band, Choir, ETC.

Be prepared to set aside about an hour to Chop a song depending on how much chopping you want and how well you want it to flow together.

I DO NOT use this method anymore as I found out the real way to C&S is to use turntables.*

*Pro-Tips*

I like to listen to the song a few times to get a feel for how the beat goes and I like to Chop the song live by vocalizing how it would sound chopped.

To properly chop, you must have the part you want to chop play BEFORE it is supposed to happen in the original track.

EX.

Good

Wax on Wax off like Karate Kid Eight's-Eight's on the Chevy You know what it is

Bad

Wax on Wax off like Karate Kid Twenty Eight's-Eight's on the Chevy You know what it is

In order to attain good chops, you must do it on beats 1 or beat 3 where the Artist is beginning a word not ending it. Chopping the latter half of a word sounds "off" and isn't good for your audience.

Now to the Nitty-Gritty.

Following steps above have your track loaded up and slowed to whatever pitch you want it.

Begin by finding a Kick Drum or a snare as these are on "time" and are easy to measure from.

From there you are going to measure to the next "peak" by aligining your box up to an identifiable point on the kick and dragging the box over to the next one to see how much time is between beats.

Here's a close-up of the time display.

Okay, our time is .75210.

This is actually incorrect. It turns out the time we need is 0.5123 but I did all the screen shots with the wrong time but the theory still applies. (A LOT of C&S in Audacity is guesswork. Not all songs work out because the BPM is too high or too low. Hence why I can't C&S all songs that I would like to.)

We then measure this from our point where we took our measurement.

We then drag the LEFT side of the box over to the right passed the right hand portion of the box and up to the 0.37605.

Then we CTRL-C that portion.

Then we slide the right side of the box BACK over to the left of the box creating the box we had before.

Then we CTRL-V that portion onto there and VOILA your chop is done.

Now, depending on where you chose to chop and what you we're chopping, it may or may not sound good.

If not just CTRL-Z the shit out of it until it's back to original.

Here's the bad chop I did for the tutorial versus what I should have done. (Super Tired Tutorials suck.)

If anyone needs some more clarifying please post here and I'll fix it tomorrow.

[Ecco]

And now I'm following this topic. Bahah. I need to read this when I have free time :/

[woodzyspl]

thanks heaps!

how dose 1 add bass and mute bass in songs? if possible anyway lol mainly wanna add some of what ever my next car peaks at ect..

tryed add bass lines but sounds so clipped or very freaking loud even when level is 0..compared to other songs ect..

[Ecco]

Yeh, I need help adding sine waves, and making them sound good/like they're supposed to be there.

[ineeDBass419]

good shit bigpimpin..now hopefully decaf will chime in and share some of his secrets.

[SPLWGN]

Adding/Removing bass is quite simple too, import your song of choice into audacity, then highlight the whole track by double clicking on it and duplicate by hitting ctrl+D, you can then run a high pass filter of about 80Hz at 48db on the top track and a low pass filter of 80Hz at 48db on the bottom (doesnt have to be 80Hz i just find this easiest). You now have a track for the mids and highs and a track for the bass , from there you can delete whatever is in the bottom track and add your own bass. To do so i split the track from stereo to mono which can be found by clicking on the little arrow to the left of your track, highlight the area you want your bassline to go in, then go to 'generate - tone'.....choose your frequency and set the amplitude at 0.6db or less, anything over will be at a huge risk of clipping and sound distorted, repeat this process by just adding more tones and copying and pasting etc. and you will eventually get the hang of it. I also ALWAYS run another low pass filter on the bass track when im finished to remove this stupid clicking noise that appears when adding tones I know im not the best at explaining things and im sorry for not providing images to make things easier, and if my process has any faults im sure decaf or bigpimpin could correct me but this is how i add a new bass line into songs!