October 22, 2013
Radio Show - Group Project
For the following project, see the Word document at the bottom of the page titled 'News Group Project.' Additional resources for background music and sound effects are found at the following links:
October 17, 2013
Tips and Tricks with Audacity Effects
- Truncating silence is useful for cleaning up verbal fillers such as awkward pauses, 'um's, and 'well's. Learn how to do it here.
- When you have a hiss or a hum in the background (think: fan, computer, air conditioner), you can use the Noise Removal filter to make some serious improvements to your audio quality. Check out the step-by-step guide for using Noise Removal here. Be sure you catch the part about getting a 'noise profile' before using the filter outright.
- The echo filter seems pretty useless unless you have some silence after your echo. Read the specifics of that filter here.
- The reverse filter allows you to simply play audio backwards. It's good practice to select the audio you wish to play backwards, copy it, paste, and then apply the effect to the copy of the original audio.
To demonstrate your proficiency with these, I will need to see that you have done the following:
- Acquire the 'noise removal' project from me, and then utilize the Noise Removal filter to remove the background hum. You will not apply the echo to this track.
- Within that same audacity project, Record a single word or single vocal sound effect on another track. You might want to mute the noise removal track first. Then use the echo filter to echo it over a five-second span (HINT: after you generate the 5 seconds of silence, highlight the portion of the audio you want to echo AND the silence that follows it. If you don't highlight the silence, Audacity will try to create echoes only within the space you have highlighted, which isn't a long enough time span). Using the Reverse filter, have a second copy of that echoed audio go from silent to full volume (as if you reflected the audio across an axis).
As we begin working with audio and the program Audacity (free for download here), you can use the Word document attached at the bottom of the page to look into the basics of how to use the program.
October 8, 2013
Group "song" Project
After looking in to how to record audio, as well as use the Time Shift and Selection tools, you'll work with a group to create a "song" by recording a set of simple sounds. Each sound should be in their own track. To do this,
- Record one sound. It could be you saying a single word, tapping on the desk three times, tapping on the bottom of a cup, etc.; it doesn't matter, as long as it's one piece of audio you could use repeatedly.
- Hit the stop button to stop recording in that track.
- Record a second sound, hitting stop after that. Repeat this until you have at least six different audio recordings/tracks.
- Now, take each sound effect and copy and paste it at a specific interval (use the time scale across the top of your workspace!). Keep each sound in its own track! This will let you have different sound effects play at different times.
- As you stop and start working, you will go to File --> Save project. The first time you save, of course, you'll name your project file. Know the following, though: Saving an Audacity project creates a file and a folder with the same name.
- The project file is like the recipe (just as in Movie Maker): it contains all the directions and edits, but none of the actual audio that was recorded.
- The folder, which will add "_data" onto the end of the file name, includes all of the raw, recorded audio. Really, you don't ever need to actually go into this folder for anything.
- When you move these files (such as from one group member's USB to another), both the folder and project file must go together.
- Instead of renaming your files, it's easier to just open your project and save it as another file name, then delete the original file and folder.
- Your "song" will need to be a minimum of 30 seconds, but no longer than approximately one minute. Remember, there should be at least 6 different sound effects!
- When recording, you also need to be sure that the audio is not "peaking" (the waves are not constantly reaching the tops/bottoms of the track when