LAB EIGHT USING AUDACITY

TASK: ABSTRACTING TEXT

Setting Up the Project

In a new project, import Dr. King (Track 59). Use only the
left (or right) tracks we will be working in mono.

Listen to the region.

Separate the first three phrases into regions and place them in
separate tracks. Discard the remaining text.

The first region should contain Now I believe the words of

Dr. King (yeah); this will be referred to below as Believe.

The second region should contain If I helped somebody

(yeah); this will be referred to below as Help.

The third region should contain As I travel on (yeah); this

will be referred to below as Travel.

The three regions as they should now look.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Processing Text: Reversal

Before processing any region, remember to make a copy of the
region first (Copy and Paste to and from the clipboard). Audacity
replaces the original region with the processed region, so if you
need to retain the original (which is often a good idea, work on a
copy.

Reverse Believe by selecting it and choosing Reverse from

the Effect menu.

Reversing a selected region

Processing Text: Pitch Shift

Pitch shifting is also known as transposition (a musical term);.
Changing pitch without changing duration, a digital phenomena
known as time correction, is accomplished in Audacity using the
Change Pitch process.
Audacity

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With Travel selected, choose Change Pitch from the Effect

menu, and enter -3.00 as the alteration to Semitones:

Lab Eight using Audacity

Pitch shifting a selection down three semitones, without

changing duration

TASK: COMBINING SIMILAR

TRANSFORMATIONSDIRECTION
Processing the Regions

After importing the file, split the stereo track, delete one
channel, and switch the remaining track to mono.

Create a region (Split from the Edit menu) for each of the
separate smashes. Remove the unused portions.

Separate the regions in a single track, one after another, and

make a copy in another track using Copy and Paste.

Reverse each copy.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Five regions, copied to the next track, then each reversed.

Add another track, drag one of the reversed regions into a

clear track, immediately followed by same version in its
original forward region.

A reversed sound object, immediately followed by its forward

version.
Combining Processes

Select the forward region (the second one) and pitch shift it,
without time correction, by using the Change Speed process in
the Effect menu.

Audacity does not have a process to change pitch without time

correction in which you can specify discrete semitones; instead, it
uses percentage. Therefore, use a Percent Change setting of -33.0.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Pitch shifting a selected region without time correction using

Change Speed. Slowing a sound down by 33% will result in a
pitch change of 7 semitones.

Add two seconds to the pitch shifted region by using the

Join trick. Select a small part of a region, copy it to the
clipboard, and paste it two seconds after the end of the region
you want to extend:

Pasting something two seconds after the existing region

Select the original, pitch shifted region and the pasted

dummy region, and choose Join from the Edit menu. This
will extend the region with silence:

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Adding silence to the end of a region by joining it to another

region

Select the entire pitch shifted region (with the extra two
seconds), then use a reverb plug-in (such as GVerb or Audio
Units MatrixReverb) to add reverb.

The reversed region, followed by the pitch-shifted,

reverberated region

TASK: COMBINING SIMILAR

TRANSFORMATIONSTRANSPOSITION
After importing the earlier file and making six pitch shifts:

Select everything (Select All, cmd-A OSX or cntl-A Win), Copy

to the clipboard, move the cursor to the end of the selection
(Move Cursor from the Edit menu), and Paste.

This will place copies of all the regions immediately after

themselves on their respective tracks.

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Select the Volume Tool, and create a unique and slowly

evolving volume automation envelope for each track.

Lab Eight using Audacity

Combining the same process with different settings to create a

dynamically varying gesture.

TASK: CREATING AND VARYING A RHYTHMIC LOOP

Setting Up the Project

Import Track 39 (Chisel) into a new project, and zoom in to

display the first three seconds.

Highlighting the first four rhythmic in the Chisel region.

Select four events for a potential loop.

Shift click on the Play button to initiate loop playback.

From the Operations menu, select Loop Playback.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Loop Playback will continuously play the current selection.

Moving the selection: use the Selection Tool, and shift-drag to

change the start and end points

Watch the Selection area to make sure that the selections

Length (duration) stays the same.

The Selection area in Audacity

From this selection, create a new region in a new track using

Duplicate. Delete the original track so you are only left with a
single track. Copy the region to the clipboard, then use Move
Cursor to Selection End and Paste the region to begin making
a loop. Do this about ten more times.

Changing One Element in the Loop

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Select the fourth region in the track, and use the Change Pitch
process to transpose it down one semitone.

Lab Eight using Audacity

Pitch shifting the fourth region down

Adding an Accent

Highlight the third region and Duplicate it.

This will place a copy of the region in exactly the same time
location, in a new track.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Adding a region to the same time location in another track.

Select this region and use Change Pitch to drop it down

twelve semitones, or one octave.

A bug in Audacity moves the region after the pitch shift. You
will need to move it back to line up, as closely as possible, to the
original region.

Huh? I didnt want to move the region..

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Moving it back in place

Beat Matching

Import Wrapping Machine (Track 47) into the current

project, and create the region that will be looped.

Create a new track and copy one of the previous regions into
it. You will use this single region to compare the region
lengths.

Audacity has no way of selecting exact regions, so determining

the length of a given region involving zooming in and hoping that
you select the region exactly.

Select the Wrapping Machine loop, and Change Tempo

from the Effect menu.

Enter the length of the first loop region in the Length box, and
click OK. In my case, the length was 1.302 seconds.

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Lab Eight using Audacity

Parameter settings for matching the duration of the second

region to the first.
Audacitys time stretching process is not as accurate as
ProTools, and so the resulting duration may not end up being the
requested duration.
Try time stretching the processed file again, and repeat until it
is fairly close.

Not quite the same length after time stretching

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Select both regions, making sure that you have zoomed in

close enough to get as close as possible to the regions end
point. Copy the selection to the clipboard.

Lab Eight using Audacity

Use the Move Cursor to Selection End method to make

multiple copies, one after another.

Create an interesting volume automation relationship between

the two tracks. Here is one simple example:

A dynamic, rhythm-based relationship between two beatmatched tracks.

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