Putting it Together
Exercise Three
Step One:
Listen to the sound you recorded in exercise one and consider how you might improve its quality. Should you record in a different space? Are their ways you can reduce the ambient noise? Can you use a different mic or put your mic in a more strategic place? Try to make those improvements as you will rerecord what you read out loud for exercise one.
Step Two:
Rerecord your reading of the text you chose for exercise one while making more consciences choices about your space and microphone. Rerecord your reading at least twice. When you are done recording you will be editing it so that the best takes are pieced together. Don’t worry about saying it perfectly as this is just an exercise. [annotated with recording video]
When recording make sure to record room tone at the beginning (or at some point). Have it be at least twenty seconds. If you need a refresher see the recording video from exercise one.
Create a new track for each read through. To create a new track, go to Track, Add New, and select Mono. [add image]
Step Three: Assembling Your Sound
Here you will learn how to split, copy, and move audio clips. I will be mentioning keyboard shortcuts using Mac related commands. For PC shortcuts visit the Audacity manual.
[video]
At this point, I am going to listen to all my audio to identify the best takes of my reading of the poem. “Best takes” can mean the best performance and it can mean the best recording quality. Which I choose is going to be based on what I decide is the most important aspect of that particular take.
Step Four: Adjusting the Timing and Clean Up
At this point, you are going to smooth out the sound by adding crossfades and in and out fades, adjusting the timing between the clips (the pacing of the reading), and cleaning up more difficult clicks and pops when possible.
[video]
Step Five: Improving Vocal Quality
Finally, you are going to experiment with effects that might improve the audio quality. In this step, we will be taking the advice from CasualSavages YouTube video, “How To Improve Voice Quality in Audacity 2020.” (YouTube has a lot of great Audacity and recording tutorials.) For the sake of simplicity, we are going to choose the default settings in the various effects. You are welcome to play around with the settings if you would like.
I recommend you create a new track and copy your sound clip so that you can compare the two clips. (It's also just good to keep a copy in case you don't like how it sounds after applying the effects.
[recommend copy and create new track so you can compare.
[video]
I’m guessing it’s not perfect and that’s okay. The point is that you have a better idea of how the sound recording and editing process works and that you feel more confident with experimenting and learning more about it.
Step Six: Exporting
Now that you are done, it’s time to export your audio.
[video]
If you feel comfortable with it, share your audio file with me. I’d love to hear how it turned out and about your process.
To conclude, let's look at some other tools. iMovie is a video editing platform into which you can import audio exported from Audacity as well as being platform that can record and, to some extend, edit audio. Garageband is a non-destructive sound recording and editing platform that you might find appealing.
