Audacity – Getting Started

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This page covers the basic skills you need to get up and running with Audacity.

Record your voice

A good way to start learning Audacity is to record your voice and use the play back buttons to listen to it.

Start recording.

1. • Click the red recording button or press the ‘R’ key on your keyboard.
     You can see the sound wave as it develops and the play head moving across the track.

Stop the recording

1. • Click the stop button or press the space bar.

Play your recording.

• • Click the play button or the space bar.

Create a loop

You can select a part of the track and set up a loop. Once the loop is created you can extend the selection and monitor the time.

Select and play  piece of audio.

1. • Take the mouse and drag along  the track to select a portion.
   • Hit the space bar to play the selection.

Loop the play bar

1. • With a portion of the track selected,  hit shift + space bar. 

Extend the selection

1. • With a portion of the track selected, take the hand and drag it out.

The Timer

1. • Notice the time information at the bottom of the window.  The start and end time of the selection is shown.
   • When you play the selection, the lower right hand timer updates to show how far through the selection the play head is.

Zoom in and out

Zoom in

1. • Click on the Zoom + tool to Zoom in
   • Earlier versions of Audacity may require you to click on the Zoom tool, then use the left mouse button to zoom in.

Zoom out.

1. • Click on the Zoom – tool to Zoom out.
   • Earlier versions of Audacity may require you to click on the Zoom tool, then use the right mouse button to zoom in.

Add background music

You can import a music file as background music to your voice.

Add Music

1. Open File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac)
2. Drag your music file to the Audacity Window.
3. Notice how the music will be placed in its own track below the vocal.

Save your Audacity Project.

Saving your project means you can return to continue editing at a later time.

1. From the File menu select Save project.
2. Select Save Project again.
3. Click on OK.