Re: [Audacity-manual] Intro to Audacity

[Bill W. <bi...@go...>]

I notice they use our annotated window from the manual front page without credit.

Comments on the video:

Upload date is September 2010.

Oh dear, they’re downloading 1.2.6a!
But they’re showing the 1.3.x preferences, so the 1.3.x interface
(not 2.0.x since Extended Import is not there)

He has you locate LAME when Audacity is showing that it has already been found.

The window and toolbars are not in the default state.

For a tutorial that means to show you how to download, install then set up Audacity, it fails since it does not demonstrate installation of Audacity nor LAME (probably because he’d have to show the Mac and Window procedures), and Audacity is not shown in its default state. 

He says you have to convert files to WAV before importing.

Around 5:20 in the video he says you have to select a clip with the selection tool before moving it with the time shift tool - major mistake!

Around 7:30 he says to drag an envelope point to the right or left until it meets another point in order to delete the point - another major mistake!

Around 8:10, when selecting the background noise for the NR effect, he says “the selection can only be a couple of seconds long”.
Demonstration of NR is pretty simplistic - he accepts the 24 dB reduction which is often too much (produces artifacts).

For export to MP3 he says to make sure your tracks are mono, but doesn’t explain why (I assume for their journalism web site they want mono files, but most people will want stereo)

At 9:40 he does a Mix and Render without really explaining what will happen, and without mentioning talking about overload.

When exporting to MP3 he mistakenly says that it will ask for settings (the old 1.2 behaviour), then doesn’t demonstrate the MP3 options.

The production values on the video are very good, with sensible zooming and spotlighting, and good audio.

So … good production values and I wish we could do something like this for the manual (takes time and the right screen capture software). Not something I would recommend to newbies given the errors and omissions.

— Bill

On 10/09/2014, at 5:02 PM, James Crook <cr...@in...> wrote:

> A good recent "Audacity for beginners" link.
> 
> http://mbgjournalism.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/16-audacity-sound-editing-basics-for-journalism-students/
> 
> Highlights a number of the commonest problems beginners have.  Has 
> videos for each of the common steps.
> Thoughts?
> 
> --James.
> 
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