Track Drop-Down Menu
From Audacity Manual
| Menu | Description |
|---|---|
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Name Edit the name of the track. Move Track Up/Down Move Track Up or Down in the display Waveform Traditional display of audio material. It displays the amplitude of the audio over time. This is the default display mode. Waveform (dB) Like Waveform, it displays the amplitude of the audio over time, but here the vertical units are not linear, but logarithmic dB units. Spectrum Displays the frequency spectrum of the audio over time. Pitch (EAC) Tries to detect the pitch of the current audio and displays that information over time. Mono Send playback of this single channel track to the left and right channels. Left Channel Send playback of single channel track to the left channel. Right Channel Send playback of single channel track to the right channel. Make Stereo Track The selected track and the track just beneath it are turned into linked stereo tracks, so that edits are applied synchronously to both tracks. Split Stereo Track Turn one pair of stereo tracks into two single channel tracks, so they can be separately edited. Note that removing audio from one track will not shorten the other track: first apply Make Stereo Track to the pair if synchronicity is to be preserved. Set Sample Format Change the sample format of this track. The result is that all newly written data for that track is written in this format, no matter what format the original material was in. Set Rate Change the sample rate of this track. When importing audio, the track sample rate is set to that of the imported material. If your project rate is different, the audio will be automatically resampled to the project rate on playback or export. Changing the sample rate always changes the speed and pitch of the audio, so only use it for a special effect or if the audio sounds at the wrong speed and pitch. |
Contents |
Name...
Moving Tracks
Tracks can be moved up and down using the menu items.
- Move Track Up: Moves track up.
- Move Track Down: Moves track down.
Waveform
This first half of this waveform is a "Chirp" tone which stays at the same amplitude (loudness), as shown by the horizontal top and bottom. The linear scale on the left goes from +1 at the top (the maximum possible loudness without distortion when the signal is positive) to -1 at the bottom (the maximum when it is negative). The horizontal line centred on 0.0 is silence. What you can't see without zooming much further in is that the pitch of this tone is gradually increasing. Zooming would show the individual cycles in the waveform (the positive and negative peaks) occurring much closer together at the end of the sound. The second half of the waveform is the word "Audacity" spoken by a male voice.
This image is a waveform view of an extremely short chirp, one tenth of a second, with only a few cycles, where the pitch increases very rapidly. As it's so short, we can zoom in to show the closer spacing of the cycles as the frequency (and hence the pitch) increases from left to right.
Waveform (dB)
This is the same chirp and word as in the first Waveform image, but in this view the vertical scale is in dB. This is a logarithmic method of displaying the amplitude. It gives a better representation of the sound we hear, because this scaling gives better detail for the fainter sounds. It also shows more clearly than the waveform view how the energy of the "Audacity" word is naturally concentrated in the central "dac" part, and weakest at the end.
Spectrum
This view of the same chirp and word shows how the amount of energy in different frequency bands changes over time. Higher frequencies are at the top of the scale, lower frequencies at the bottom. The blue color is the least energy and the red and white are the most. The progressive increase of pitch in the chirp tone is vividly demonstrated by the upward sloping diagonal line. Spectrum view also confirms that the "Audacity" word has most energy in the middle of the word.
Pitch
Splitting and Joining Channels
- Mono, Left Channel and Right Channel Mainly used on multiple single channel files (ones that are not the split left and right channels of a stereo pair) so as to mix to a final stereo track. "Mono" feeds the output of that track to both left and right speakers on most two channel systems; "Left Channel" and "Right Channel" feed it only to that respective speaker. Currently Audacity does not support multi-channel playback.
- Make Stereo Track Use this command on the upper of two adjacent, single channel files which you want to joint into one stereo track. The upper track will become the left channel of the new stereo pair, and the lower the right channel. The tracks do not need to be selected with the mouse or keyboard before this process, and either can be mono, left or right before joining to stereo.
- Split Stereo Track splits the two channels of a stereo pair into separately editable left and right channels, left above the right. If you are mixing multiple single channel files, you might want to use the "Mono" command noted above then use the pan slider on the Track Panel. This will give you more control over the pan than leaving the tracks as left and right channel.
