Search icon CANCEL
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Conferences
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Getting started with Audacity 1.3

You're reading from   Getting started with Audacity 1.3 Create your own podcasts, edit music, and more with this open source audio editor

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Apr 2010
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781847197641
Length 220 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Arrow right icon
Toc

Table of Contents (18) Chapters Close

Getting started with Audacity 1.3
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
1. Audacity and the World of Audio Editing 2. The Basics: Setting Up a Project FREE CHAPTER 3. Ready and Action! Creating a Voice Track and Recording Interviews 4. Making It Sound Better: Editing Your Podcast 5. Advanced Editing: Fixing the Glitches and Removing the Noise 6. Saving Projects and Exporting Podcasts 7. Beyond the Basics: Editing for Even Better Sound 8. Importing and Adding Background Music 9. Giving Your Audio Some Depth: Applying Effects 10. Making Audacity Even Better With Plug-Ins and Libraries Toolbar, Menu, and Keyboard Shortcut Reference
Glossary of Terms
Index

Will it work for me?


Audacity was developed by a group of volunteers under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and is open source, or free software. This not only means that it does not cost anything to download, but also that you can use the program, create items with it, and freely distribute these items, modify the program itself, and share your work with others.

You can download Audacity for:

  • Mac OS X

  • Microsoft Windows

  • GNU/Linux

  • Other operating systems

Let's briefly go over how to download and install Audacity.

Windows and Mac OS

The installation process for both of these operating systems is similar:

  1. Go to the official Audacity website at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and download the appropriate version of the software for your computer.

  2. Once the installation package has been downloaded to your computer, double-click on it to start the installation.

    Note

    For Mac computers, a DMG file is downloaded. All you need to do is uncompress that file, and drag-and-drop the Audacity package to the Application folder. For any Windows device, an EXE file is downloaded. Double-click on that file to perform the installation.

  3. Find the Audacity icon (shown in the next image) in the Application or Programs folder, to open the program.

GNU/Linux

You can use Audacity with GNU/Linux operating systems (and other similar operating systems), but you should download the correct installation package for it. Currently, there are a number of distributions available for the following types of systems:

You can download the installation packages for these and others from the Audacity Linux or Unix web page, at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/.

Note

In this book, the screenshots are specific to the Mac OS X software. However, don't be concerned if this is not your computer operating system of choice. The software itself is very similar between operating systems, and any notable differences between the Audacity software screens for different operating systems, are noted, so you know what to look for.

In the interest of saving you some time, there are some things that Audacity can't do in comparison to more specialized audio editing software. Audacity:

  • Can't play or record files in the MIDI audio file format.

  • Doesn't natively play or export audio in propriety or restricted file audio formats, such as WMA or AAC. Additional plug-ins must be installed to do this.

  • Has less plug-ins and effects than a specialized Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).

  • Can't apply sound effects in realtime. This means that you have to record the track and then apply sound effects to the track.

  • Isn't a specialized audio editing software package, so there are some limitations on multi-track editing and mixing features.

lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at €18.99/month. Cancel anytime