Recording a Voiceover Using Audacity September 19, 2014

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Beryl Davis
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1 Recording a Voiceover Using Audacity September 19, 2014 Like most audio (and video) editing tools, Audacity saves content through association with a project folder. What this means is that any media files you intend to use in your project should be kept in a folder together. That way, if you need to move from computer to computer you need only maintain the structure of that folder, Audacity will do the rest. Step One: Creating a Project Folder By starting Audacity you have already made a new project, the next step is to save it. We do this because it is at this point that we create the project folder where we are going to put all our media. Under File select Save Project As You may get a warning at this point, but you can simply click OK. Click New Folder and enter a name of your choice.

2 Now, in Save As: enter the name of your Audacity Projects (.aup) file this can be the same as your folder name and click Save. At this point you should have two folders (a projectname folder, and a projectname_data folder within it), and one file (a projectname.aup file). The Audacity Projects file is what is used to save media file associations and any editing you do on your project. To open your project in future, simply double click this file.

3 Step Two: Getting Ready to Record First, ensure that all audio devices (speakers, microphones, etc.) are connected to the computer. As a general rule, it is a good idea to refresh your audio device list before proceeding. To do this, go to Transport and select Rescan Audio Devices. This should also fix any issues where devices do not appear in drop down menus. Now select your microphone (input) and headset/speakers (output) from the drop down menus in Audacity they are found on the top right of the window. In this case, we will select the Rode Podcaster as our input and our Builtin Output (meaning internal speakers).1 Next, it s time to check your levels. Begin by ensuring that you are 12 inches away from the microphone, and from the drop down menu just left of centre beside the small microphone icon click Start Monitoring. 1 As a side note, the Rode Podcaster (like many studio microphones) has an audio jack built in which provides real time feedback to the user. If you want to hear what you sound like while recording you can use this jack. You can also select this as your audio output, although you will hear realtime audio even while you playback any recordings.

Speak as though you were speaking to someone in the room with you, clearly and not too loud, and watch the Audio Meter. You should see a red bar jumping to the right as you speak.

4 Speak as though you were speaking to someone in the room with you, clearly and not too loud, and watch the Audio Meter. You should see a red bar jumping to the right as you speak. You ll notice the bottom of the meter is numbered, take note of how far to the right the bar moves. It should reach somewhere between 12 and 0 but never hit 0. Boost or diminish your input to ensure that this is in fact the case. You ll find the Input Level slider in the approximate top centre of the window (the other one with the small microphone icon next to it. Slide this left and right until you get the levels described above. Step Three: Let s Record Some Audio! Naturally, the record button is the one with the big red dot on it. Click it. If for any reason you need to momentary pause recording and intend to continue from where you left off, hit the pause button (two vertical blue bars), go eat a sandwich, and when you re ready click the pause button again to continue recording.2 You are now a recording artist; add this to your CV. 2 If you hit the stop button (yellow square), and begin recording again, Audacity will generate a new audio track while playing back the original. You can Mute the original if desired however.

5 Step Four: Export Your Project Exporting your project is a little different from saving it. Where saving your project maintains everything in its raw form amounting to many files and folders, exporting encodes your project into a single readable file format such as an mp3 or similar audio format. First, save your project (File >> Save Project). Now, go to File and select Export In this window you can select the format of your file (mp3 is recommended) and the name of your file. Click Save. In this window you can enter the files metadata (data about data ), this isn t necessary but it is useful when organizing multiple files. When done, hit OK. You are now a producer; continues fluffing your CV.

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