When I learned we will be using Audacity, my heart sank. Audacity is a complicated program with intricate functions. You can get lost in the production phase for every trying to get perfection. I used Audacity when I was a freshman in a Freshman Seminar class and it was probably the worst experience. I only had one week to create a sound file that was around 10 minutes and the teacher did not teach how to use the program! I had to create an audio tour of an area of Pittsburgh and present to the class about how you can improve the area. I chose Lawrenceville and spent 5 hours a day for a week to get sound effects and interviews from locals. Editing the sound file TOOK FOREVER! Please leave a good amount of time to edit the sound file because you will get annoyed by the interface. The way to add files can be very confusing when you have 20 sound files already implemented in the program. The worst part of audacity is not with the program, but with me. I am a huge perfectionist when it comes to sound quality and trying to adjust the level of noise per sound clip is extremely hard. One tip that I will add is to plan out everything in this process before recording. The teacher made me create a script whenever I added a sentence to keep organized. A script will allow you to keep footnotes on when to add a sound file and how long you want to have the sound file to last. I did not do this last time and it really put me in a disadvantage when completing the project. I had to skip PMADD and work on the project for 12 hours straight. I received a B- for the project, which was a huge disappointment.
Steph B
I totally agree with you when it comes to disliking Audacity. For my Intro to Journalism class, we had to create mini-stories like the one we’ll be doing for the audio assignment, and I absolutely loathed every part of it. My professor also didn’t show us how to use the program so we had to wing-it too. I was never really super organized like you so I think that it’ll be a good idea to have a script to write down all the details. I’ll definitely need that to keep track of the different audio files in Audacity, especially when we’ll have to add different sound effects. Sorry you had to work on your project for 12 hours, but I hope it won’t be like that this time around!
Wendy L
Thank you for this! I would have left editing the audio until the last minute if not for you saying to start earlier rather than later. There are some fantastic tutorials that I have come upon the past week that I will link below… I know they will help me so maybe they will help you too! I hope audacity goes better for you this time!