Recently while preparing the script for a skit(I was directing it :) ), it striked me that if I could mix audio files well enough the background score could become very catchy. The search for the best sound mixer in linux began and I stumbled upon audacity. As Wikipedia says, it is a digital audio editor and recording application; but what it does not say is; there is virtually nothing that you can't do with it. Your imagination will be your limit and you can play around with sound as efficietly as a magician plays his tricks(sometimes I get very bad with metaphors :D).
Believe me or not background score and audio files I mixed became the central theme of my skit and everything else revolved around it.
I'll just jot down things that I did with it, but you can do much more :
- Open any audio file and cut/paste any portion of the file as you do with words in a text-editor.
- Bring out various portions of different songs in a single file and arrange them in any order you want.
- You can make two or more clips overlap and adjust the volume of each clip depending upon which one you want to give the priority to. This sort of provides the flexibity to fade-out a song and fade-in another one .. so they mix-out seamlessly.
- If you are looking for short-audio clips on anything for e.g. traffic noise etc. the best place is http://www.freesound.org/. Although not directly related to audacity, they complemented each other to good effect.
- You can either save the project in audacity project format (.aup) for later continued editing or export it to any format of your choice; believe me it supports all of them out there.
- You can very easily change the bit rate, pitch etc of a audio file and there are many tools to ease your task e.g. noise reduction
- Also you can record your own voice using it.
