Old Dogs, New Tricks and Audacity!

 

Back on track now with my Client Brief. Once I managed to get somewhere with Photoshop it was time to figure out what I am doing for the next part of my project. Ideas I had plenty. Once again, what I lacked were technical skills. I want to be very clear about something. I love learning. I read a lot. I constantly try to expand my view of the world. However, the last time I was in a classroom was more than 20 years ago. Back then my 'Computer education' classes consisted of me being shown what a computer actually is, how this piece of hardware is put together and how you make it do anything by entering commands in the black DOS screen. These days I consider myself quite on par with the modern technologies, in terms of hardware and the usual ways we waste time using them. The point is that what kids nowadays are taught at school, in terms of software that allows them to work with photos, audio-files, animation, programme codes, is unknown territory for me. Working with audio files more than most.  It was obvious I have another programme to tackle now and before going back to tutorials I decided this time I will take a shortcut. My daughter has been working with Audacity for 2 years now for her music projects. It was only understandable for me to think that it will be pretty easy for her to give me a quick know how so I can do my project. Oh, how wrong I was…Teenagers can be notoriously short tempered, constantly annoyed and easily distracted. I should have known better really. Before going into details about what I eventually learned about using Audacity, what was my project and how I did it let me quickly explain how it all went down with my dedicated tutor/daughter. Old dogs can learn new tricks. However, it depends who is teaching them.

Scene 1(and last):

She enters the room, angrily opens her MacBook and asks: “Why haven't you opened the program already, how do you want me to show you anything if you are not serious about it, do you want me to help you or not?!”

Me, making an attempt to say anything but a bit lost for words. Yet, I go and patiently sit beside her, trying to see how she opens the programme. No luck. By the time I am all settled she is already moving audio files around, fading them and whatnot, while obviously talking to herself as I am neither hearing what she mumbles, nor there is any eye contact to suggest she is addressing me.

She, when finally makes the effort to engage with me: “Are you seeing what I am doing, do you understand now, it was pretty clear right?”

Me, looking at her and at Audacity and back at her with utter despair, already realising this is not happening the way I was anticipating.

She: “Where are the files you want to mix, how you recorded them, what did you use, can you export them to my laptop?”

Me, feeling the same way I felt when back in school my dad was trying to teach me algebra and I didn’t understand a word coming out of his mouth. At this point I considered crying.

She, after a short pause to inhale as much air as possible: “This was a total waste of my time, you are absolutely unprepared, not listening to me, giving me attitude and this is me done with teaching you!”.

By the time I acknowledge her closing the laptop, she was already out of the room and all I can think of is how I should make my audio project about her and record her every time she snaps at me.

Let me go back to Audacity. If, like me, you are an absolute novice to the programme - don’t be fooled. It looks really complicated and difficult at first, but in reality, you should be able to grasp the basics pretty quickly. First make sure your audio files are of at least relatively good quality. While pretty good, Audacity is not really a high-end professional software that can do wonders if the quality is extremely poor. I learnt that the hard way, trying to record some files with my phone and not using any special software for that. Subsequently, I ended up paying for an application and it was worth it as the quality improved dramatically. I used the paid version of AudioShare, but I am pretty confident that there are free apps just as good. Unless you can get some professional equipment, this should do the job just fine. Just like with my photo essay I wanted this to cover the basics - doing well on my assignment, but also to show me in some way. The things that are important to me and the ideas I want to express. I had to do it anyway, I might just as well make something I am enjoying. Eventually I went back to LinkedIn Learning and did this tutorial - ‘Learning Audacity’ with Garrick Chow.

 

It wasn’t a really long one but then again, I was trying to get started somewhere and learn the basics. It was in proper segments, just like the Photoshop ones I did, which allowed me to watch only the parts I was interested in. Obviously, I skipped how to record with Audacity as I was already done with my recordings and wanted to put them together and apply effects. It is after all a multi- track audio editor that allows you to play around a little bit with your files and this is what I needed it for, there was no need to go into unnecessary segments. The tutorial actually covered what I have already learnt in my lectures in terms of some of the effects so after completing it I felt pretty confident I will manage to put my audio file together quite easily. Well, it wasn’t exactly like that. First, you have to be very careful when making different tracks. I managed to get that wrong the first time. Make sure you always zoom a bit so you can actually see better the different tracks and how much you need to cut from one or when trying to apply them in the right sequence without them overlapping too much. My suggestion is, before actually starting work on any project, to get few files in the programme and experiment with different effects on them so you know what they achieve and decide whether you need that at all. If you do this directly with the project you work on, you might end up like me with effects that you don’t need or don’t serve the purpose of your idea. Reversing them, once applied, proved tricky for me so I had to start the whole thing once again from scratch. Always be on the lookout for any of your tracks being muted. Quite obvious but it took me a moment to figure out why it is not happening the way I expected. And finally make sure that the first time you export your file you do so as an Audacity file. Until you are absolutely sure you are done with a recording don’t make the same mistake as me. I saved my file as a .wav file but then decided I want to work more on my transitions. No luck there - the file I saved had no tracks anymore and once again I started from the beginning (there might be a way to deal with that, but I decided not to waste time exploring it and simply made it again). I know I am not offering many insights on the technical abilities of the programme but that is what Garrick Chow is there for. This is more about common mistakes you can make and just to reassure you that if I managed to tackle the basics anyone can. I will go into more detail about the recording I made in another post, but in all honesty , unexpectedly for me, this proved to be the easiest part of my Client Brief and the one I spent less time on than with the other two. So yes, ‘old dogs and new tricks’ is a cliche but like most of those it has some truth to it, either way though.