Audio Option

Assignment Overview and Goals

The Audio Assignment offers you a number of openings as you think about composing with sound. This
project will give you the opportunity to learn how to edit audio while constructing an argument,
elucidating a question, or telling a story using the affordances of sound. In this assignment, I want you to
think about the affordances of audio editing as they relate to the software tools available to you.

Assignment instructions
1. Begin by collecting sounds and/or descriptions that relate to your research paper.
2. Write a short paragraph or series of sentences that describes or explores the theme that runs
throughout your collection. Imagine that the sound files from your collection will serve as
examples/evidence in your written text. At those places where you will use sound as
example/evidence, add a bracketed note {insert /filename/}.
o Example: The sound of construction may indicate progress, but for many people, it might
also represent disruption. {insert jackhammer.mp3}
3. Using an audio recording device like a phone or your computer, record yourself reading your written
passage. (First test the quality of the recording and make sure you know how to move the file from
your recording device to the computer where you will edit it.) Do not read the bracketed
information aloud, but instead make sure you pause at that moment.
4. Using an audio editing program (more on this below), create an audio text that layers the sound files
from your collection and the written passage you recorded.
5. When you are finished, export your file as an .MP3 file.

To sum up, for this assignment, your goal should be to explore the affordances of audio, whether by
refining and/or expanding on your collection or pursuing the process for creating a genre-based audio
project such as a podcast or audio essay.

Goals and outcomes for Audio Project

• Your audio text should use to the fullest extent the affordances of sound. The audio may be
constructed from archived/found audio, captured audio, audio stripped from video, or a
combination thereof.
• You should carefully consider short form content as you imagine and compose your audio text. Your
project should illustrate concision and economy in rhetorically effective ways.
• Your audio text should be composed for a genuine, public audience and should have a call to action
appropriate to its form.
• Your audio text should demonstrate facility with layering and sequencing audio assets.
• Your text might or might not include voiceover narration, and it might or might not include your
own voice.
• Your text should take a critical, reflective, and/or interpretive approach to its subject matter.

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• You should strive to tell a compelling story or make an effective argument that offers a rich
consideration and treatment of its subject matter.
• You should strive to compose high quality audio that is effectively captured, creatively crafted, and
well produced.
• Your audio text should have a title.
• You must secure permissions for all materials used in your project.
• In addition to your original captured and crafted material, you should use materials that exist in the
public domain, anything that falls under your careful interpretation of Fair Use, and anything with a
Creative Commons license.
• You must give credit for all materials used in your project. You should include the names of anyone
you interviewed and the dates and locations of the interviews.
• You must write a 2–3 sentence description that summarizes the audio text, that attempts to capture
and convey its meaning, and that describes its form and materials.
• You must provide a print transcript of your audio file.

Getting Started with Audacity1

Downloading and installing Audacity and the FFmpeg plugins
Audacity can be downloaded here:

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

Once you have downloaded and installed Audacity, you will need to install FFmpeg, an add-on that
allows you to edit and export audio from a wide-range of file types, including many video files. The
following links provide instructions for installing FFmpeg for Mac and Windows

• Mac: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_ffmpeg_for_mac.html
• Windows: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/installing_ffmpeg_for_windows.html

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Material in this section is adapted from the Audacity Manual, https://manual.audacityteam.org, which is
covered by a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.

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Figure 1: The Audacity Project Window. manual.audacityteam.org

Audacity’s interface
The primary interface for Audacity is the Project Window (see Figure 1). The image is of the Windows
interface (the Mac interface is quite similar). This tutorial will reference the numbers on the image to
refer to parts of the interface. An interactive version of this figure can be found at
manual.audacityteam.org.

Opening Files, Recording Audio, and Saving Audacity Projects

Importing audio into Audacity
Once you have installed FFmpeg, you should be able to import most existing audio files into Audacity.
You can add files to audacity by dragging the audio file into the Audacity window or selecting File > Open
from the top-level menu.

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Once the file is imported, you should save it as an Audacity project. To do so, select File > Save Project >
Save Project As… from the menu. Give your project a name and pay attention to where you saved it for
future access.

Figure 2: A properly recorded waveform (top) and a clipped waveform (bottom). manual.audacityteam.org

The audio from the imported file will appear as a waveform in the Audio Track area (fig. 1). The
waveform is a visual representation of the audio. A flat line indicates silence, and the peaks and duration
of the line indicate the volume and length of the audio you have recorded. To the left, you will see the
Track Control Panel (fig. 1). If your audio is stereo, there will be two waveforms as in fig. 1. If it is mono,
there will be only one.

Recording audio with Audacity

Audacity can also record audio using your computer’s microphone or an attached microphone. If you are
starting a new project, select File > Save Project > Save Project As… from the menu. Give your project a
name and pay attention to where you saved it for future access.

On the Device Toolbar (fig. 1), you can choose the type of audio (on Windows, select MME; on Mac, core
audio), recording device (which microphone you will use), whether the recording is stereo or mono, and
where you will hear the output (such as your computer speakers or headphones).

To begin recording, select the microphone icon on the Recording Meter Toolbar (fig. 1) and you will see
the loudness of your recording on the Recording Meter as a green bar. Test the volume of your source

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(your voice, an instrument, and make sure the loudest portion doesn’t move into the yellow or red
section (your source is too loud), or if the green bar is very small (not oud enough). Your goal is to avoid
clipping; when the audio is too loud to be recorded, the waveform will be “clipped” at the top or bottom
(see Figure 2). If the waveform does move into the yellow or red, adjust the recording volume level (next
to the microphone icon in fig. 1) appropriately.

Once you have adjusted your levels, you can begin the recording by clicking the record button in the
Transport Toolbar (fig. 1). It is a good idea to record a few seconds of ambient or background noise
before you begin to read your script (this will be helpful later). When you are done recording, press the
stop button .

You can play back your audio by clicking the Skip to Start button in the Transport Toolbar and then
selecting the Play button .

Saving your project

It is a good practice to save and name your project as soon as you begin working on it. This will allow
Audacity to keep your project files organized and allow you to save frequently while you work, thus
making it less likely that you will lose your work.

To save your project, select File > Save Project > Save Project and select a folder on your computer
where you would like it to be saved. This will create an .aup project file along with a _data folder that
contains the audio for your project.

Editing Audio
Audacity allows you edit your audio in many ways. Here, we will focus on splitting and joining audio
clips, layering multiple audio clips, and crossfading between them. For more advanced editing, review
the online Audacity Manual.

Selecting, deleting, and splitting clips to rearrange audio

Once you have opened the file you wish to edit, choose the Selection tool from the Tools Toolbar (fig.
1). If you are working with a large file, and can’t see the waveform very well, click the Zoom
In button (fig. 1) until the waveform expands to the size you need. Then use your mouse to select a
particular portion of the audio (say, the silence at the beginning of your audio or an “um” in a narration
track that you wish to remove) by dragging it over the waveform. The area you have selected will now
have a white background, and the Timeline (fig. 1) will be blue. Clicking outside of the selection will
unselect it.

Once you have selected a portion of your audio, you can split it from the larger track and make it its own
clip or delete it entirely. This is helpful for you to move and edit your audio (see Figure 3).

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Figure 3: Split selections from a mono track (top) mixed with a stereo track. manual.audacity.org.

To delete a selection, from the menu choose Edit > Delete. This will remove the selected audio from
your project. To create a new clip, choose Edit > Clip Boundaries > Split. This will turn your selection into
a new clip, which you can move to a new position in your project. You can also make a single split in a
track at a particular point by using the mouse to select a spot in the track, then choose Edit > Clip
Boundaries > Split.

To move or reposition clips, select the Time Shift Tool on the Tools Toolbar (fig. 1), then use the
mouse to grab the clip and move it to a new location. To move clips, there must be room in the track for
them—at the beginning or end of the track, or between existing clips.

Reducing background noise

If you are recording in a noisy environment (outside on a windy day, in your apartment with the air
conditioner on), this can lead to distracting effects on your project. Audacity comes with a nose
reduction algorithm that can help eliminate or reduce the effects of this noise. To do so, you need a
sample of the noise you want to remove from your track, so when you are recording audio like an
interview or narration, it is a good idea to record 3–5 seconds of ambient or background noise at the
beginning and end of your track.

To reduce background noise

1. Use the Selection tool from Tools Toolbar (fig. 1) to select the ambient or background noise that
you want to remove.
2. In the menu, select Effects > Noise Reduction…
3. In the popup window, click the Get Noise Profile button. The window will close.
4. Click on Effects > Noise Reduction… again and click Ok.

After you have removed background noise, you can cut the 3–5 seconds of ambient noise from your
track.

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Mixing and working with multiple tracks
You can create powerful effects by mixing your audio tracks and layering them on top of each other. For
example, your PSA could start with a short music track that fades into your narration, and you could
include sound effects.

The easiest way to mix audio in Audacity is to work with multiple tracks. If you open multiple files, they
will automatically open in separate tracks. You can add new tracks by selecting Tracks > Add New and
then selecting the type of track. For most of your projects, you will select Stereo (fig. 3).

When working with multiple tracks, you can use the Mute and Solo buttons (fig. 1), to temporarily hear
just some of your tracks. Mute causes a track to be silenced. By default, Solo will mute all your other
tracks.

Once you have your tracks arranged on your timeline, you will often need to adjust their relative
volume. To adjust the volume for an entire track, you can use slider (fig. 1) to adjust the gain, or volume,
for the entire track. If you need different sound effects or background noise to be at different volume
levels, you can add them to a different track.

Crossfading between tracks

Figure 4: Area selected for crossfade (left) and crossfaded tracks (right). manual.audacityteam.org

If you would like the audio for one track to fade into another, for example, a music intro fading into
narration.

To crossfade tracks first arrange the areas of the tracks you want to fade so they overlap (see Figure 4).
Then, use the Selection tool from Tools Toolbar (fig. 1) to select the overlapped area that you wish to
fade. Finally, from the menu click Effect > Crossfade Tracks … and choose the type of fade you wish to
apply. For most tasks, constant gain will be effective, but you can experiment with the others to see
which is appropriate for your project.

Advanced editing with Audacity

Audacity allows for many additional forms of advanced audio editing. If you wish to achieve an effect
that is not described in this basic tutorial, you can search the Audacity manual at
manual.audacityteam.org for instructions.

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Exporting Your Project
Audacity’s .aup files can only be opened by Audacity. To share your audio, you will need to export your
project as an .mp3 file.

To export your completed project, from the menu select File > Export > Export as MP3. In the pop-up
window, give your file a name and save it to a folder with your other assets.

A note about exported files: The .mp3 file you create combines all your individual sound files into a
single file. You can open this file in Audacity, but it will be very difficult to edit individual components of
it. For this reason, you should save the .aup file on your computer so you can make changes to your
project later if that is necessary.

Accessibility: Creating a Transcript

Just as captions expand the accessibility of video projects, transcripts provide a wider range of users
with a means to access your project.

Generally, transcribing refers to capturing in text all the speech in a video or audio asset. Captioning
refers to supplementing the transcript with textual descriptions of other sounds that are relevant to
understanding the project—for example, describing background music or sound effects. Speech-to-text
software like that used by Zoom or video sharing sites will create a transcript of your project but will not
describe other relevant sounds. Additionally, speech-to-text software will sometimes make errors in
identifying words, making it necessary to edit these transcriptions before sharing your videos.

In some cases, a simple transcription will be sufficient for your project, but in most cases you will want
to supplement your transcript with textual descriptions of audio elements that are important to the
meaning of the project. As you edit your transcript (or create your own), you will need to make
contextual, rhetorical choices about what sounds you need to include in those captions.

There are at least two methods for providing a transcript for your projects. For scripted projects, you can
simply include the script with your audio file. This has the benefit of including descriptions of sound
effects that you have included in the script.

Using YouTube to create a transcript

For longer projects without a script, you can use the YouTube captioning method from the Video
Assignment to provide you with a draft transcript. The workflow would look something like this:

• Create a new project in your video editor and add your audio to it (NB: YouTube doesn’t like videos
without visuals, so you may want to add a static image to your project along with the audio; in your
video editor, drag the edges of the image to make them the length of the audio file).
• Share the project directly to YouTube, or export the project, then add it to your YouTube account.
• Once YouTube has produced a transcript of the project, you can download the .SBV file to your
computer.

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• Open the .SBV file in a text editor (TextEdit for Mac or Notepad for Windows) and clean up the
formatting (you can remove the time signatures and add punctuation) and correct any errors.
• You can then save your transcript as a .TXT or .RTF file or copy and paste it into another program or
web post.

Additional Resources
In addition to the audio that you create, there is a wealth of media online that is either in the public
domain or licensed for reuse. You can find a list of these resources along with links to descriptions of
copyright best practices on the DMAC website (http://www.dmacinstitute.
com/resources/) under the copyright tab.

The Digital Media and Composition Institute

Department of English
The Ohio State University
2021