Tag: audacity

Recording with Audacity
This post covers recording in Audacity and a little bit of editing voice as well.

Recording with a Microphone

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Most laptops have microphones built in. If your computer doesn’t have a microphone, try Recording and Editing Audio with a phone and then transfer the sound into Audacity

A NOTE on Recording with a Microphone. When recording using a microphone, record some silence at the beginning. Audacity has a feature that can analyze the room noise and then remove it from your recording. It needs some empty time when nobody is talking to do this.

Also make sure the person is close to the mic (but not touching it). Remember that the further away they are, the quieter their sound is and the lower quality the recording is.

Audacity Official Instructions

You can go through their instructions in the support: Recording your voice with a microphone | Audacity Support (audacityteam.org)

Video Instructions

We are going to go over this YouTube video in class. It shows how to record and edit and save the .aup3 file.

view on YouTube

This video covers the basics of :
- Setting up Audacity
- Checking that the microphone is working
- Recording settings
- Recording
- Editing the recorded audio so it sounds better including removing room noise.
We will walk through the video in class so that you can get help with it. We will also be able to get more insight into some of the audio terms and concepts we started in class previously.
January 27, 2025
Installing Audacity
Audacity is the sofware that we will use for our audio module projects. It’s free and can be installed on both Windows and macOS computers.

Download Page

Here is the link for the download page: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

Audacity Download and Install Home

Quick Links
- Download and Install Audacity Instructions: remember to choose which operating system you are using at the top (Windows/macOS/Linux)
- Install FFmpeg: this is needed to work with files like M4A and WMA
Detailed Instructions
1. Click on your OS (Windows, maOS or Linnux)
2. Do NOT download the first option (with Muse). This adds extra options that makes things more complicated than they need to be right now.
  Choose one of the following
  - Windows: 64 bit installer
  - macOS: Universal dmg (older macs may try x86_64 (Intel))
3. Open the downloaded file and follow the instructions
Install FFmpeg

This is needed to work with files like M4A and WMA. It does not come pre-installed, you have to do a separate install, after you install Audacity.
1. Go to the FFmpeg Download page: https://lame.buanzo.org/ffmpeg.php
2. Scroll down to the install links and choose one for your OS
  - Windows: Download for 64-bit Windows (do not download the 32-bit version).
  - macOS: Download for macOS
3. Open the file you downloaded and follow the instructions. Note where it installed in case there are issues.
4. Check that it has installed FFmpeg.
  - Windows: Go to Edit > Preferences > Libraries
  - macOS: Go to Audacity > Preferences > Libraries
5. Click the Locate button
  - If it says that it has already automatically found it, you’re done, click no and exit the preferences
  - Otherwise browse to the location where FFmpeg was installed in step 3.
Instructions page: https://support.audacityteam.org/basics/installing-ffmpeg

Audacity Download and Install BMCC

At BMCC the software is not installed in teh classroom and we don’t have admin rights so we have to change the process a bit.
1. Download the audacity macOS .dmg file from https://www.audacityteam.org/download/
2. Open a Finder window. Click on the finder icon in the menu at the bottom of your screen
3. On the left of the finder window, click the Downloads location
4. Find the audacity macOS .dmg file and Double Click to open it.
5. In the dialog that opens up DO NOT drag the Audacity icon to Applications. Instead drag it to the desktop or the Documents folder (their names should be on the left of the Finder Window.
January 25, 2026