Bournemouth — Mar 19th 2019

March 2019 brought 12 members together to hear Rick Churchill talk about Audacity and sound processing. Rick started by describing a need to play short sound clips for a quiz night. He then introduced Audacity and its configurable user interface (e.g. choice of colours and movable toolbars).

The remainder of the presentation was a demonstration where Rick highlighted some of Audacity's effects. These include a notch filter, that can be used to remove mains hum, and a Studio Fader effect that fades music in a frequency-sensitive, that is instrument-sensitive, fashion.

Saving an Audacity project produces a project file and a folder of related audio clips. The project can be exported to use with other applications using standard audio formats provided by LAME (notably MP3).

Rick then connected an audio source to the Mac, using the Mac's speakers to monitor the content, and recorded it. The audio can be edited by selecting and cutting various portions and by fading starts and finishes. When complete, it can be exported for iTunes when audacity will offer the option to add metadata. The files can then simply be imported into iTunes.

Finally, Rick demonstrated a feature called Auto Duck whereby a background audio track (eg music) can be made automatically to fade whenever another track (eg speech) contains content. This can make everyone sound like a professional DJ!

After the break, David Moon demonstrated his stereo pair of HomePods. These performed admirably in the less than ideal acoustic conditions of All Fired Up.

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