[audacity4blind] Re: Some questions from an estudious tinkerer

Hi JM,
in replying to your questions, I'll refer to the Jaws guide to audacity which 
is 
available at:
http://bit.ly/axYol6
Given your recent posting on the jfw list, I'm assuming that you're using Jaws.

1. The only time when you'll want to use ctrl+a is when you want to select 
everything. What is the accessibility guide which  suggests that it's better to 
always select all? In the Selecting audio section of the Jaws guide, I suggest 
it's best to set the select all audio option to off. Assuming that's the case, 
to select some audio you both have to select one or more tracks, and select a 
time range. You can toggle whether the focused track is selected by pressing 
enter. If you select a time range and then try to cut or copy and find these 
are 
unavailable, then this is probably because there are no tracks selected. Forget 
about zooming, it's not relevant.

2. Assuming that no time-range is selected, then both the left and right 
arrows, 
and comma and period move the cursor. The arrow keys move the cursor by a small 
amount (which in fact depends on the zoom level, and the length of the track), 
and they're not much use to users of screen readers who can't see how much the 
cursor is being moved by. In contrast, comma a period move the cursor by a 
known 
amount which can be set in the preferences. See the moving the cursor section 
of 
the Jaws guide for more details.

3. The method you describe for time shifting tracks is fine. It's described in 
the guide in one of the sub sections of the more advanced editing section. For 
fading, see my description below.

4. For selecting the tracks that you want, as I've said above, enter toggles 
whether the focussed track is selected - just forget about pressing ctrl+a all 
the time. For more details on track selection see the track table section of 
the 
Jaws guide.

5. Fade-ins and outs for specific tracks in a project:
The following description assumes that you're familiar with the material in the 
selection bar section of the jaws guide. In addition, selecting a time range 
using the spin boxes in the selection bar is described in selecting a time 
range 
sub section of the selecting audio section of the guide.

For the Fade-in of a single track in a project:
A. select the track you want, and make sure the rest are not selected.
B. Press J, which moves the cursor to the start of the audio in the selected 
track. (The keystrokes J and K are described in the moving the cursor section 
of 
the jaws guide)
C. Press ctrl+f6 to move to the selection bar, and tab to the control after 
selection start, which will probably be selection length, but might be 
selection 
end and in this case it doesn't matter. It's normally best to use the format 
hh:mm:ss + milliseconds for these controls. Say you wanted a fade-in of 5 
seconds. Then move to the seconds digit, and then press up arrow 5 times to 
increment the selection length by 5 seconds.
D. On the effect menu, choose fade in.
E. To get back to the track table, press ctrl+f6 a couple of times or 
ctrl+shift+f6 once.

For the Fade-out of a single track in a project:
A. select the track that you want, and make sure the rest are not selected.
B. Press K, which moves the cursor to the end of the audio in the selected 
track.
C. press ctrl+f6 to move to the selection bar, and tab to the group of 
selection 
end/length radio buttons. Set the end option, and then tab to the selection 
start control. Again, assuming that you
want a fade-out of 5 seconds, move to the seconds digit, and press down arrow 5 
times.
D. On the effects menu, choose fade-out.
E. You may want to tab to the end/length radio buttons and set the length 
option, as this is the best option if you're going to use the selection start 
control for moving the cursor around.
F. To get back to the track table, press ctrl+f6 a couple of times.

have fun,
David.


----- Original Message ----
From: "crystallogic@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <crystallogic@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tue, 8 February, 2011 15:42:53
Subject: [audacity4blind] Some questions from an estudious tinkerer

Sorry for sending the last message without a new subject; I hit the reply 
button 
and forgot to clear troy's. If its' ok, I"ll just post it again here and create 
a new thread:

Hello.
I've been learning about Audacity and trying some things, with moderate 
success. 
I have a few questions though, which perhaps members of the community could 
help 
me with:

1. Could somebody explain to me exactly why it seems to benefit us to select 
everything with control-a before, for example, selecting bits of audio to 
remove 
or move around? I don't really understand this, and I would like to. If I'm 
going through a sound file and use the bracket keys to place selection markers, 
I can play the sound clip I've selected, but can't move it, cut it, apply 
effects or anything like that...but the helpful accessibility guide suggests 
that it's better to select all and then apply your changes. I guess I'd like to 
have some notion of why I'm doing what I apparently have to do. Also, I don't 
really comprehend how zooming is supposed to benefit those who can't see the 
screen, especially as so far as I can tell the zoom commands give no audio 
feedback whatsoever.

2. What is the difference between using the right and left arrow keys to move 
through a track, and using period and comma? Does one move the cursor while the 
other does not?

3. What's the best way to mix tracks so that each come in at different times. I 
must note that I specifically don't want them to be synchronised; I want to 
introduce the lead track, then bring in another a minute later, a third a 
minute 
after that, etc. I have so far figured out that I can place the cursor at a 
specific point and choose "align with cursor", I think, and it'll do what I 
need. Is this the best way? I still haven't figured out how to do fade ins and 
fade outs of specific tracks within a project, and that's my eventual goal.

4. I'm still not sure about this selection of tracks business. If I hit 
control-a, doesn't that select the entire project? What if I only want to apply 
effects or do work on specific tracks within the project? I understand the 
concept of muting and soloing, I think but that doesn't affect the editing 
process, so how can I make sure that what i've done applies only to the 
track(s) 
I want it to? For example, if I have mixed some sounds together and find that 
one of them is too loud, I want to reduce only the volume of the one track, not 
reduce the project's amplitude entirely.

Hope you all will bear with me here. I really want to master this stuff as much 
as I possibly can.

Thanks a lot.

JM


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