Hi Andrew,
Fantastic. Very well explained. Again, I find it amazing that a toolbar is in
fact accessible. Shows me how much I know about user interfaces and their
relationships with screen readers.
Very interesting detail about the brackets. I didn’t find that anywhere in the
Audacity manual. I remember when I first opened Audacity, that was my automatic
method of attempting to make a selection, given how it is the same in GW. But
it didn’t work for me. Is this a new feature?
On my system, Audacity seems to have a latency when selecting using the
brackets method – only by a few milliseconds, but that could be the difference
between a perfect or catastrophic loop. Is this deliberate and/or customisable
based on audio device and playback latency etc, or is it a performance issue
that needs addressing? Or could it even be just my weird seemingly
unconventional machine?
And the thing that puzzles me most. When you were making selections you had a
3-hour window. How on earth does that work when you had absolutely no material
to start with?
Again, very good introduction. Even if some of its concepts are different, it
seems to be more like GW than I thought, at least in the ways of playing,
selecting, seeking etc.
I would be very interested in other podcasts if you get around to it. For
instance I still don’t quite grasp the function of, or reasons for, the
existence of projects. I’m guessing that’s to do with multitrack editing?
Cheers.
Damien.
From: Andrew Downie
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2017 7:09 AM
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [audacity4blind] Re: Audacity v GoldWave
Damien, Christina, Sameer and anyone else who is interested in a 15 minute
intro to Audacity. I have cobbled together this recording. It is about a 22mb
download. I have inadvertently left out a couple of things that could have
been included, such as x (version 2.1.3) and shift-a (previous versions) to
stop playing and put the cursor at that position. Undoubtedly the other
resources already mentioned will be far more comprehensive (and more polished).
My hope is, though, that my effort may help people who are having trouble
getting started.
I have not included anything on multi-track recording. If people are positive
about this attempt, I would be happy to do that, along with useful facilities
such as labels.
Andrew
On 21/07/2017 8:02 AM, Andrew Downie wrote:
Hi Damien
I can’t do it right now, but perhaps later today (Sydney time) I will try
putting together a quick audio demo of navigating and editing in Audacity. It
is certainly a different beast to Goldwave. Once you get your head around how
to beat it into submission though, it is a very obedient beast.
Andrew
From: audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:audacity4blind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Damien Sykes-Lindley
Sent: Friday, 21 July 2017 12:47 AM
To: audacity4blind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [audacity4blind] Audacity v GoldWave
Hi there,
As you all know, I’ve been following and, where possible, contributing to
some of the threads of this list for a good while now. Practically, I’ve read
the majority of the Audacity manual and tried some basic effects processing.
However I’m still struggling with Audacity’s concept of editing (I.E. making
selections). I see references in the manual to the playback cursor and editing
cursor but I haven’t yet found out how to work these. I may be missing
something but the manual, to me, seems a little erroneous and contradictory –
the editing section states that the way to select regions with the keyboard is
through the toolbar, but under the accessibility section it states that
toolbars aren’t accessible with screen readers. Yet seems to me that it is
possible – otherwise this list probably wouldn’t even exist. Having said that,
as far as I am aware I have never used a toolbar before, so I was of the
impression that they would never be accessible. Or maybe I’ve used one and just
not known it for what it is. That’s the problem with screen readers.
Also, I feel I would benefit from either some audio demonstrations or
transition guides – Previously my knowledge has been confined to toys like
Sound Recorder and tape decks like GoldWave (whose effects processing is, in my
opinion, at best suspect, and rather limited), so I’m trying to learn as many
as possible so that I have the best possible variety of effects and editing
techniques at my disposal.
Having looked at the documentation it seems that Audacity is a multitrack
rather than a single track editor. Though the concept is quite straight forward
(you can edit multiple tracks in one session or in one project), the way this
is done is entirely alien to me. I feel like I’m transition from tape machine
to a mixer. I might go further and say studio, but no. I think I’ll leave that
honour to Reaper. That one went way over my head!
In any case. If any of you have used GoldWave and can give me some kind of
sense of how Audacity is different, both in terms of usage and concepts, that’d
be very helpful.
Also, does anyone know what the status of the NVDA addon is? Even if Audacity
is accessible out of the box (just as GoldWave is), NVDA has an addon for
GoldWave that provides keys for announcing information (selected channels,
markers, lengths, peaks etc). A similar addon for Audacity would be very
useful, in my opinion.
Cheers.
