How to Mix lyrics over music in Audacity

Record the story.

• This article assumes you are using a laptop in good condition, with a built-in microphone and a quiet machine to conduct recording work. The distance between your mouth and the computer’s microphone about 10-15 cm is fine.
• When speaking, try to look in one direction – moving your head left or right, up or down, while speaking changes the quality of your voice, and can distract the audience. Speak normally in a conversational tone, but also speak clearly and with careful pronunciation.
• If you need to hear the background when recording a story (for example, recording a narration), you should:
  • Make sure the Transport > Transport Options > Overdub (on/off) command is checked
  • Use a headset (to listen to the background channel) so that the microphone will pick up only your voice.
• Let’s start.
  • Initialize Audacity: a new unnamed project window opens. Click File > Save Project As… and give your project a name.
  • Set the recording device for the microphone in the device toolbar ( Device Topbar ) of Audacity.
  • Press the Record button on the Transport Topbar . Record your story.

Edit the story.

• Cut out errors.
  

  

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  • Don’t fix it too tightly – the end result should sound natural. Use the cut preview feature ( Cut Preview – select the audio you want to cut and press C on your keyboard to hear the sound on both sides of the selected segment) to hear each edit before you decide to edit. Then listen to each edit again – cancel the command and try again if it doesn’t sound natural.
  • The image above is a situation where the speaker pauses, corrects his voice, and then continues with the next sentence. You’ll want to get rid of that voice correction, while also treating the space around it enough to make it sound natural.
  • You can see the removed part selected on the picture. Press the C key to hear 2 seconds of audio before, and 1 second of audio after the selection – this allows you to hear what remains after the selection is cleared. This practice is called Cut Preview . Tweak the length of the selection until the edit sounds natural. There are many ways to tweak the selection outlined in the article Editing Audio Files in Audacity. When you’re satisfied with the selection, press the Delete key, choose Edit > Delete , or press Ctrl+K to delete the selection.
  • If you want to listen more than 2 seconds before or 1 second after the selection then choose Edit > Preferences , then select Playback , and in the Cut Preview set the time intervals ” Preview Before Cut Region “. crop) and ” Preview After Cut Region ” as desired.
  • Continue correcting errors in this way until you are satisfied with the final result. Then save the work.
• Adjust the volume to medium. Unless you are a professional storyteller or voice expert, there will be fluctuations in volume as you speak. Remember, your listeners can’t see you, so it’s important to have a steady volume for your story so they can hear and understand everything you’re saying. You can manually level the volume across the story channel using Envelope Top , but there’s an easier way – using Audacity’s built-in Compressor effect. Click on the story channel’s Track Contrp Panel to select the entire channel and then choose Effect > Compressor . Compressor is a complex but very useful effect, so take a moment to see how it works. The Compressor effect works by shrinking the loud parts, then amplifying everything, so the low volume parts get louder.
  • Check the Make-up gain for 0 dB after compression and Compress based on Peaks boxes of the Compressor dialog box so that they are both selected as shown in the image below. The previous box implies that the Compressor will maximize the volume of the channel after it has done its job. The following plot implies that the Compressor will consider the peaks of the waveform instead of its average value.
    

    

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  • The “ Threshpd ” control is the “tipping point” – at which point the Compressor decides whether something is “big” (and should be made smaller) or “small” (let it be). For the first time, we set ” Threshpd ” to “-12 dB”.
  • Control ” Noise Floor ” so the Compressor knows that anything below this level is noise and it shouldn’t make it louder. Now we set this control to “-80 dB”.
  • Control the ” Ratio ” so that the Compressor knows how much louder parts should be muted. We set it to “6:1” ratio.
  • Set “Attack Time” to “0.5 secs” and set ” Release Time ” to “1.0 secs”. These two controls will help Compressor know how quickly it should react to changes in volume.
  • Click OK and let Compressor do its job. Listen to the results again.
• Retry the Compressor ‘s working results.
  • Are low-volume parts still too low? Choose Edit > Undo Compressor and try again with Threshpd set to -18 dB.
  • Is your voice unnaturally compressed/compressed? Undo (the Undo command) and try again with Threshpd set to -6 dB.
  • Note that once you have everything set up the first time, next you just need to change the Threshpd (Threshold).
• Once you’ve fixed the story as desired, save the project. Now it’s time to add music.

Import the background music file.

• Choose File > Import > Audio… and open the soundtrack file you selected for the project. Audacity imports the music file into the project and places it in its own stereo channel.
• You can import music from a CD into Audacity for a podcast, but you need to fix it by converting the audio from the CD into a WAV or AIFF audio file and then importing that audio file into Audacity. Do the same for audio files from other types of tapes.
• Once the import is complete, try playing the newly imported audio file again using the knobs on the playback control toolbar ( Transport Topbar , see Understanding Audacity’s toolbars). You’ll hear Audacity automatically mix the music into the story for you.
• Look at the Track Contrp Panel to the left of each channel. Note the “ Mute ” and “ Spo ” (Single Play) buttons. You can use them to control which channels you listen to when you tap the Play button.
  • Pressing the “ Mute ” button will mute that channel – it won’t be in the mix when you press the Play button.
  • Pressing the “ Spo ” button will make only that channel audible when you press the Play button. The correct behavior of the “ Spo ” button is set under Edit > Preferences > Tracks Behaviors > Spo Button .

Shift channels over time. Use the time shift tool (on the Tops Topbar – see Understanding Audacity’s toolbars) to shift files on the timeline in Audacity.

• Cut the storytelling channel.
  • Start by pressing the “ Spo ” button to the left of the story channel – we don’t want to listen to the music channel while working with the story channel.
  • For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume we want to cut the story into three separate paragraphs. Each of those segments will begin when the background music has a dramatic change.
  • Find a point between parts 1 and 2 of the narrative. Using the selection tool ( Selection Top on the Tops Topbar , see Understanding Audacity’s toolbars) click on this point. Choose Edit > Clip Boundaries > Split – the divider will appear. Now there are 2 episodes on the storytelling channel. Similarly, place the dividing point between parts 2 and 3 of the narrative. The story channel should now look like the image below:
    

    

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• Mark points on the soundtrack where you want the narration to begin. Remember, our goal is to cut the story to match the music. So our next step is to select the points on the soundtrack where we want the three passages of the narrative to begin.
  • Press “ Spo ” on the story channel to turn off the Spo function on that channel.
  • Press “ Spo ” on the background music channel so that you will only listen to that channel.
  • Locate the point on the soundtrack where you want the story to begin. Click on that point with Selection Top . Choose Edit > Labels > Add Label at Selection command. Type a name for the label, for example ” First Narration “.
  • Similarly, define the points on the soundtrack channel where you want the 2nd and 3rd narration to begin, and create labels at those points. Your project window should look like the image below:
    

    

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• Move passages to work with music.
  • Press the Spo knob on the background music channel to turn off the Spo function on that channel, so that we can hear both the storytelling and background music channels.
  • Using the time shift tool ( Time Shift Top ) drag the 3rd narration so that its start point coincides with the 3rd label. Audacity will help you do this perfectly – at the beginning of the paragraph. This coincides with the 3rd label – the yellow border ( Boundary Snap Guide ) – which will overlap. Similarly, drag the 2nd narration to coincide with the 2nd label, and drag the 1st narration to coincide with the 1st. Your project window should now look like this:
    

    

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Tweak the volume levels relative to each other. Now you’ve got the stories in exactly where you want them to be. Now is the time to fine-tune the volume of the background music so that your listeners can hear what you have to say. There are at least 2 ways to do this: manually with the amplitude tool ( Envelope Top on Tops Topbar , see Understanding Audacity’s toolbars), or automatically with the Auto Duck effect.

• Use Envelope Top . See Using the amplitude tool in Audacity for how to use Envelope Top . You should read it before continuing.
  

  

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  • Let’s zoom in on the first narrative. A quick way to do this is: double-tap the first narration; choose View > Zoom > Zoom to Selection ; then select View > Zoom > Zoom Out . Choose Envelope Top from Tops Topbar .
  • On the soundtrack, tap to create a control point about 1 second ahead of the start of the 1st narration. Tap to create a 2nd checkpoint as soon as the narration begins. Drag the second control point down to decrease the volume of the music channel. Tap the timeline in front of the start of that first narration a few seconds to hear the effect. Press the Space knob (which is still where you just pressed on the timeline) to stop playing. Fine-tune control points 1 and 2 to get the length and depth of fade you want. In the same way make the volume fade out at the end of the first narration.
  • You can continue this way to make the volume fade out parts on the soundtrack for each segment on the story channel. Or you can try using the Auto Duck effect. The advantage of using Envelope Top is that you can always go back and change the fade-out volume sections. Auto Duck is an effect that permanently changes the music channel.

Smooth out the fading volume of the background music. Unless you are very satisfied (or have planned it very well), the music will usually continue for a while after the narrative is over. In this case you will want to make the music volume fade out. Decide how long you want the music to continue at full volume after the story has ended, and how long you want it to fade in.

• Using the selection tool ( Selection Top ), click on the music channel at a point where you want the music volume to be completely muted. Select Select > Region > Cursor to Track End . Press the Delete key. Now tap the point where you want the music volume to start to fade. Again choose Select > Region > Cursor to Track End , and then choose Effect > Fade Out .

Check the mix.

• If you turned the volume all the way up on your narration channel when you were in Step 2, there’s a good chance that when you mix it with the music channel it will result in the mix being too loud and causing clipping. – this is not cool. Remember, we used to turn the volume up to maximum and used to make it equally loud even in low-pitched places so that everyone could hear you.
• To check for sound clipping, play back a short piece of the project where the story is told and the soundtrack is on. Take a look at the replay meter ( Playback Meter , see Understanding Audacity’s Toolbars) – if clipping occurs, red “clip bars” will appear at the right-hand end of the Playback Meters . If this happens, use this channel’s gain slider to lower the volume of both the narrative and background music channels to -2 dB. Listen to that short again and look for the red “clip bars” on the Playback Meter . If clipping still occurs, lower the volume of the narrative and background music channels to -4 dB each.

Save and Export. The File > Save Project command will save the Audacity project. You need to export your project to use it with other audio applications. When you export your project, Audacity automatically mixes it so the exported file sounds exactly like what you hear when you press the Play button.

• Make sure no unwanted audio clippings are too far along the timeline, otherwise the output audio file will be very long! Click the Fit Project knob on the Edit Topbar (see Understanding Audacity’s toolbars). If the expected length of the mix is neatly displayed in the window, all is well. If the displayed timeline is much longer than your actual product, find the unexpected audio and remove it. You may need to hit past the actual end of the story/background music and delete everything from there all the way to the end of the channel(s).
• Audacity can output to different formats. The two most commonly used formats are MP3 (for podcasts and the like) and WAV (for burning CDs). To export to MP3 format , you must first install the optional LAME MP3 decoder ^[2] .
• Options – Mix and Render . You probably want Mix and Render . The Mix and Render command ( Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render ) (on the menubar Vietnamese version is equivalent to the Range > Mix > Mix and render command) will mix your project and place the resulting mix into a single new channel (this is the “return” part of the command). This gives you the opportunity to maximize the volume of the final mix, and final check for trimming. If you want to try this, do the steps:
  • Select Select > All . Mix and Render only mixes selected channels – you want to mix them all.
  • Choose Tracks > Mix > Mix and Render . Your project is merged into a new stereo channel and the previously separated channels are deleted.
  • Choose View > Show Clipping . The Show Clipping command will place red vertical bars wherever clipping has occurred in your channel. If any red bars appear, choose Edit > Undo Mix and Render and return to Step 7 . If no truncation is found, do:
  • Click on the channel panel ( Track Contrp Panel ) of the newly created channel
  • Choose Effect > Normalize… (Vietnamese version will be Effect > Normalize… )
    • accept the default values and click OK .
    • the volume of your final mix is maximized.
  • You exported the project in the previous manual. If you need new information about how the File > Export > Export Audio… command works, it’s on the page of the Export Audio Dialog ^[3] .
  • Congratulations, your music story is now ready to share with the world.

Backup. Back up your exported WAV or MP3 files – you don’t want to lose all your valuable work and have to do it all over again, right? The hard drive of the computer can be damaged, and all the data will be lost. Back up the work to an external hard drive, or upload it to an online (cloud) storage service. Better yet, make 2 copies on different external devices and even better if they are located in 2 different geographical locations.