# Tweakin' it with Audacity



## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Audacity or any other program....

who out there likes to take familiar songs, tweak and twist them to fit your haunted theme?

_*Empress raises her hand*_ I DO! Show me yours and I'll show you mine.....


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Aw, come on! Nobody's "tweakin'" it around here? I find that hard to believe. You're just taking your haunt music, as is and not adding your own personal touch?
Well, if not I encourage you to.
The program Audacity is a free download. It will open up a whole new world to ya. Try it....you may become hooked.


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## Halloweiner (Oct 2, 2003)

I also like Goldwave's Free program.

All of the different custom Haunt Tracks I've seen posted in here I know there are others too Empress.


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Halloweiner,

have there been other custom haunt tracks posted here? Where have I been. Please, do me a favor and point me in the direction of them.

Do you have any to share personally?


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## Halloweiner (Oct 2, 2003)

Check down through the Halloween Music area. There have been several people that I've seen post their Haunt Tracks here. I myself don't have a haunt but I did put together a track that could be used for a Haunt or a Halloween Village like Lemax:

My Halloween Village Sound Recording


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## TommyHawk (Feb 14, 2005)

I used Audacity to make mine... Audacity is GREAT. The thing is 5 minutes long, though, so I won't post it here. It's background ambiance for my setup - crickets, wind and a little thunder. Some howls, laughs, moans and creaks thrown in there for color. 

Question - when I export the tracks as a .wav file, they're huge - 50 MEGS. I think that's because it exports the entire project... how can I get it to export the tracks _as just a .wav_, more in the area of a few dozen KB??


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

TommyHawk said:


> Question - when I export the tracks as a .wav file, they're huge - 50 MEGS. I think that's because it exports the entire project... how can I get it to export the tracks _as just a .wav_, more in the area of a few dozen KB??


Hmmmm...

I'm not exactly sure why it's not exporting in KB. Quickly tell me the procedure you use to export. Are you clicking on "Export as WAV" or "Export Selection as WAV?"


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## TommyHawk (Feb 14, 2005)

Oh! Um... I click on "Export as WAV". Just tried the Selection option and had the same result. I wonder if it's because the "rate" is 44100. What do you use?


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

My rate is the same ~ 44100. But, try this....

Go to "File" and then scroll down to "Preference" and click on it. A window will pop up. Click on the "File Formats" tab and see what your "Uncompressed Export Format" is. Mine is set at "WAV(Microsoft 16bit PCM).


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## Nightshade (Jul 18, 2004)

TommyHawk- Are you burning your sound files to CD? What bit rate are they? Is your recording Mono or Stereo? All these factors will determin the size of the file. If they are 44100, 16bit Stereo they will be a bigger file but they will sound great after being burned to CD. You also said it was 5 minutes long. Thats alot of bits of information.


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## TommyHawk (Feb 14, 2005)

Hmmmm. My preferences are the same as yours. Should/can I compress the file when I export?

Nightshade - Ah, that's it. It is stereo and has several layers of stuff. 

I guess the "rate" has LOTS to do with it... to experiment, I took a tiny wolfman file (61 kb), changed the rate from 11025 to 44100, dropped the speed 75% to recover the original sound, and it grew to 481 kb!

Thanks you two! This is so fun!


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Isn't it fun, TommyHawk?! I love it! I'm glad Nightshade was able to point you in the right direction.

Now we wanna hear your creations, okay?


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## Halloweiner (Oct 2, 2003)

Never used Audacity but I know in Goldwave you click on File and Save As and the popup window you get let's you chose what file type and size to save the file in. I always use it to convert my wav files to mp3. I have gone down to as low as 8,000 and 128 bit rate and the file sounds no different in quality to me. However that is for files I have on web pages. I know as someone mentioned when you burn a file to CD the higher the bit rate the better it will sound on the disc. 

Something I've noticed with the newest version of WMP (Version 10) is that it won't let you burn anything to disc except mp3 files. Version 8 and 9 used to let you do so. I think the reason being is that the disc would only be playable on your PC if the tracks weren't mp3 form.


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## Empress Nightshade (Jul 6, 2004)

Audacity is the only program I've used so we are in the same boat as far as us not knowing about each other's programs, Halloweiner. Is Goldwave user friendly? 

What I like about the combination of Audacity and Windows Media Player is that even though you cannot import certain music through it, after ripping it into Media Player, you can minimize the Player window to go to your tool bar, hit record on Audacity and play on the Player. Voila! You're recording into Audacity what you couldn't import.


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## Halloweiner (Oct 2, 2003)

I'm not sure because I have another program that I record with called Xtreme Audio Recorder. I know you can record with Goldwave, but I've never tried it yet.


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