Fading Music In
Select the first 10 seconds (or so) by highlighting the section of the song you want to capture, hitting copy, and then pasting in the grey screen below your selected section:
which looks like this:
You can mute the top track or close it completely in the top left corner
Fade In: Using Audacity, you can locate the fade in under Effect in the top tool bar
Noise Reduction and Editing
There are options once a recording is made to reduce the background noise and make your recording more clear.
Intro before any sound editing:
Reduce Noise:
To reduce background noise, which might be humming, traffic, any semi-quiet sound you can hear in addition to the person speaking,
highlight the part of the track you want to reduce noise on (this can be the entire track if you wish, I find it works best in smaller batches):
Once highlighted go to the tool bar at the top of the screen and select EFFECTS
This will open a pop up screen that asks you to Get Noise Profile. Click on the GET NOISE PROFILE button and it will allow you to make adjustments to the sensitivity on the sliders below. Practice with these until you are satisfied with your final product. You can preview by selecting the PREVIEW button in the bottom left corner of the pop up window.
The final product should be a quieter background with a stronger focus on the speaking voice.
To edit out specific parts of your recording (any ums, ahs, or unintended noises)
In your audio track, locate the part you want to remove and highlight it. It may be beneficial to zoom in and make the track larger so you can really get in and select the specific part.
In my example above, I have an "um" in the middle of the track, to remove it, the track can be zoomed in upon and highlighted
To remove this selection, hit delete. This will remove it permanently from the track.
These tools will leave you with a smoother, more professional finished product.
Fading Music Out
To fade the music out, select a small section of your song in the same way you did for the Fade in and highlight it in Audacity
In the tool bar on the top of the screen, select EFFECT and scroll down to FADE OUT
This will cause your music to fade out, or get quiet as it plays out
Putting it All Together
By this stage, you have found your copyright-free music, made it fade in and fade out, recorded your script, edited your audio track and reduced your background noise. Now it's time to put it all together. To do this we will line up 3 tracks in Audacity.
You should have 2 tracks created at this point, your edited voice track and your edited music track.
* I find it helpful to have two of the same music tracks open in the same window. This lets you copy and paste without touching an already edited track.
You can open both of these tracks in one window. In the top tool bar, select FILE>Open and select your edited music track. From a separate window, you can highlight and select your edited voice track and copy/paste it below your edited music track in the same window.
To combine into one track:
Highlight your edited voice track and hit CTRL + C to copy
Place your cursor immediately behind your edited music track and hit CTRL + V to paste your edited voice track behind it
Highlight your second copy of your edited music track and hit CTRL + C to copy and then paste behind your edited music track + edited voice track
-this should have a music track+voice track+music track on one line like so:
Listen to these tracks to make sure it sounds smooth and you have seamless transitions. You may decide to highlight and run fade in/fade out again or you may highlight again to delete parts to get rid of pauses or gaps.
-Be sure to mute your building pieces tracks while listening to and editing your complete podcast track
When you are satisfied with your final product, go to the top tool bar and select FILE>EXPORT>MP3
-please name your file according to your class naming requirements.
Make sure to export as an MP3.