How To Mix Background Music And Voice

The methods below are suitable for producing a podcast of the very common type where you talk over a music background or accept talk interspersed with music.

This tutorial assumes that y'all accept figured out how to connect your microphone to your computer and get the sound from the microphone into Audacity. If yous accept not got that far notwithstanding, delight read the Your First Recording tutorial first.

If you accept just fabricated a recording it is strongly recommended to it immediately to WAV or AIFF (ideally to an external bulldoze) as a prophylactic copy before y'all start editing the project.

Introduction

The objective in this tutorial is to record a uncomplicated narration, add some background music, cut the narration to fit the music, lower the volume of the music during the narration, and finally mix and export the final product.

Give yourself an hour or so to complete this tutorial.

On your first attempt:

do non try to create a masterpiece
do not work on something critical.

Y'all are learning and experimenting, exploring the many tools Brazenness offers yous. Do not expect to get it perfect the first time.

It really does non matter what your narration is well-nigh, and whether you read it or ad lib. It also does not matter what the music is, but an instrumental runway is preferable.

Save your work ofttimes!

If you are making a lot of changes save a new Projection with a different name; employ bill of fare from time to time (this will give y'all incremental backups on disk).
At least in one case a twenty-four hours (more oft if desired) relieve the Project on an external bulldoze.

Footstep 1: Record the narration

Consider where your microphone is going to exist in relation to everything else in the room. Endeavor to place information technology so that it picks upwards a minimum of computer noise (difficult drives, fan). When speaking into the microphone, point the microphone at your mouth but practise not betoken your mouth at the microphone. If you can, place the microphone so that you are talking past it - think David Letterman and that microphone he has on his desk: he's e'er talking over it. Setting upwards the microphone and so that it is level with your mouth but a piffling off to the side likewise works. This avoids "popped p'due south" and other jiff effects from ruining your recording. Finally, try to set upwardly the microphone so that it is four to 6 inches away from your mouth.

While you are talking, try to keep looking in one management - moving your head left or correct, up or down, while you are talking volition modify the tonal quality of your vocalisation, and may exist distracting to your listeners. Speak in a normal, conversational tone of voice, but also speak clearly and enunciate advisedly. Your listeners cannot see you so practise not have the visual cues they would have if your were speaking to them in person.

If you demand to mind to the background while recording your narration (for example to tape a commentary), yous should:

make sure that is checked
utilize headphones (to listen to the background track) so that your microphone will pick upwardly just your voice.

If you do not need to hear yourself in the headphones you can continue with this tutorial. Otherwise please read the tutorial on overdubbing for details on how to set upward Audacity then you can hear both the background track and yourself in your headphones.
If you are overdubbing your narration certain parts of the work flow presented below will modify or be eliminated. For instance: your start step volition be to import the audio that you volition be recording your narration against; you will not need to cut the narration to fit the background track.

So let us begin ...

Commencement Audacity: a new untitled projection window opens. Click on or and proper noun your projection.

Set the recording device to your microphone in Audacity's Device Toolbar (or on Mac, set up the microphone as the default recording source in Apple Audio MIDI Setup).

You are now ready to record the narration. Do not worry nearly mistakes, pauses, coughs and similar - nosotros tin edit those out later. In fact y'all may want to brand a few deliberate mistakes so you can practice editing them out afterward. When y'all end to brand a correction, become dorsum to the offset of a natural break - judgement or phrase - and kickoff once again in a normal voice: once yous have tried to edit out your mistakes y'all will realize the importance of this.

Click the Record push in the Transport Toolbar. Record your narration.

If you take merely fabricated a recording it is strongly recommended to information technology immediately to WAV or AIFF (ideally to an external drive) equally a condom copy before you lot start editing the project.

To be really professional, perform a level test of your vocalism before it is recorded for real. Click on the down pointing arrow in the Recording Meter and click "Beginning Monitoring". While speaking into the microphone as loudly as you intend, suit the recording level slider (by the microphone symbol) on the Recording Meter so the Recording Meter is nigh reaching the far right-hand side (only not far plenty to bring the ruddy clip lights on). If the Recording Meter is not visible, click on and enable the Meter Toolbar

Step 2: Edit the narration

Cutting out the mistakes

Do non edit too tightly - the last upshot should sound natural. Use Brazenness's Cut Preview feature to hear how each edit volition audio before you make the edit. So mind back to each edit - undo and endeavour once more if it does non sound natural.

The image beneath shows a situation where the speaker paused, cleared his throat and continued with the adjacent sentence. We want to accept out the throat-clearing plus enough space around it to make it sound natural.

Equally yous tin see, the portion to be removed is selected. Press the C key to hear ii seconds of audio before, and one second of audio after the selection - this lets y'all hear what it will audio like after the selection is deleted. This is called "Cut Preview". Adjust the length of the pick until the edit sounds natural. Various ways to conform a selection were discussed in the Editing an Existing Audio File tutorial. When yous are happy with the selection, press the Delete cardinal, choose or press Ctrl + K to delete the selection.

If yous want to hear more than than two seconds before or one second after the pick choose (on Mac information technology is ), select the Playback section, and in the Cut Preview section fix the "Preview Before Cut Region" and "Preview After Cut Region" times to your liking.

Continue in this style correcting the mistakes until you are satisfied with the end issue.

Save your piece of work.

Leveling out the book

Unless yous are professional narrator or vocalism-over specialist in that location are probably level (book) variations during your narration. Recollect, your listeners cannot see y'all, so having a consistent book for your narration is important so they will be able to hear and understand everything you are saying.

You could become through and manually adjust the volume throughout your narration rail using the Envelope Tool, but at that place's an easier manner - use Audacity'due south congenital-in Compressor issue. Click on the Runway Command Console of your narration rails to select the entire rails then choose . The Compressor is a complex but very useful effect, so let'southward take a moment to encounter how it works.

The Compressor result works past making the loud parts quieter, then amplifying everything, which ends up making the placidity parts louder.

Click the OK button and let Compressor do its piece of work. Mind back to the result.

Are the tranquillity parts still too quiet? Choose and try once more with a Threshold setting of -18 dB.
Does your vox sound unnaturally squashed? Disengage and endeavour once again with a Threshold setting of -half-dozen dB.

Notation that once you have gone through setting everything up the first fourth dimension, on subsequent tries you just change the Threshold. This make it easy to habitation in on the setting that works.

When you have your narration edited to your liking, be sure to save your project. Now it is time to add the music.

Step 3: Import the background music file

Choose and open the background music file you have chosen for the project. Audacity imports the music file into your projection and puts it in its own stereo track.

Y'all can import music from a CD into Brazenness for the podcast just it should not be recorded as it plays as that is slow and inaccurate. Instead, extract (rip) the audio from the CD to a WAV or AIFF audio file and import that audio file into Audacity. Meet this tutorial for details.

It is besides possible to record the music from records or cassettes (run across the tutorial Copying tapes, LPs or MiniDiscs to CD) or whatever sound that plays on the computer (on Windows or Linux) and tape it into Brazenness - see Recording audio playing on the estimator.

Click the Skip to Start button on the Send Toolbar, then click the Play button . Notation that Audacity automatically mixes the music and narration for you. Click the End button when you take heard enough.

Look at the Track Control Panel at the left of each rails. Note the "Mute" and "Solo" buttons. Y'all can apply these to command which tracks yous hear when you lot click the Play button. Clicking the "Mute" button will turn that runway off - it volition not exist included in the mix when you lot press the Play button. Clicking the "Solo" button will cause only that track to be heard when you press the Play button. The exact behavior of the Solo push can be set in the Tracks Preferences panel.

Stride four: Moving the tracks

You can move clips with the Clip-handle drag-confined at the top of the clip, where the clip name tin as well exist found:

Clip-handles of a clip called Tantacrul - CIMIM

The Audacity Tracks and Clips has more details on the process.

Cut the Narration Track

Commencement past clicking the "Solo" button on the narration track - we practice not want to listen to the music track while nosotros are doing this work on the narration track.

For the purposes of this tutorial we will assume that we want to cutting the narration into three carve up segments. Each of these segments will begin when the music makes a dramatic change.

Notice the spot between the first and second portions of the narration. Using the Choice Tool click at this betoken. Cull - a split up line appears. There are at present two clips on the narration rail. Similarly, put a carve up signal betwixt the second and tertiary portions of the narration. The narration runway will at present wait something like this:

Marking the places in the background music runway where you desire the narration clips to showtime

Call up, our goal is to cut the narration to fit the music. So our side by side step is to pick the spots in the groundwork music track where we desire the three narration clips to first

Click the "Solo" push on the narration track to turn off the Solo function on that rail. Click the "Solo" push button on the background music track then y'all volition only hear that rail.

Identify the indicate in the background music track where you desire the narration to brainstorm. Click at that point with the Pick Tool. Choose . Type a proper name for the label, for example "First Narration".

Similarly, identify the points in the background music track where y'all want the 2nd and third narration clips to begin, and create labels at those points. Your project window should wait something like this:

Moving the clips to work with the music

Click the Solo push button on the groundwork music track to turn off the Solo role on that runway, and so we can hear both the narration and music tracks.

Drag the third narration clip using the Clip-handle elevate-bars so that the start of the prune lines up with the third label. Brazenness will help you line this up perfectly - when the get-go of the clip lines up with the tertiary label a xanthous Purlieus Snap Guide will light upwardly. Similarly, drag the 2d narration prune to line upward with the second label, and drag the starting time narration clip to line upwardly with the first label. Your project window should now wait something like this:

Step 5: Suit relative book levels

You lot at present take the narration clips where you lot want them. Information technology is at present time to adjust the book of the background music then your listeners tin hear what you are saying. There are at least ii ways to do this: manually with the Envelope Tool, or automatically with the Car Duck upshot.

Using the Envelope Tool

Details on how to utilise the Envelope Tool are here. You may desire to read that page before continuing.

Zoom in on the first narration clip. A quick way to practice this is: double-click on the first narration prune; choose ; then choose Select the Envelope Tool from the Tools Toolbar. In the music track, click to create a control point a second or so before the get-go narration clip begins. Click to create a second control bespeak just equally the narration starts. Elevate the second control signal down to reduce the book of the music track. Click in the Timeline a few seconds before the start of the first narration clip to hear the effect. Printing Space to terminate playback. Accommodate the showtime and second control points to become the length and depth of the fade you want. In a similar manner create the fade up at the end of the first narration clip.

You lot could continue in this mode doing the fades on the music track for each clip in the narration track. Or you could try using the Automobile Duck effect. The advantage of using the Envelope tool is that you can always get back and modify the fades. Car Duck, being an upshot, permanently alters the music rails.

Step 6: Smooth fade of the background music

Unless you are very lucky (or have planned very, very well), the music probably goes on for some fourth dimension subsequently the narration is finished. In this case you will want to fade out the music. Determine how long you want the music to proceed a full volume after the narration has finished, and how long you want information technology to take to fade out.

Using the Selection Tool, click in the music track at the signal where you lot want the music to be completely faded out. Choose . Printing the Delete primal. Now click at the betoken where you lot want the music to begin fading out. Again choose , then Choose .

Step seven: Check your mix

If yous maximized the volume of your narration track dorsum in Footstep ii there is a good run a risk that when yous mix it with the music track the resulting mix will be too loud and cause clipping - this is a bad thing. Recollect, we maximized the book and leveled out the loud and soft passages so that people would be able to hear you lot. To check for clipping, play dorsum a short portion of the project where there is narration and background music. Watch the Playback Meter - if clipping occurs the red "clip confined" will appear at the right-hand cease of the Playback Meter. If this happens, apply the Track Gain Slider to turn down the volume of both the narration and music tracks to -2 dB. Listen to the curt section again and look for the red clip bars on the Playback Meter. If clipping all the same occurs, turn down the volume of the narration and music tracks to -4 dB each.

Stride viii: Save and Export

The command just saves the Brazenness project. You need to [Export Audio|Export]] your project in order to use information technology with other audio applications. When you export your project, Audacity automatically mixes it, so the exported file sounds just like what you hear when you click the Play button.

Make sure in that location are no unwanted bits of sound far forth the time line or your exported file will be unexpectedly long! Click on the Fit to Width button in the Edit Toolbar. If the expected length of your final mix is displayed in the window, all is fine. If the displayed time line is much longer than your actual production, look for the unwanted $.25 of audio and delete them. You may need to click just past the existent cease of your narration/music and delete everything from there to the terminate of the track(southward).

Audacity can export in a diverseness of formats. The ii most unremarkably used are MP3 (for podcasts and similar) and WAV (for burning to CD).

Optional - Mix and Render

You may want to Mix and Render your projection before you export it. The Mix and Render control (in the Tracks menu) will mix your project, and put the resulting mix in a new track (this is the "return" portion of the control). This gives you the opportunity to maximize the volume of the concluding mix, and do a concluding check for clipping. If y'all would like to try this, follow these steps:

Choose
- Mix and Render only mixes the selected tracks - you desire to mix all of them
Choose
- your project is mixed into a new stereo track and the previous, separate tracks are deleted
Choose
- The Show Clipping command will put red vertical bars anywhere clipping has occurred in your rails. If any red bars appear, choose and become dorsum to Pace seven.

If no clipping was detected, proceed:

Click in the Runway Control Console of the newly-created rail
Cull
- accept the default values and click the OK button.
- the volume of your final mix is maximized.

You exported a projection in a previous tutorial. If you need a refresher on how the Consign Audio works, that information is on the Export Audio Dialog page.

Congratulations, your narration over background music is now ready to share with the world.

Step 9: Fill-in

Backup your exported WAV or MP3 files - y'all do not want to lose all that valuable work and accept to do it all over once again, do yous? Calculator hard drives can fail, destroying all information.

Ideally utilise a defended drive (one+ TB external drives are convenient and economical), or upload to an online (deject) storage service, to store the WAVs or MP3s. Better even so is to make two copies on different external devices and even improve is to hold an off-site fill-in

Publishing your Podcast

Publishing your Audacity-created podcast on the Internet is in some means the well-nigh of import phase of all. Unless you podcast purely to entertain yourself, you lot want others to hear what you lot have to say. Much useful advice on how and where to host your podcasts, how to prepare RSS feeds and how to publicize your work tin can exist found in the Wiki Tutorial "How to publish a Podcast".

Farther reading

The following book on Podcasting was written by ane of the co-founders and developers of Audacity:

Podcasting with Audacity - Purchasable east-book (PDF download or view online) written in 2007 by Dominic Mazzoni and Scott Granneman

Where to go from here

For more information

How the Solo button works: Audio Tracks, Tracks Behaviors Preferences
Moving clips: Audacity Tracks and Clips
Using the Envelope Tool: Envelope Tool
Using Labels: Label Tracks
The Compressor effect: Compressor
The Motorcar Duck effect: Auto Duck
The Mix and Render command: Tracks > Mix and Return