Audacity

Recording and Listening

If you want to record audio while also listening to it (e.g., through speakers), here's how you can do that with Audacity on the Mac:

• Install Soundflower (software audio output device that allows multiplexing)
• Open System Preferences > Sound > Output
• Select Soundflower (2ch)
• Open/prepare the source of audio you want to record. You will not hear it if you play it now.
• Open Audacity
• In the toolbar, pick the drop-down next to the microphone and pick "Soundflower (2ch)" - this will set Audacity to record from the soundflower audio device
• In the toolbar, pick the drop-down next to the speaker and pick "Built-in Output" - this will use the speakers to pass the audio through
• In the top right, there will be a microphone and a speaker monitor/meter. Click on it to start monitoring (which will pass Soundflower input, being recorded, through to the output, the speakers)

You should be able to monitor the output you will be recording, BEFORE you hit record. Set the system volume before you start recording. Changing the system volume changes the volume of the audio in the recording!

To adjust the playback volume, use the speaker volume level in the toolbar (just under the record button). That will change the volume level of the monitoring output. DO NOT change the system volume, since that will change the volume level of the audio you are recording.

Audio Splitting Workflow

What follows below is my workflow for splitting audio tracks into segments. It involves first listening to the track and labeling it at various points, then splitting the audio track at each label.

Splitting the track

First, open the track in Audacity.

Play the audio track, and while you're listening, use Command + Period (.) to place labels. The cursor is immediately in the text box for the label's name.

If you're listening to a really long audio track, and want to skip through it, you can use your cursor to move around the track's wave form, or you can move forward 15 seconds using Shift + Period (.), and move backward 15 seconds using Shift + Command (,)

Note that when you place a label, it will add a second track in the window, and the label's track will be selected when you create labels using the "create new label at cursor" keyboard shortcut Command + Period(.) ... You will need to click on the first track's waveform for the forward-backward navigation keyboard shortcuts to work.

Exporting to mp3 files

Once you've created all of your labels, you can use File > Export Multiple to export each labeled section to a separate file. You will be able to specify details of how the files are named, and you will be able to edit the ID3 tags of each exported file before it is exported.