Transport Menu: Transport Options

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This submenu lets you manage and set various options for transport (playing and recording) in Audacity.
Transport Menu commands let you play or stop, loop play, scrub play or record (including timed and sound activated recordings)Tracks Menu provides commands for creating and removing tracks, applying operations to selected tracks such as mixing, resampling or converting from stereo to mono, and lets you add or edit labelsGenerate Menu lets you create audio containing tones, noise or silenceAudacity includes many built-in effects and also lets you use a wide range of plug-in effectsThe Analyze Menu contains tools for finding out about the characteristics of your audio, or labeling key featureThe Tools Menu contains customisable toolsThe Extra menu provides access to additional Commands that are not available in the normal default Audacity menusThe Help Menu lets you find out more about the Audacity application and how to use it. It also includes some diagnostic tools.These commands control playback in AudacityThese commands control recording in AudacityScrubbing is the action of moving the mouse pointer right or left so as to adjust the position, speed or direction of playback, listening to the audio at the same time - a convenient way to quickly navigate the waveform to find a particular event of interestThese commands let you move the cursor to the start or end of the selection, track or any adjacent Clip that you may haveThese commands enable you to lock a play region and unlock itRescan for audio devices connected to your computer, and update the playback and recording dropdown menus in Device ToolbarThis submenu lets you manage and set various options for transport (playing and recording) in AudacitySets the activation level above which Sound Activated Recording will recordToggles on and off the Sound Activated Recording optionYou can change Audacity to play and record with a fixed head pinned to the TimelineToggles on and off the Overdub optionToggles on and off the Software Playthrough optionThe MenusTransport-Transport OptionsMenu.png
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Sound Activation Level...  

Sound Activation Level W10 3-0-0.png

Sets the activation level above which Sound Activated Recording will record.

Sound Activated Recording (on/off)  

Toggles on and off the Sound Activated Recording option in Recording Preferences. This option can be useful to save disk space when recording an intermittent input, such as a call recording system.

When turned on (indicated by the check mark in the menu item), press the Record button in Transport Toolbar to start the Sound Activated Recording session. Recording will now occur whenever the received input is above the Sound Activation Level you specify (see the menu item above). Recording will pause whenever the received input falls below that level. Press the Stop button to stop the recording session.

Sound Activated Recording can be combined with Timer Record to set the start and end time of a Sound Activated recording.

Pinned Play/Record Head (on/off)  

You can change Audacity to play and record with a fixed head pinned to a position in the Timeline. In this mode the head remains static and the waveforms will move as the audio is played or recorded.

Clicking on this command cause the triangle button at the left of the Timeline to change to a drawing-pin. This indicates that the play or record head is now pinned to the center of the Timeline and when playing or recording takes place the waveform will move continuously under the fixed head. Clicking on this command againg will revert to unpinned play and record head and the drawingpin changes back to the triangle.

See this section on the Timeline page for more details.

Overdub (on/off)  

Toggles on and off the Overdub option in Recording Preferences.

When turned on (indicated by the check mark in the menu item), any existing audio tracks will play when you start recording, according to the state of their Mute/Solo buttons.

Overdub is "on" by default in Audacity.

Software Playthrough (on/off)  

Toggles on and off the Software Playthrough option in Recording Preferences.

When turned on (indicated by the check mark in the menu item), input being recorded will play, but there will be a noticeable delay (latency) before the input is heard. For some examples of setting up equipment to record without playthrough latency, see this Tutorial about Recording overdubs.

Warning icon Software Playthrough must be unchecked when recording computer playback because it will create feedback echoes.


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