Audacity
Although I’m writing this from the perspective of a Linux user, Audacity is a cross-platform audio editor: there are also versions available for Windows and Mac OS X.
For my first album, evolution, I mixed all my audio by hand, surfing the control knobs as I mixed the tracks down to a master track. It was aggravating and inexact; I relied on my memory, sometimes pulling off gradual slides of four elements at once.
That era is over.
By the time of La vie sous la mer, I no longer used anything for mixing other than Audacity.
I do not use it for recording, however. Instead, I use a Korg D888; after all, it’s essentially a hard wired, low latency multitrack recorder, all set up with the proper inputs and outputs — no need to fiddle around with sound cards. It records to 44,100 Hz .wav files and is fully USB compatible — I can record tracks on the Korg and transfer them over to my computer easily.
However, for mixing, I don’t think I will ever bother with actual physical sliders and knobs ever again. In Audacity, you can create very complex sound contours for any track — you can even separate stereo tracks and contour the volume for each track, producing some wild stereo panning effects.
My main use for it, though, is sound balance. I’ve gotten into the habit of mixing iteratively — not all at once, but in stages. Each time I complete a section, I balance the sound before adding a new track. Audacity is perfect for this, as the saved project files offer not only a way to save the mixer settings, but also the ability to “undo” changes.
Right now, I’m working on at least six Audacity projects. Five are in the final stages — I burn versions of the songs to CD, listen to them in my car over and over, and write down any changes I think I need. When I get home, I make those small changes.
For those of you who’ve reached this page from Jamendo, let me give you the current “mission status”:
My fourth Jamendo album already has the five songs I mentioned above. I haven’t decided on the track order yet, so here they are in the order they were completed:
- Falling into the Dream
- Vale Avis Tenebrica
- Let It Burn (Song of Surtr)
- Love and War / World on Fire
- In Memory of Dorothy Blair
There are other tracks, but they are in early stages of development. I hope to have the album completed and ready for release in (or before) April, for one simple reason:
We’re moving to Virginia in June. One way or another, my musical world is going to come to an end.
For a short time, hopefully. But life offers no guarantees.
