Zoom H2N audio field recorder - YouTube help

Was loaned one of these Zoom H2N recorders and could not figure out how to open the battery compartment, for starters. Found this (apparently my mistake was not pushing down a bit before pulling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IdEmRJM0PA Here is a vid that nicely covers the basic functions, including how to use as a mic with a video camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giUgu8-NP8c Once you go to any vid on YouTube about H2N, you will get a long list of other YT vids related to the Zoom H2N recorders. Like most field recorders today, this recorder has a USB out to use to transfer files to computer, where you can open in Audacity.

Just found this page that has descriptions of some of the commonly used effects available in Audacity: http://voiceoverone.blogspot.ca/2016/06/voice-recording-effects.html

Audacity: Keeping the label with the audio selection when you move it

Finally found out how to keep the label with an audio selection you want to copy or cut and move elsewhere. Once you determine the boundaries of the audio you want to move (could be with split marks or just eyeballing it), you have to highlight the adjacent area on the label track first and then move the cursor to include the audio as well. Then you can copy or cut, but not with keyboard shortcuts, only with the Audacity command menu or icons. You can then what you cut or copied to an audio/label track pair of the same type; but in order to paste them both, you have to create a highlighted area that includes the label and the audio track and paste in that. The area doesn't have to be the same size as what you are pasting.

Using Equalization on P-Pops in Audacity

I just discovered this handy trick for dealing with boomy p-pops. In Audacity, I choose the effect Equalization and within that the pre-set called Bass Cut. Using that on the pop almost always smooths it right out. If there's a brief treble element to the pop, I just cut it out.

Files that are hard to open or transfer

As I move my audio files to a new computer, some old digital audio files refuse to be copied. I find they also won't open in Audacity. However, they do open in the old SoundForge program. So, I first open them in SoundForge and re-save. They still don't copy, but at least then I can open them in Audacity, and after re-saving from there, they can be transferred. Soundforge seems to be quite a forgiving and stable program, so worth keeping around for those things.

Files saved by Audacity

If your computer is running out of space, it could be because of all those Audacity data files that are adding up on your computer. They don't automatically delete when you finish your project and export as .wav or .mp3 (or whatever). You can find out where they are being saved by looking on the Edit pulldown menu for Preferences. The location is under the tab Directories. You can change it if you want to to a drive that has more room. If your computer has multiple users, I'm not sure yet if you have to change it for each individual log-on. The easiest way to delete them is by locating the Audacity project folder and deleting the entire folder. The files you exported will remain wherever you saved them (as long as you didn't save them in the project folder!)

Setting file defaults on Audacity-win-1.3.4

I've just downloaded the latest release of the Audacity free-and-open-source audio editing software. When you open the program, you can look on the upper left of the toolbar and find a pulldown menu called Edit. At the bottom of the list you find Preferences. From there, I found locations to set the preference for .wav file exports at 16-bit and for .mp3 exports at 128 kbps. This is what I recommend in order to generate broadcast-quality files that can nevertheless be edited and played in pretty much all other programs, including older ones. The default setting in Audacity is 32-bit, which is supposedly higher quality but can cause problems in Winamp, older SoundForge releases, etc.