Audacity Glossary

An individual unit of audio that can be edited. Often created by splitting a track into multiple pieces. The audio of a clip is visually represented with a blue waveform.

Not to be confused with a clip, clipping occurs when the amplitude (loudness) of a file exceeds its maximum capacity. This usually results in jarring distortion of the audio.

Changing something from one format to another. Different hardware and software support different formats to a lesser or greater extent, and so conversion may be required.

One of a number of methods that process audio in some way. This can be as simple as modifying the volume, or a complex mathematical transformation, such as Noise Removal.

A piece of software that converts audio into a particular format, such as LAME (for .MP3 files).

Turning a project file into an audio file that can be played with other software. This usually involves mixing down all of the tracks into a single mono or stereo file.

The size of a file relative to its content. In other words, compression can make the size of a file smaller, but depending on how it is done it may reduce the audio quality of the file. Compression is either lossy or lossless. With lossy compression, quality is lost, but a file is much smaller. If compression is lossless, quality is not lost, but the file size is not as reduced as it would have been if the compression was lossy. (Depending on the context, compression may mean dynamic range compression, which is beyond the scope of this guide but it may be useful to know about for your future studies).

The way that a file is organized on a computer. A program must recognize a file's format in order to use it.

The "input volume" of a track. This allows you to modify the relative volumes of different tracks independently of any effects applied to them.

Loading an audio file into a track in an Audacity project. Once a file has been imported, the audio can be manipulated using the program.

Connecting two or more clips into a single clip.

A way to mark and name different points or regions in a track for manipulation and export.

An open source MP3 encoder. Although not distributed directly with Audacity, it can be downloaded separately.

A kind of compression that can reproduce the original audio file with no loss of quality, such as .FLAC. While smaller than a raw audio format (e.g. .WAV), a file with lossless compression is typically larger than one with lossy compression.

A kind of compression that is significantly smaller than raw audio, but at the cost of a (usually imperceptible) loss in quality.

Short for monophonic. Audio with a single track. The result of recording with a single microphone, for example. If listening to a mono file with headphones, the signal should sound the same on both the left and right sides.

The ability to shift the percentage of an audio track between the left (L) and right (R).

All the tracks with edits, labels and settings currently being worked on saved as an Audacity *.aup file, or to be exported as an audio file.

An Audacity tool that allows the user to select a range within the audio file and manipulate it independently of the file as a whole.

The selected section will be set to silent.

Breaking up an audio file or existing clip into two (or more) smaller clips.

Short for stereophonic. Audio with two tracks: a right (R) track and a left (L) track. Typical of most music, or from recording with a stereo microphone.

An Audacity tool that allows the user to click and drag clips within or between various tracks.

Individual sound files originating from different sources that can be broken up into clips.

Trimming a clip will remove everything else from a clip except for the part that is selected.