The Book of Audacity

Fade In and Out

When you delete part of a track, you might want to smooth the cut with graceful fades. Fades are integral to audio editing, and Audacity has two ways to create fades. The easiest way is to select a portion of a track and then select Effect > Fade In or Fade Out. You control the length of the fade, and Audacity does the rest.

The Envelope tool can fine-tune the amplitude levels; it is good for controlling fades and for fine-tuning amplitude anywhere on an audio track, including over relatively long segments. Figure 1-29 shows what this looks like. Click different locations to create control nodes. To get rid of a node, drag it outside the track border.

Figure 1-29. The Envelope tool creates graceful fades and gives you fine-grained ...