The rumors are true, Audacity is difficult, especially if this is your first time using the application, like myself.This week has been pretty stressful and it’s only Tuesday. I was on the Wire106 Hub and saw this AudioAssignment done by two fellow classmates so I clicked on the assignment. This seemed really simple AND it is worth 3.5 stars? Please don’t play with my heart like that, DS106. I wanted to start off this week confident so I chose the assignment. I mean, how hard can reversing a song be? Ha! Like i said, i’ve never used Audacity before so I was completely unfamiliar to the whole process. So here we go!
Downloading:
So far this is still my favorite part. Downloading. Why? Because my computer does all the work. When Groom posted the Week 4 To-Do list, I just clicked on the link for Audacity which is right here for you guys. I had to double check which version of OX i have since i use a macbook. Which if you don’t know how to do, just click on the apple in the far left corner of your desktop and click “about this mac” and it will tell you. Yay! done with this step, on to the next.
Opening/Converting:
This is where it got tricky for me. I thought i could simply, key word: simply, open up a song from my itunes and it would magically be accepted into Audacity. Meh, not true. It would open in Audacity, kind of, but i wouldn’t hear a thing when i pressed play. I searched on Youtube for a tutorial on how to fix this, and stumbled upon this gem here. This made it sound really simple, which it is. I just wasn’t aware that i actually had to change the file to an AIFF file, i believe. So just follow that video and you’re all set!
Edit/Reverse:
This part comes in second for being easy. I wanted to mess around with Audacity before googling how to make this song play in reverse, which was successful! So my first instinct was clicking the “Edit” tab. I saw the option of “Reverse” but all of them were gray. I gave up and googled. I mean, why would the option be listed but not available? I found this page that gave me the answer. After i converted the MP3 to the AIFF file, i was eager to see if it would actually play, which it did. But i paused it because i didn’t need to hear the whole song. As the answer states in that link, if you have paused a song, it won’t let you make any effects on it and all you need to do is press “stop” which is the box option near the play button. After I pressed “stop”, those grey options turned black and i pressed reverse! Finally, some success.
Upload:
I rarely have a problem with Soundcloud and that continued when i uploaded the file. It did take a bit longer than my previous recordings but i feel like it’s all about the size of the file. This file was obviously larger than my 20 second recordings. Any who, i uploaded the file and used the appropriate tags. Now i’m done! Here’s the song with some clues!
Clues:
1. It’s an Man Band
2. They prefer the sand and the west coast
3. A popular song by them involves surfing and the USA 
*DISCLAIMER* The photo i chose for this file is misleading. I just like Joy Division so that’s why i chose it. It has nothing to do with this song.
