Podcasting How-to: Fading Music With Audacity

When mixing videos and voice tracks together you might want to consider ducking or fading the music behind your voice in some places. Well, that is it does not make this intuitive; there are two ways to do it. An easier way which does not fade but simply drops the music and the harder way which fades the music, we will go over both. First, we will import our music file; next, we will mute the music track and record a voice track. This is a screen cast on ducking music behind voice tracks on Audacity. Doing so is important for podcast or announcements where you use music and voice tracks together. As you can see, the voice track recorded from the very beginning here but I would like to duck it behind this section of the music here. So we are going at the beginning of the voice track, click the voice track to make sure that it is selected then generate silence. We will generate 30 seconds of silence and trim it down. There is a little bit of silence here in the beginning of the music track, we will get of rid that first and then we will get rid of enough silence on the voice track to sink of with the area the music that I want. Let us see how that sounds. We will un-mute the music track. [Music Playing] Currently, the music definitely drowns up my voice, so I need to fade the music while my voice track played. The easier way to do this is using the amplify effect. We will select the part of the music track to fade out and use the effect amplify and drop it down to about minus 10. As you can see by the way of form that drops the volume down in the area that we selected. Now, when we play the track, you should be able to hear my voice much better. [Music Playing] This is a screen test on ducking music behind voice tracks on a opacity. In doing so it is important for podcast for announcement were you use music track and voice tracks together. [Music Playing] You can definitely hear my voice much better however the volume in the music does not fade down and fade back up nicely; it is jumps down to a lower level and then jumps back up. If you want to create a nice fade down and fade back of effect, you have to use the envelop tool. The envelop tool is here next to the selection tool, we will click on it to select it and we will insert four points. The first point is the fade in point and we will add a fade out point. Be careful to maintain a consistent volume. Now, I add two inner points that indicate the volume of the music track as a place behind my voice track. If you have a difficulty editing the wave form, use the zoom tool to zoom in on the area that you are editing. If you would like to make edits, simply place the envelop tool in near one of the markers and drag the marker up and down. If you have a quiet voice like mine, you may also want to increase the gain on your voice track. After using the envelop tool on the music track and the gain tool on the voice track, you should end up with an audio file that nicely fades to music behind your voice. [Music Playing] This is a screen test on ducking music behind voice tracks on a opacity. In doing so it is important for podcast for announcement were you use music track and voice tracks together.