The Book of Audacity: Record, Edit, Mix, and Master with the Free Audio Editor

by Carla Schroder

The Book of Audacity is the definitive guide to Audacity, the powerful, free, cross-platform audio editor. Audacity allows anyone to transform their Windows, Mac, or Linux computer into a powerful recording studio.
The Book of Audacity is the perfect book for bands on a budget, solo artists, audiophiles, and anyone who wants to learn more about digital audio. Musician and podcaster Carla Schroder will guide you through a range of fun and useful Audacity projects that will demystify that geeky audio jargon and show you how to get the most from Audacity.
You'll learn how

In addition, you'll learn how to choose and use digital audio hardware like mics and preamps, and tune your computer for flawless audio performance. You'll also find out how to package your work for digital distribution, whether you want to share a podcast through iTunes or sell your own CDs. Become your own producer with The Book of Audacity . The fun starts now.

Genres: Music

384 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 2010

Reviews

[Altivo Overo]

Except for the fact that it was written in 2011 and the Audacity software has continued to evolve, this is an excellent guide. Features are covered comprehensively, and I'm pretty sure everything in the book is still available in the program. Audacity is a professional grade recording and mastering tool, in spite of being freely available, and it is very powerful. This book is a complete introduction and useful reference.

[Eric Mesa]

Some of the software details are out of date as Audacity has continued to evolve since the book was published. However, the information and theory behind why you would use certain plugins or hardware remains good background information. I think if you are able to learn that information you can apply it to the modern interface and plugins.

[Kyle]

If you'd like a good guide to understanding audacity, this is an excellent resource. (If you don't know what audacity is, it is at its most basic sound editing software). The positives are that the chapters are fairly independent and it is easy to simply read what you need. The negatives of this approach is that there is a lot of repeated information if you do read through it chapter by chapter. The other negative is that the book is a bit dated, so that there have been some minor changes in audacity (though, pretty much all of it did end up still being the same).

Overall, this is just a nice resource because it explains the lingo, has some personality (while making it clear that do what you think sounds great is just fine), and offers good advice overall. I learned what I wanted, how to start using audacity and understanding what the nomenclature was. I am already quite familiar with many of the ideas from my physics education, but it was good to have a resource that explains how the ideas are used (and what they call them) in the audio world.

[Nithesh]

Some useful tips for absolutely new users, somewhat repetitive and weird swinging between shitting on audiophiles for their performative snootiness and actually doing a certain level of performative snootiness. Nevertheless, for someone who hasn't heard anything about any kind of sound engineering, this is an okay place to start. It's also a bit out of date, but that's not really the book's fault.

[Tech4visor]

I have read the audacity book but I am also the author of the audio editing production we are providing a free audacity tool you can also visit my website tech4visor

[Gwendolyn Plano]

I'm a non-techy person, and when I was creating an audiobook, I needed help with Audacity. This book is an incredible collection of facts about anything related to the Audacity program. Mind you, I didn't understand much of what I read, but it guided me through the tangles of techy-talk and when I sought online help, their staff immediately responded.