Review Ticket for 'Editing Audio with Audacity'

[jerielizabeth]

The Programming Historian has received the following tutorial on 'Editing Audio with Audacity' by @bmw9t. This lesson is now under review and can be read at:

http://programminghistorian.github.io/ph-submissions/lessons/editing-audio-with-audacity

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[jswafford]

This is a great tutorial! It’s fairly easy to follow and nicely organized, and it contains exactly the right amount of explanation. Its objectives are clearly stated, and it has a consistent model reader in mind throughout the lesson. I’d recommend making the payoff clearer, updating the lesson for the new version of Audacity, and possibly rethinking the layout of step-by-step directions:

-The opening could be enhanced by adding a sentence explaining why someone might want to make a podcast or an audio file.
-Which version of Audacity is this tutorial using? I’m using 2.1.2 (released January 2016), and it has some different menu options. I’d recommend updating the tutorial to make it current with the newest version of Audacity.
-The introduction to waveforms would benefit from a little more explanation: what are the units for the axes (e.g. the time markers are in seconds, but what’s the y-axis measured in, and what do the negative numbers represent)? Also, would “volume” rather than “loudness” be a better descriptor for the y-axis?
-The tutorial does a great job of explaining the tool palette, but it might also be nice to have a screenshot of the audio tools (play button, record, stop, fast forward, rewind).
-In the new version of Audacity, recording a new track plays (and records) the old track in the background. It would be helpful for the tutorial to specify that users should hit mute button on the Bach track to record an audio track without also recording the music.
-The tutorial might be improved by converting the step-by-step directions into bullet points/numbered lists to better demarcate them from the explanation, since currently, they’re all part of the same paragraph: there’s a lot of text there, and it might be difficult for people to follow visually.
-In the new version of Audacity, Fade In & Fade Out are under the “Effects” menu, not the “Tools” menu.
-For the crossfade section, the instructions say “Delete all but the first seven seconds of the Bach Introduction,” but the image only shows the first 5.5 seconds. It would be clearer if either the directions or the image were changed so they matched up.
-With the new version of Audacity, deleting everything after the 7th second is surprisingly tricky: it won’t seem to let me click and drag through the end of the audio clip to then hit delete. To fix this, it might help to add instructions to create a split at second 7 (“Edit”->”Clip Boundaries” -> “Split”), then click the new sound clip and hit delete?
-Selecting “Crossfade Tracks” in the new version of Audacity brings up a pop-up window with a drop-down menu and other settings. It would be helpful if the tutorial specified what settings users should select.
It was a pleasure to follow along with this tutorial!

[walshbr]

Ah geez - I didn't realize that Audacity had come out with a new version since I submitted this. Thanks for the great feedback @jswafford - I'll go through and update things accordingly!

[walshbr]

And to answer your question @jswafford - I was using the previous version of Audacity - 2.1.2. Thanks for pointing that out!

[walshbr]

Just a quick note to say that I updated the tutorial with @jswafford's comments. The commit got a bit wonky so that it is a bit difficult to read, but that commit is here.

[wcaleb]

The figure syntax for this lesson needs to be updated to reflect the new guidelines posted here, and all image files will need to be placed in a subdirectory.

[walshbr]

@wcaleb done! Thanks -

[jerielizabeth]

thanks @bmw9t and @wcaleb!

[celestetvs]

Great tutorial that will be of use to a lot of people! The task accomplished in the lesson is reasonable and the intended audience matches the instruction. I'd recommend adding a few small points of clarification to ease readers through:

-Related to downloading the Bach audio file: I suggest explicitly directing readers to download the file first in the "Working with Audacity" section.
-When I clicked on the Bach's Goldberg Variations link it took me to a MusOpen sign-in page. It would be helpful to advise readers that they'll need to signup for free to access the file.
-The explanations of the x and y axis are clear and easy to understand. but I'd suggest breaking out the y-axis section into its own paragraph to increase skimmability.
-The direction to "click somewhere on the wave" might be confusing since two waves are visible in the Bach track. It doesn't seem to matter for this tutorial whether one clicks on the top or bottom, but it might be useful to quickly explain why there are two wave forms for the Bach track and only one for the track created by the reader.
-In the crossfade section: it would be helpful to remind the reader to switch back to the selection tool for the first step and, after selecting to the end of the track, to delete.
-More of a question than a suggestion: is it worthwhile to talk very briefly about pros/cons of different file formats in the Export section? Or to provide a link to such explanations?

Looking forward to pointing people to this tutorial in the near future!

[walshbr]

Thanks so much for the comments @celestetvs - I'll push up commits over the course of the next few days and let you know when I'm finished.

[jerielizabeth]

Thank you @celestetvs! These are really great suggestions!

@bmw9t as you go through these, a couple additional things to consider. Since this will be a "beginner" level tutorial, in addition to noting that they will need to register for an account, it would be useful to change the link to something link this

[Bach's Goldberg Variations](https://musopen.org/music/download/6270/){:download="bach-goldberg-variations.mp3"}

so that the file downloads directly, rather than opening in the browser.

Another thing that I have noticed (and sorry I didn't catch this earlier) is the difference between mono and stereo recording -- I only notice because own recording came on as two waves, where your examples have one. It is worth mention what is going on there and recommending one or the other.

Otherwise, I think we're in good shape! Once you're set, I'll go through for one more round of copyediting, just to make sure we haven't missed anything.

[walshbr]

@jerielizabeth - I just took your advice re: downloading the file automatically. It looks like doing it this way sometimes causes a slight quirk. If you're logged into MusOpen, it downloads as expected. If not logged in, it seems to sometimes download the html for the login page. I assume that is because the login page intervenes before the browser can get to the MP3. What do you think? Still worth doing? I can add some language to the effect of 'if the link doesn't work, make sure you log into MusOpen first' if that helps. The link on the staging server has it download right now, as you suggest. http://programminghistorian.github.io/ph-submissions/lessons/editing-audio-with-audacity.html

[jerielizabeth]

Hmm... that is an interesting quirk and counter to the "make it easier"
idea here. Perhaps then what is needed is:

1. instructions to create an account on MusOpen
2. then link to the download file with additional instructions on how to
   save that file locally (right click and "Save Link As" on Mac .. not
   entirely sure how on Windows.) @celestetvs, what would you recommend for
   windows users here?

Jeri E. Wieringa
Digital Publishing Production Lead, George Mason University Libraries
PhD Candidate, Department of History and Art History
George Mason University
www.jeriwieringa.com

On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 11:58 AM, bmw9t notifications@github.com wrote:

@jerielizabeth https://github.com/jerielizabeth - I just took your
advice re: downloading the file automatically. It looks like doing it this
way sometimes causes a slight quirk. If you're logged into MusOpen, it
downloads as expected. If not logged in, it seems to sometimes download the
html for the login page. I assume that is because the login page intervenes
before the browser can get to the MP3. What do you think? Still worth
doing? I can add some language to the effect of 'if the link doesn't work,
make sure you log into MusOpen first' if that helps. The link on the
staging server has it download right now, as you suggest.
http://programminghistorian.github.io/ph-submissions/lessons/editing-audio-with-audacity.html

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[celestetvs]

The same instructions to right click and "Save Link As" should also work on Windows.

[walshbr]

@jerielizabeth I think I took care of everything now! Let me know next steps. Hopefully I didn't get a little too slaphappy with linking to external resources.

[jerielizabeth]

ok great!! Thanks @bmw9t! I will take one last look for copyediting purposes, but I think we nearly there! My week's been crazy, but I'm hoping for Friday!

[jerielizabeth]

Hi @bmw9t! I think we're ready to go! I made some copy edit in the latest push -- most are minor, but i did move things around in the "how to download" section. You of course have veto power on the edits, so go ahead and look it over. If you're happy, I'll move this over to the main site today!

[walshbr]

@jerielizabeth looks great to me! I made one change to italics. It should be set now. Thanks! Let me know when you send it out and I'll publicize it accordingly.

[jerielizabeth]

Soft publication of "editing audio with audacity" is up at http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/editing-audio-with-audacity. Last chance to make changes before the link goes on the lessons page.

[jerielizabeth]

Congratulations @bmw9t and thank you again to our reviewers @jswafford and @celestetvs ! This lesson is now live at http://programminghistorian.org/lessons/editing-audio-with-audacity. This ends the review process for this lesson!