Tracks Menu - Audacity Manual

# Tracks Menu

### From Audacity Manual

The Tracks Menu provides commands for creating and removing tracks, converting tracks from stereo to mono, mixing tracks, resampling tracks, muting and unmuting tracks, aligning tracks and working with labels.

## Add New

See Tracks for details of the different kinds of tracks.

### Audio Track

This creates a new empty audio track. This command is rarely needed, since importing, recording, and mixing automatically create new tracks as needed. But you can use this to cut or copy data from an existing track and paste it into a blank track.

### Stereo Track

Creates a new stereo track. You may need this if you start with a set of mono tracks and want to export a stereo mix.

### Label Track

This creates a new Label track, which can be very useful for textual annotation. See the discussion on Label Tracks for more information on how to use label tracks.

### Time Track

Creates a special track in the project window that can be used to speed up and slow down the playback of associated audio tracks. This occurs according to the speed percentages that are set in the Set Range (upper and lower) option found in the Time Track dropdown menu (located on the track controls to the left of the track itself). The Time Track affects all other audio tracks in the project.

## Stereo to Mono

Converts the selected stereo track(s) into the same number of mono tracks, combining left and right channels equally. Not available with stereo tracks split into left and right channels, or where the start or end positions of the channels are different. If you have a split stereo track, you can use the Track Drop-Down Menu to join the channels into a single stereo track before converting to mono. This menu also lets you convert a stereo track to a mono track containing only one of the channels:

1. Click "Split Stereo Track" in the menu if your track is not already split into left and right
2. Make the channel you want to retain "mono", using the same menu
3. Close the other channel using the [X] top left of the Track Panel.

## Mix and Render

This command mixes all of the selected tracks down to a single mono or stereo track and simultaneously applies all real-time transformations for the track, such as gain, panning, or resampling.

Your tracks are implicitly mixed whenever you hit the Play button on the Control Toolbar and whenever you select Export. This command "fixes" that mix by rendering the mix to a new track and deleting all the tracks that were selected.

The channel of a track being mixed affects whether it will be mixed into the left channel of the resulting track(s), the right channel, or both (mono). For example, if you have four tracks:

- Track 1: left channel
- Track 2: left channel
- Track 3: right channel
- Track 4: mono channel

and you select them all and perform a Mix and Render, you will end up with two tracks: the first will contain a mix of tracks 1, 2, and 4 (the new left channel) and the other will contain a mix of tracks 3 and 4 (the new right channel).

Note that if you try to mix two very loud tracks together, you may get clipping (it will sound like pops, clicks, and noise). To avoid this, you should use the track gain controls to reduce the amplitude of all of your tracks.

The CTRL + SHIFT + M shortcut will mix and render to a new track, leaving the selected tracks undisturbed.

## Resample...

Allows you to change the sample rate of a track by resampling the audio to that new rate.

## Remove Track(s)

Removes the selected track(s) from the project. Even if only part of a track is selected, the entire track is removed. You can also remove a track by clicking the X in its upper-left corner. To remove only the selected audio in a track, without adding it to the clipboard, use Delete, Split Delete or Silence Audio from the Edit Menu.

## Mute All Tracks, UnMute All Tracks

Mutes or unmutes all the audio tracks in the project, as if you had used the mute buttons from the Track Panel on each track. If a track is muted, it can't be heard in the project and is not exported from it. Note that how the mute buttons affect other tracks depends on your Solo button preference setting. Sometimes it can be as easy to change the mute setting on all tracks (or all but one) by using the mute or solo buttons.

## Align Tracks

If a track contains multiple clips and one of the Align commands is applied to that track then all the clips move and maintain their relative positions to each other within the track. The start of the first clip is the "start of the track" and the end of the last clip is the "end of the track".

### Align with Zero

Aligns the start of any selected tracks to the start of the project.

### Align with Cursor

Aligns the start of any selected tracks to the cursor position.

### Align with Selection Start

Aligns the start of any selected tracks to the start of the current selection.

### Align with Selection End

Aligns the start of any selected tracks to the end of the current selection.

### Align End with Cursor

Aligns the end of any selected tracks to the cursor position.

### Align End with Selection Start

Aligns the end of any selected tracks to the start of the current selection.

### Align End with Selection End

Aligns the end of any selected tracks to the end of the current selection.

### Align Tracks Together

If you select multiple tracks, this command adjusts their time offset so that they start at the same time. It adjusts their starting time to the average of all of the tracks' original starting times. To adjust the time offset of tracks with complete flexibility, use the Time Shift Tool.

## Align and Move Cursor

These commands work just like the align commands with the Move Cursor command immediately following it.

## Add Label at Selection

This menu item lets you create a new label at the current selection. You can title the label by typing with the keyboard and then hitting "Enter" when you're done. The label saves your current selection - so when you click on the label later it will return the selection to the state it was in when you created the label. See the discussion on Label Tracks for more information on how to use label tracks.

## Add Label at Playback Position

Like Add Label at Selection but the label is added at the current position during playback.

## Edit Labels

Brings up a dialog box showing all of your labels in a tabular view. Handy buttons in the dialog let you insert or delete labels, or import and export labels to a file. See Editing Labels for more details.

## Sort Tracks

### By Start Time

Sorts all tracks in the project from top to bottom in the project window. After the sort the top track will have the earliest start time and the bottom track will have the latest start time.

### By Name

Sort all tracks in the project alphanumerically by track name. Numbers precede letters, and upper-case letters precede lower case letters. It doesn't use natural number sort, so "10" comes before "2" (but after "02").

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