EffectsTips

This page provides tips on how to use Audacity's built-in effects. A full list of the built-in effects in Audacity 1.2.6 is here.

Related article(s): Navigating Effects LADSPA, Nyquist and VST Plug-ins to add other effects into Audacity Other pages in our Tips Category

Note: To use effects you must first of all select the audio you want to apply the effect to, and stop playback or recording. Also see Selecting Audio.

Help with specific effects

• Amplify and Normalize to modify the track volume - when to use each one...

• Change Pitch and Change Tempo - see SoundTouch

• Change Speed

• Click Removal - using Audacity's Click Removal, Draw Tool and other solutions

• Compressor

Gale 03May13: ToDo-2 Will need updating for 2.0.4 release if Sox reverb replaces GVerb as planned

• GVerb - also alternative reverberation plug-ins: Anwida and Freeverb

• High Pass Filter - attenuates frequencies below a limit that you set, allowing through (passing) those above the limit. Can be used to reduce low frequency noise.

• Low Pass Filter - attenuates frequencies above a limit that you set, allowing through (passing) those below the limit. Can be used to reduce high pitched noise.

• Noise Removal - using Audacity's Noise Removal Effect and other solutions for removing steady noise

Accessing Effects with Shortcuts

You can use CTRL + R (or COMMAND - R on a Mac) to repeat the last used effect with those last used parameters. Audacity does not yet allow use of shortcuts to access frequently or recently used effects, but external macro programs provide a solution. See Accessing Effects with Shortcuts in Navigating Effects.

Chains in Audacity

Current Audacity allows a chain of multiple effects to be created and run as a batch process. Click File > Edit Chains... to create the chain. Click File > Apply Chain... to apply the chain to the current project, or to audio files. Chains can be applied to a selected track or region in the project, just as you can when running an individual effect. However, you cannot yet specify a region of audio for individual effects inside a chain. Therefore chains will always be applied to all of an audio file.

Where an effect does not remember its parameters or does not allow multiple presets to be saved, Chains provide a workaround where you can have a different chain for different parameters of that effect.