Editing Part 2: Concepts in Action¶
Now that you know the basic conepts, it’s time to see them in action.
To get started, first import, record, or generate some audio. Then read the sections below.
The Edit Cursor¶
The edit cursor is the long vertical line that is overlaid across all tracks in the track area. Simply click anywhere on any track to move the edit cursor.
If you prefer to move the edit cursor via keyboard, press the Left Arrow button on your keyboard to move the edit cursor left. Press the Right Arrow button on your keyboard to move the edit cursor right.
Selecting Audio¶
While this is one of the most basic features of Tenacity, it is also one of the most flexible. Simply hover your mouse over a clip (away from its handle), click on it, and drag it over the desired audio selection.
If you want to extend your selection, hover your mouse over either edge of the selection and repeat the other two steps above. Alternatively, you can hold shift and press either the Left Arrow key to move the left edge of the selection or the Right Arrow key to move the right edge of the selection, respectively. If you want to reduce your selection, hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) along with Shift when pressing the Left Arrow key to reduce the right edge of the selection or the Right Arrow key to reduce the left edge of the selection. Essentially, when you add Ctrl, it reduces your selection and inverts what edge the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys work on.
To delete a selection of audio, with your selection active, press the Delete key. This delete anything in the selection, including free space.
When you move a partially-selected clip by the portion of its handle in the selection, the selection and its contents will be moved.
Editing Individual Samples¶
Tenacity allows you to edit individual samples via the Draw Tool. Before you can use the tool, however, you need to zoom in enough to see the individual samples.
To use the tool, after following the preparation above, switch to the Draw Tool by clicking the pencil icon in the edit toolbar (next to the record button by by default) or by pressing F3. Then, click and drag your mouse cursor over the points you want to modify.
Duplicating Audio¶
An easy way to duplicate audio is to copy either an entire clip or a selection and paste it to a new track. However, Tenacity allows you to more easily do this through duplicating a selection.
To start, first selection part of a track you want to duplicate, or click the Select button on a track to select the entire track. Then, either go to Edit > Duplicate in the menubar or press Ctrl + D on your keyboard. This duplicates your selection onto a new track along with adding the duplicated contents to your current selection. Note that the new track the duplicated contents will reside on will be named after the original track where the original contents reside. You can also rename a track by clicking on the track options dropdown (the track’s name) and clicking Name….
Cutting, Copying, and Pasting¶
Tenacity allows you to cut, copy, and paste data from several tracks to other tracks. You can copy audio clips, MIDI clips, or labels.
Standard copying and pasting shortcuts (i.e., Ctrl + X, Ctrl + C, or Ctrl + V and their Mac equivalents) are supported. You can also use the Edit menu or the Edit Toolbar for copying and pasting too.
Of course, you must have something selected in order to copy or cut it. See Selecting Audio for more details.
Note
Clip types must match. Pasting a MIDI clip into an audio track, or vice versa, is not allowed. Similarly, attempting to paste a label into anything other than a label track is also not allowed.
If you were brought here by an error message help button, you were attempting to paste a clip into a different track type.
Pasting Stereo Clips into Mono Tracks¶
Pasting a stereo clip into a mono track is disallowed because it would be ambiguous; what channel from the stereo clip should be pasted into the mono track? Should it be the left channel or the right channel? Should both channels be mixed down to mono instead? (The latter isn’t easy to implement). We can define a default behavior, but some users could get confused by the default behavior.
Indeed, there are enhancements (e.g., asking what channel should be pasted) that can be made. If you have an idea, always let us know what you think.
Common Errors You May Experience¶
Chances are, if you were brought to this section, you likely came from one of Tenacity’s help buttons.
Insufficient Track Space¶
This error can occur when attempting to paste a clip in a region that isn’t large enough. By default, Tenacity doesn’t move clips to accomodate others in order to fit in a certain spot in the timeline.
If you want Tenacity to automatically move clips to accomodate others in order to fit in a certain spot on the timeline, go to Preferences > Tracks > Tracks Behaviors and check Editing a clip can move other clips. See the Preferences page for more details.
A File Failed to Open or be Read From¶
If Tenacity fails to open a file, it may be that another application is using it, at least on Windows. Other possible causes include the file being non-existent.
If Tenacity fails to read a file, it may be caused by something else. Usually, this is caused by a corrupted project file. Worst case, it could indicate a drive failure, although that’s much less likely to happen than a corrupted project.
Your Disk is Full or Not Writable¶
If Tenacity has trouble writing to a file on a drive, it could mean either of the two causes in the error message:
You don’t have enough free space on the drive to save the project
You don’t have write permissions to the location you are trying to save the project to.
Lack of Free Space¶
AUP3 projects can be large in size even for modest works. Ensure that you have plenty of free space on the drive if you plan to work with your project on that drive.
If you are saving to an external drive, try moving some files off it to free up space. You can move them back later. If the drive has no other files on it, you need a larger drive.
If the drive has enough space for you to save your project, it may be that the location is read-only. Make sure you have the appropriate permissions to write to the drive. Check the location’s permissions to ensure you have sufficient write access to save your project.
If you continue to have problems and you’ve already checked the above problems, please feel free to ask for help.
FAT32 Drives¶
Tenacity disallows you from saving on a drive formatted as FAT32. Project sizes can grow pretty quick, especially with AUP3 projects. It also disallows changing your temporary files directory to that on a FAT32 drive.
FAT32 drives are unsuitable for saving projects and temporary files because of a 4 GB file size limitation. your use case may never cause Tenacity to generate such large files, it is better safe than sorry for other users where their use case causes Tenacity to generate files that large.
Warning
On Haiku, Tenacity will NOT warn you if you are saving to a FAT32 drive. Similarly, Tenacity would not warn you either on FreeBSD until 1.3.4.
Just because it works on other platforms does not mean it’s recommended you do this. In fact, the next version of Tenacity will start prohibiting FAT32 drives on Haiku.
Error Trying to Open a Project¶
Usually, Tenacity should be able to open AUP3 projects from Audacity; other forks, including Audacium and Saucedacity; and older versions of Tenacity (e.g., from legacy Tenacity builds or 1.3+ builds). If opening projects from newer versions of Audacity, you may lose features if you save the AUP3 project from Tenacity and go to reopen it in Audacity.
Database Errors¶
If you get a database error message, you’ve encountered a rare situation. Please join us on our Matrix channel to report this error or send us a message over Mastodon/the Fediverse. Alternatively, you can create a bug report if you think this is a bug.
Cannot Import AUP3 Format¶
You cannot import an AUP3 project, but if you get this error, it is likely you tried to use drag-n-drop for importing the project file. This is currently not supported.
Cannot Import AUP Project¶
If you can’t import an AUP file, it may be corrupted or unreadable by Tenacity. If you can open the project in the version of Audacity last used to save the project, it is possible that Tenacity might not support the project. You might want to save the project with a later version of Audacity (i.e., version 2.4.2) before importing it into Tenacity.
Reference to invalid character number at Line X¶
This likely means the project is corrupted.
Not Well-Formed (invalid token) at Line X¶
This can indicate potential corruption.
Other Errors¶
Resampling Fails¶
Usually, resampling should succeed, but it is possible to encounter this rare error.
If a resample error happens, either Tenacity’s resampler produced a negative number of samples or it attempted to resample samples it did not have.