Import Audio...

This command is used to import audio from a standard audio format into your project. Use this command if you already have a couple of tracks, and you want to add another track to the same project, maybe to mix them together.

Use this command to import anything except MIDI files. You cannot yet use this option to import Audacity Projects.

Import Labels...

This command takes a text file which contains time codes and labels, and turns them into a Label Track.

Import MIDI...

This menu command imports MIDI files and puts them into a Note Track. Audacity can display MIDI files, but cannot play, edit, or save them yet.

Import Raw Data...

This menu command allows you to open a file in virtually any format, as long as it is not compressed. When you select the file, Audacity will look through it and try to guess its format. It will guess correctly about 90% of the time, so you can try just pressing "OK" and listening to it. If it is not correct, however, you can use the dialog presented to try all of the different possibilities.

At the beginning of your imported track(s), you may notice a little bit of noise. This is probably the file's header, which Audacity was not able to parse. Just zoom in and select the noise with the Selection Tool, and then choose Delete.

Edit ID3 Tags...

Opens a dialog allowing you to edit the ID3 tags associated with a project, for MP3 exporting.

ID3 Tags are used to store the Title, Artist, Author, and other information in MP3 files. When you import an MP3 file, Audacity remembers this information and stores it with your project. When you export an MP3 file, Audacity will prompt you for the ID3 tags, showing you any tags it collected from an original MP3 file, or that you typed by selecting "Edit ID3 Tags" from the Project menu.

Audacity allows you to store ID3 tags in either the ID3v1 or the ID3v2 format. In general, you should use the ID3v2 format, because ID3v2 tags go at the beginning of an MP3 file, whereas ID3v1 tags go at the end. Having the title and author first means that someone downloading an MP3 you created will know that information before they've finished downloading the song.

Quick Mix

This command mixes all of the selected tracks down to one or two tracks. 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 Quick Mix, 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).

Your tracks are implicitly mixed whenever you hit the Play button and whenever you select Export.

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 first use the Amplify... command to reduce the amplitude of all of your tracks. A future version of Audacity will do automatic gain control and calculate the optimal amplitude for you.

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 a track, use the Time Shift tool.

Align with Zero

If you select multiple tracks, this command resets their time offset to zero. To adjust the time offset of a track, use the Time Shift tool.

New 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.

New 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.

Remove Track(s)

This command removes the selected track or tracks from the project. Even if only part of a track is selected, the entire track is removed. You can also delete a track by clicking the X in its upper-left corner. To cut out only part of the audio in a track, use Delete or Silence.

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.