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I am an amateur pianist. I want to release a music album. I have a friend in another country who is willing to sing for my music. I play my instruments and send her the mp3. She plays the mp3 and sings and records it and sends a video.

What is the best way to add her voice to my song?

I am new to the music production software. I have audacity and fl studio.

Jacob Swanson
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2 Answers2

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With the assumption that you have the proper equipment to record this, what you are asking can all be done with Audacity.

Record your track(s), then go to File -> Save Project As. Create a folder and save the project within that folder. This will create a sub folder called "[filename]_data" and a file named "[filename].aup". To open this file in the future, load the [filename].aup from Audacity.

Once this is created, you can send this to your friend. If you use a cloud service like Dropbox or SugarSync, you can even save the file there and just share that location with your friend. If you need to e-mail you can create a zip file of the folder and send that to your friend. (In windows, right click on the folder and then highlight "Send to:" and click "Compressed (zipped) folder". On a Mac, you right click the folder and press "Compress".)

This will allow you to send the uncompressed recording to you fiend, who can open it by opening it in Audacity (loading the .aup file). They will have access to the same tracks you created. They can add their track (simply press record) and return it in the same way you shared it with them.

From that point you can do whatever you need to do with balance, panning, etc. and then output to a fileformat. (File -> Export Audio). For some file formats, like .mp3, you will have to get a special plugin for Audacity. Others, like .WAV files are built in.

mkingsbu
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  • I forgot to mention, the important part about the file structure of audacity is that the .aup acts as an aggregator, while the tracks are stored individually in the [filename]_data folder. If the [filename]_data folder is not in the same directory as the .aup file, it won't open. That's why I suggested zipping it if you email it. – mkingsbu Jul 02 '15 at 20:37
  • Absolutely. Note that Audacity makes editing a slight pain, though, you might be better off with Ardour, which is free (as in speech) as well. – Some Dude On The Interwebs Jul 03 '15 at 08:01
  • I've never used Ardour. I'll have to give it a try. I've found audacity to be pretty good for basic stuff (I'm not a professional recording artist!). The mixer I have does a lot of the work if I do multitrack stuff. I mostly record duet parts for students to practice or drones for their exercises. – mkingsbu Jul 04 '15 at 13:25
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So long as your friend has the ability to record audio, and knows the BPM of your track, then all she has to do is record her part and send it to you as a WAV file.

You then import that into whatever DAW you're using.

Have I missed something?

Lyrical.me
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