Skip to content

Quick start

This walkthrough takes a set of audio files to a finished bounce.

1. Create a project

File → New Project… (Cmd+N). An Audionaut project is saved as a .audium package — a folder that contains the project file and all audio media, so it moves between machines (and between the app and the command line) as one unit.

2. Import audio

Choose File → Import... (⇧⌘I) and pick one or more audio files. They land on new tracks starting at the playhead. When you pick several files, the Multiple files option in the dialog decides how they are laid out:

  • Separate tracks — one track per file.
  • One track, stacked channels — the files become the channels of one clip: an eight-stem export becomes one track with eight channels that always play in sync.
  • One track, back to back — the files follow each other on one track.

Audionaut remembers your choice. A single Undo takes the whole import back.

To add audio to a track you already have, right-click an empty spot on the track and choose Import Audio.... The files land on that track where you clicked (snapped to the grid when snapping is on), stacked as channels of one clip or back to back.

You can also drag audio files into the arrangement — either from your system's file manager, or from Audionaut's own File Browser (View → Open File Browser), which starts in your Music folder and supports multi-selection. Files dragged in together become the channels of one track.

If automatic analysis is enabled (Settings → Analysis), Audionaut starts analysing new material in the background right away — this powers the Auto Edit features later.

3. Play

Press Space to start and stop playback. The header bar has the transport: play, stop, record, loop, the tempo, and the position display in bars and beats. Master volume and a level meter sit on the right.

4. Arrange

  • Drag clips along the timeline to move them.
  • Put the playhead where you want to cut and use Edit → Split (Cmd+E).
  • Select a time range and Create → Create Region… (Cmd+R) to name a section — named regions collect in the right-hand panel, ready to be placed again.
  • Cmd+D duplicates the selected clip.

See Editing for the full toolset, and Analysis and Auto Edit for letting Audionaut cut and arrange for you.

5. Export

File → Export Audio… (Cmd+Alt+B) renders the arrangement offline to a WAV, FLAC, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis or MP3 file — choose the format, sample rate, channel count and bit depth (or, for Ogg Vorbis and MP3, the bit rate) in the dialog. Details in Exporting audio.

Saving

Cmd+S saves; Audionaut also autosaves after edits, and if a project is changed on disk by something else (for example the command-line tool), the app reloads it automatically.