Hi
There should be no problem with this, although in version 2.41 you can't "join" the audio clips together.
You describe the steps which I use to duplicate and add on sound sections. Why you get a "scrambled mess" when you use zoom I don't know. One thing worth noting when it comes to adjusting sound clips...
If you have trimmed a clip and adjusted the ends by dragging to isolate accurately the sound section you want. then drag the clip left so it overlaps the previous sound (assuming you want to get them to play with no gap, and ,of course they are on the same track.) The selected clip, (clip 2) when released, will automatically jump right and adjust itself to follow the previous one, leaving a thin blue line at the join. If your trims are OK then this should play perfectly with no break from clip 1 to clip 2.
However if you now inadvertantly right click your joined up clip 2 , say, to highlight it, and then for some reason left click it. Your clip will fractionally move to the right leaving a gap. Something to watch out for if they are on the same track, but it can be used to accurately position a clip placed on a lower track.
I can't see why using the zoom should cause a problem though, as I have often used zoom to get close to a cut point and after zooming out making the join by dragging the clip 2 back over clip 1 and releasing it as mentioned above . Join is perfect.
There has been an odd occasion where zooming out has shown the "join" line thicker than it should be. But by simply repeating the overlapping action (no need to remake the "cut") the join jumps back correctly and stays there.
If you feel there is going to be this problem then every time you make a join that plays correctly, just "Save Project File" and then carry on with the next join.That way you will always have a project file to fall onto. Can't think of anything else.
....If under Options/Other you have sound files set to push to the right...that might cause things to out of synch if you are adding something to a gap that is too small. (Don't think you would be doing that
though)
too obvious!
Nat