In the world of image editing (which I know a good deal more about than audio) it is known that you shouldn’t edit-and-save in a lossy format if you can avoid it.
Similarly, Audacity normally works on “raw” data.
However.
I have some data where the “master” data is in mp3 (mp2 actually). The only editing I need to do is trim off the start and end.
In the world of JPEG images, there is a tool than can do this WITHOUT going via a raw stage, and recompressing.
My eventual solution, given the very simple nature of the
labels file, was to create a perl script, which given a split file
with 1 or more labelled zones in it, stores the START time
of the first zone, and the END time of the last zone.
It then creates a single zone from START to END.
This allows me in Audacity, to label my start point
with a narrow zone starting where I want, and to label
my end point with a narrow zone ending where I want.
I then invoke mp3splt via my perl script to get my
desired net result.
My script also (happens) to work round
some of the in/out filename suffix behaviour of mp3splt
which happened not to be what I wanted.
Having got my selection perfect, I can use ctrl-b to make a label, save the label track and (finally) invoke mp3splt.
My problem is that making fine changes at the extremes of a large selection is fiddly and unnatural.
Can anyone recommend a working practice/convention that would allow easier (and less brittle) operation?
My goal is simply (and only) to have a label file with a single labelled zone in it, to feed mp3splt.
Rather late in the day, but it’s worth pointing out that you can drag the handles at the ends of a label to fine-tune it after it’s been created. So you can create a rough selection, put the label in, then tidy up each end in turn. Just remember when adjusting the second end to use the triangular handle so you don’t destroy the first end!