individual tracks

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Is it possible to copy from my OLD Music Cassettes to CDs so that I can play these in my Car radio CD player
and still be able to select any track I want to listen to?. I have successfuly recorded and number of CDs using Audacity
and these play well, but I have to listen to all the CD to hear any paticular track rather than select the ones I wanRegards
Mike R :frowning:

2

Yes, but it does take a bit of effort. When you record your cassette, Audacity will give you one long “song” corresponding to one side of the tape. What you did was Export a sound file that was acceptable to your CD Authoring Program and there you go. A CD with one “song” on it.

If you stop between the capture and the export and break your capture up into individual songs and then Export, you can create a CD where you can skip forward or back to get to the song you want.

That does take a bit of effort, though and the process resists automation.

This is a segment of a much larger tutorial.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks.html

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_copying_tapes_lps_or_minidiscs_to_cd.html

Koz

3

You don’t need to play the tape again, you can re-open the WAV sound file you made during the first playing. If you didn’t make a perfect quality WAV archive backup of the tape, that’s the first problem. MP3 doesn’t count. MP3 is a compressed delivery format, not a production format. If you open an MP3, do something to the show and then make a new one, you will get a show with double the compression damage and distortion and you can’t stop it.

So if you have any idea of saving the work for a while, play the tapes, record them and then Export as WAV.

Koz

4

thanks Koz, I will try your suggestions
Mike R

5

Using XP and Audacity 2.0.5! Sorry I missed that bit

6

Please be careful with XP. Microsoft is no longer patching your system so you are exposed to all new hacks and security risks that come along. At a minimum, install an anti-virus program and do regular overnight checks (if you are not already doing so).

You can install a version of Linux for free if updating Windows is not practical.

Gale

7

Gale
thank you for your help and interest
Tried to install Linux but failed
Mike R

8

Which version of Linux did you try?

I am not a Linux expert, but to begin with, you could just download a version of Linux for use on a Live CD or a Live USB stick, without installing it. You could then see if you like it. A USB stick will be faster than a CD.

Set the machine to boot from the CD or USB stick then the Linux system will load into memory. Usually all your changes are lost when you shut down, but there are ways to run live systems with file persistence if you want to.


Gale