Hi, hope you can help me, using Audacity 2.03 with Windows 7 32-bit.
I’ve just spent 3 hours creating 30 labels from a single MP3 file to split into 30.
I followed these instructions exactly:
1 Click to place the cursor at the start of the first song.
2 Choose “Add Label at Selection” from the Project menu (or Tracks menu in Audacity Beta). If you wish, you can type the name of the song.
3 Repeat steps 1 and 2 for each song.
4 When you are finished, choose “Export Multiple” from the File menu. When you click the “Export” button, Audacity will save each song as a separate file, using the format and location you choose.
When I clicked the Export button only the first label I created was exported. I have no idea why the other 29 would not export.
Hope you can help, thanks - Paul.
What did you call the songs? Exactly what were the labels?
Koz
Hi Koz, thanks for replying.
The labels were named the same as the songs.
I made an error with one of the labels so I then went into Edit Labels to name the other tracks. I guess that’s where I went wrong?
No, I wanted you to type in exactly what one of the labels was. If you use punctuation marks, sometimes the computer or Audacity will act funny. Sometimes dates will drive the system nuts.
Koz
Hi Koz
No punctuation was used.
Typical format was 2 digits, space then track title e.g. “01 Rock Show” (without the inverted commas).
Did you see an error message when you pressed “Export” in Export Multiple? What did the list of exported files say?
You could do File > Export Labels and attach the labels.txt file to your reply. Then we can see what your labels are. Please see here for how to attach files: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-attach-files-to-forum-posts/24026/1 .
You can always drag-select up to each label and do File > Export Selection for each label.
Gale
Hi Gale
No errors.
Here’s the txt file I got when I exported:
1.000000 388.827714 01 Rock Show
388.829000 649.000000 02 Jet
649.001000 883.000000 03 Let Me Roll It
883.001000 1149.000000 04 Spirits Of Ancient Egypt
1149.000000 1411.000000 05 Medicine Jar
1411.000000 1746.000000 06 Maybe I’m Amazed
1746.000000 2077.000000 07 Call Me Back Again
2077.000000 2319.000000 08 Lady Madonna
2319.000000 2592.000000 09 The Long And Winding Road
2592.000000 2850.000000 10 Live And Let Die
2850.000000 2974.370000 11 Picasso’s Last Words
2974.370000 3155.000000 12 Richard Cory
3155.000000 3414.000000 13 Bluebird
3414.000000 3570.000000 14 I’ve Just Seen A Face
3570.000000 3741.000000 15 Blackbird
3741.000000 3884.500000 16 Yesterday
3884.500000 4031.000000 17 You Gave Me The Answer
4031.000000 4260.000000 18 Magneto And Titanium Man
4260.000000 4490.000000 19 Go Now
4490.000000 4764.000000 20 My Love
4764.000000 4990.500000 21 Listen To What The Man Said
4990.500000 5280.000000 22 Let 'em In
5280.000000 5580.000000 23 Time To Hide
5580.000000 5965.000000 24 Silly Love Songs
5965.000000 6290.500000 25 Beware My Love
6290.500000 6392.000000 26 Band Intros
6392.000000 6671.500000 27 Letting Go
6671.500000 7071.000000 28 Band On The Run
7071.000000 7295.000000 29 Hi Hi Hi
7295.000000 7760.000000 30 Soily
Those numbers were times I guess, but I couldn’t make any sense of it (the material is my own btw, I just ripped the audio track from the DVD 
)
Export Multiple again then select and copy the list of files exported that Audacity produces.
Do you have enough disk space to export those files?
Gale
Ahhh - Insufficient disk space error - I think you nailed it.
It certainly wasn’t that obvious though because I have 3gb space free and each of the mp3 files is about 20mb so it therefore can’t be the real cause of the problem.
Audacity doesn’t edit MP3. It converts each MP3 to its own high quality, internal uncompressed format and then makes a new MP3 at the end. So the project will take up an enormous amount of room.
Another note, if you’re converting from MP3 to MP3, the compression sound damage is going to double even if you stick with the same quality bitrate.
Never do production in MP3.
Koz
Hi Koz, thanks for your response.
-
Am I correct that what you’re saying is those 30 files could have taken up over 3gb?
-
Point taken re MP3 but how else would you suggest splitting a single MP3 file?
Am I correct that what you’re saying is those 30 files could have taken up over 3gb?
That’s not the problem. Audacity, buffers, cache, the operating system and all its housekeeping have to fit in that space – oh, and the music, too – and the export. You passed the point of shopping for a new drive a while back. Or a backup drive and clean up the one you have to make more room – and since you’re on Windows, Error Check and Defrag as well.
We used to throw around the 10% or 15% rule. 10% of the drive free for production after you capture the music.
Point taken re MP3 but how else would you suggest splitting a single MP3 file?
You can totally split up an MP3 file in Audacity, you just can’t put it back in MP3 form without significant damage. You can use WAV as an export or possibly MP3 at a very high bit rate like 320.
If all you’re doing is splitting with no effects or filters, you should probably use a pure MP3 editor like MP3SPLT or something like that. Those programs do not re-encode the music and don’t increase the distortion, but you can’t apply filters.
http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/home.php
Koz
None of this really explains why Audacity failed without apparently any message in the list of files. From what I recall, an exported MP3 file may be shortened if you run out of disk space, without Audacity giving an error message, whereas there is an error message when you export WAV or AIFF and the export is not the expected length.
For any format, there should still be a list of files exported after Export Multiple completes (successfully or otherwise).
How long was this MP3 that you wanted to split into 30 parts? if it was two hours stereo, that’s 2.4 GB of space taken to decompress the MP3 to lossless PCM, assuming you have left the Audacity project quality at 32-bit float. 30 MP3 files at 20 MB each is 0.6 GB so you are then out of disk space.
Gale
Hi Gale
It’s less than 400mb - it was ripped from a MKV DVD @ 320Kbps and I was trying to split it into 30 separate 320Kbps files.
Right, but 400 MB is large for an MP3 so that means the file is long.
The rule if you don’t change the Audacity Quality Preferences is that each minute of stereo audio imported into Audacity takes 20 MB of space, irrespective of the original format (because even compressed formats like MP3 are decompressed on import).
That space usage is before you edit it. Each edit of the whole file doubles the file size taken, so that there is some data to go back to should you decide to undo the edit.
Gale
OK Gale, thanks for your advice.