Hey everyone,
Newbie question please bear with me. First and foremost thank you for Audacity, it is phenomenal.
My questions is I have numerous live cassette tapes and want to put a break between each song, where if I were to transfer to a CD I could skip a certain track and move to the next. Any thoughts on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.
There are several approaches that you can take.
The basic idea is that you need to create a separate file for each track, then import them all into your CD burning software and create an “audio CD”.
Probably best if you have look through the relevant parts of these tutorials: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_copying_tapes_lps_or_minidiscs_to_cd.html and ask specific questions if you get stuck.
My questions is I have numerous live cassette tapes and want to put a break between each song
You can optionally add a fade-in and fade-out the applause/audience noise. Ideally, I like one or two seconds of fade-in before the song starts and a longer fade-out up to about 15 seconds, but it depends on what you have to work with. Sometimes I’ll steal applause from one part of the recording and mix or cross-fade it into the “real” applause for that song.
where if I were to transfer to a CD I could skip a certain track and move to the next
If you want… If your CD burning software supports [u]cue sheets[/u] you can leave one-long continuous file without breaks and add track markers between songs. Most “live” CDs are made that way without gaps/silence between songs. Of course, that long-file doesn’t have to be the original file… You can trim-out excess silence or talking between songs, or re-arrange the song-order, etc. And, if you cross-fade the audience noise it can sound seamless.
I sometimes make a live CD without gaps and a concert-length MP3 without gaps, plus individual faded-in and faded-out “singles”.
If it is a live performance, you can break it up into “songs,” but then tell the Authoring and Burning software to reduce the track gap to zero (attach). That gives you an opera, where if you do nothing, the opera plays continuously beginning to end, but it still lets you select songs.
That technique does not let you do the interstitial tricks of fade in and out or other effects. All you get is the whole show or pop in and out during applause.
There’s another trick. If your software doesn’t ask you about that gap, you may not be making an Audio CD and it may not play in your older car or player. Computers don’t count. They’ll play anything.
Koz
