I have just recorded a 3 hr and 45 min audio for ministry over a 5 day period on the same file. It is freezing up and I need to separate it and get it into 3 cds and mp3s. Taking me too much time and getting nowhere. I would like to pay someone to take it from here please.
Have I got this right?
You have a 3 hr and 45 min recording as an Audacity project and it plays OK.
You now want to split the recording and make 3 audio files so that you can (a) burn 3 CDs of the recording, (b) make 3 MP3 files.
Have I got that right?
What’s the problem? At what point is it freezing?
It’s making the whole program slow and the audio goes slow. Toward the beginning it won’t play at all. It gets better toward the middle. And plays very well after 2.5 hr mark. I need someone to take the file and work it for me.
If it’s a stereo recording I’d guess that the project size is around 2.5 GB which is pretty big for sending to someone over the Internet. It’s possibly just the size of the project that is making it go so slow on your computer. Once you have split it up into more manageable size chunks it will hopefully run much better.
How much free disk space is there on your computer?
What sort of computer is it (I just want a rough idea about the specification - CPU speed, amount of RAM and hard disk capacity.
ive got 33.3 GB capacity
31.8 Used
I do have a external drive with plenty of space. I have the file in an .mp3.aup format that i have been able to email ok but the person i emailed it to knows less than i do. I believe youre right on with the file being so big slowing me down.
You are correct with your assessment of what im trying to accomplish
ve got 33.3 GB capacity
31.8 Used
You can’t do that. You have 1.5GB free to manage a 2.5GB show.
Without closing Audacity, you need to copy large chunks of other work from your system onto a backup drive or thumb drive or just outright delete other work. Make sure your Recycle Bin is empty and not just resting with tons of stuff in it. Right-Click Recycle Bin > Empty.
You have no choice. You will not be able to export the show as anything or even manage it. You have no more room left.
Koz
As Koz says, your computer is critically low on local disk space. You need to do something about that immediately, but if you have saved the Audacity project, do not delete the project _data folder. The project _data folder contains all of the audio data for the Audacity Project.
As soon as you have made a bit more free disk space, Export the entire show to your external hard drive as a WAV file. The export will take a while, but it is very important to have a good back-up. I concerned that your computer could crash and lose the entire recording.
Once you have done that, save your project with a new name to the external hard drive. (File menu > Save As).
That will also be quite slow.
When that has finished, close the project and reboot your computer.
Open the project that you have just saved and use the instructions here to split the recording into smaller WAV files. http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Splitting_a_recording_into_separate_tracks These files could be exported to the external drive. The local (internal) drive should always have at least 10% free space.
Use your mouse to position the cursor at the “divide” point – between the end of the first “hour” and the start of the “second” hour. Then, use ‘Edit’, and select “from start of the recording to the cursor”.
Then, use “Export the selected segment” to save that part to someplace where you have enough “free” disk-space.
Depending on the speed of your computer, it could take a while to export a 60-minute segment. Have patience.
Then, on the “selected” part (the first “hour”), just press “delete”. From now on, be sure to NOT “save” on top of your original recording.
Now, repeat → use the mouse to position the cursor at the “divide” point between the second “hour” and the third “hour”, and “select from start to cursor”, and “export selected”.
Finally, “delete” the selected part. Then “select all” and “export selected” to save the third part of your recording.
Be sure to “quit WITHOUT saving”.